Contributing to Parliamentary Briefing

Last month, SHARE’s Research Director, Professor Sandy Cairncross, was asked for help in drafting a POSTnote – a Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology (POST) research briefing – on Access to Water and Sanitation.

What is POST and what are POSTnotes?

POST is the UK Parliament's ‘in-house source of independent, balanced and accessible analysis of public policy issues related to science and technology’. It provides overviews of research on a range of scientific issues and contextualises these for policy settings.

Intended for use by Parliamentarians, POSTnotes are peer-reviewed four-pagers that summarise public policy issues and are based on reviews of the research literature and interviews with stakeholders from across academia, industry, government and the third sector.

The WASH POSTnote

Copious research has shown that hygiene promotion is one of the most cost-effective ways to improve public health. So, in the context of the SDG to achieve universal access to safe water and sanitation by 2030, this briefing discusses the challenges – comprehensive data collection, engaging communities, financing and integrating development and humanitarian agendas – of increasing access.

Sandy was delighted to be invited to peer-review this publication, even more so as SHARE research on equitable access – our Undoing Inequity project – was featured.