The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 6 aims to ensure the availability and management of water and sanitation for all, including an end to open defecation, by 2030. Lack of access to clean water and proper sanitation affect all aspects of human life across the globe, having the largest negative effects on least developed countries and marginalized communities.
In order to fulfill the objectives of the SDG 6, the High Level Panel on Water called for a “fundamental shift in the way the world looks at and manages water”, noting that a 40% shortfall in water availability by 2030 could be expected if no action is taken. An urgent need to develop innovative approaches to solve global water scarcity and quality issues has arisen, as traditional financing solutions and technologies have proven to be insufficient in addressing these challenges.
In this context, the goal of this report is to provide an overview of some of the current applications of key 4IR technologies (Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things and Big Data, Blockchain, Drones and Remote Sensing, and Virtual and Augmented Reality) in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene sector (WASH) globally and in the Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC) region, and outline the main opportunities and challenges in deploying these technologies in the WASH sector.