Review Paper Community engagement in water, sanitation and hygiene in sub-Saharan Africa: does it WASH? Emmanuel Tsekleves a, * , Mariana Fonseca Braga b , Christiana Abonge c , Marli Santana d , Roger Pickup e , Kenneth Yongabi Anchang f , Tommaso de Pippo g , Kirk Semple h and Manoj Roy h a LICA, Lancaster University, The LICA Building, Lancaster, Lancashire LA1 4YW, UK b ImaginationLancaster, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK c Department of Women and Gender Studies, University of Buea, Buea, Cameroon d Health Sciences Institute, Catholic University of Angola, Luanda, Angola e Faculty of Health and Medicine, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK f Department of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Imo State University, Owerri, Nigeria g Institute of Minerals Resources, Environment and Technology, Catholic University of Angola, Luanda, Angola h Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK *Corresponding author. E-mail: e.tsekleves@lancaster.ac.uk ET, 0000-0003-1842-7830; MFB, 0000-0002-3267-5999; MS, 0000-0001-8170-5181; RP, 0000-0002-9469-1724; TdP, 0000-0002-0331-4086 ABSTRACT This transdisciplinary literature review paper aims at addressing the literature lacuna in community engagement and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in sub-Saharan countries. By responding to a set of identified WASH-related questions to community engagement, it explores through different disciplinary lenses the challenges and opportunities in this significant area that impacts human health. This transdisciplinary review brought together the disciplines of water engineering, environmental microbiology, public health and infectious disease, design research, women and gender studies, and developmental studies. It examined over 430 papers with 29 papers included in the final review. The main findings suggest integrating women into leadership roles in community water management and water and sanitation pro- grammes can lead to more sustainability and can make water projects more effective. Second, cultural preferences should be a key factor when planning and implementing WASH technologies and interventions. Third, for community engagement to be effective, it should be done with intentionality and over a longer period; and employ existing culturally embedded leadership structures, such as schoolteachers, religious leaders and train change agents. Key words: community engagement, gender, health, participatory approaches, transdisciplinary review, WASH HIGHLIGHTS • Successful community engagement in WASH requires intentionality and activation over a longer period of time. • There are benefits in working with community leaders to establish peer education programmes on WASH. • Engaging communities through co-design and co-production provides a powerful tool for wider community acceptance and ownership of WASH interventions. • It is critical to involve women in community WASH. INTRODUCTION The sub-Saharan African (SSA) region is the worst affected worldwide in terms of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) service access (WHO 2019). Particularly, people in Lusophone and Francophone African countries, where under-5 mortality rates are high including Angola (1,141 under-5 deaths per 100,000) and Cameroon (1,522 under-5 deaths per 10,000; IHME 2021). Despite different levels of development, all SAA countries face very similar challenges in relation to drinking WASH, with large parts of urban and rural populations not having access to clean water and having rudimentary or non-existent sanitation facilities (Armah et al. 2018; WHO/UNICEF 2020). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY 4.0), which permits copying, adaptation and redistribution, provided the original work is properly cited (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). © 2022 The Authors Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development Vol 00 No 0, 1 doi: 10.2166/washdev.2022.136 corrected Proof Downloaded from http://iwaponline.com/washdev/article-pdf/doi/10.2166/washdev.2022.136/996495/washdev2022136.pdf by guest on 01 February 2022