Hutton and Coates set out to map every framework used over the past two decades to assess what they call the ‘sanitation economy’: essentially, how ready a country’s policies, markets and institutions are to deliver and pay for sanitation. This matters because every household and institution needs sanitation, and many are willing to pay for it, yet investors often see the sector as too risky to back.

Searching academic databases and speaking with experts from more than 50 international organisations, Hutton and Coates identified 39 separate frameworks, ranging from broad assessments of government policy to narrow tools focused purely on market dynamics or investment risk.

What they found was a sector rich in ideas but short on coordination. Some frameworks, like the long-running UN-Water GLAAS survey, have been applied regularly across more than a hundred countries for over 15 years. Others were used once and quietly shelved. Many cover similar ground, including policy, financing and institutional capacity, but use different terminology and different scoring systems, making comparisons between countries, or even between frameworks, difficult.

Hutton and Coates argue this fragmentation has real costs. Each new framework demands time from already stretched government staff and donor budgets, yet rarely builds on what came before. Few frameworks have ever been formally evaluated, so it’s hard to know which ones actually drive change on the ground, and which simply produce reports that sit unread.

Commissioned by the Sanitation and Hygiene Fund, the team’s review is the first step toward designing a new, more joined-up tool for measuring sanitation economy maturity, learning from what has worked and avoiding what hasn’t. Hutton and Coates conclude that the path forward lies in independent evaluation of existing frameworks and far greater collaboration between the organisations that build them. As their review makes clear, the world doesn’t lack ideas for measuring progress; it lacks a shared one.