Key lessons drawn from the Trust Fund-supported activities include:

Promoting smart partnerships - Partnerships at all levels are a necessary prerequisite for programme success and sustainability. Collaboration with financing institutions has ensured that capacity improvements supported by the Trust Fund are linked to large-scale investments. By partnering with private sector companies, the Trust Fund continues to harness the financial capacity, know-how and technology of the private sector in providing urban water and sanitation solutions.

Balancing physical infrastructure with capacity building -  Rehabilitating existing infrastructure and modest investment in new systems combined with tailor-made capacity building programmes to support the investments significantly contribute to improved production capacity, management competence and operating efficiency of water and sanitation service providers.

Empowering women through micro-credit schemes for sanitation - The slow progress in meeting the Millennium Development Goal target for sanitation can be reversed by providing revolving funds through local micro-finance institutions to enable the urban poor, in particular, women-headed households to access funds to improve their household sanitation facilities without direct subsidies. 

Strengthening Water Operators Partnerships - The financial viability and efficiency of water and sanitation utilities – and their capacity to extend services to the poor – are successfully enhanced through scaled up and systematized Water Operators Partnerships facilitated by the Global Water Operators’ Partnerships Alliance, which is hosted by UN-HABITAT and supported by a coalition of partners and agencies.

Getting the data right - Lack of reliable and up-to-date water and sanitation data is a serious impediment to rational planning, project design, implementation and monitoring. Data obtained from the UN-HABITAT’s innovative Millennium Development Goals monitoring mechanisms implemented under the Lake Victoria Water and Sanitation Initiative and the Google-supported h2.0 Monitoring Services to Inform and Empower Initiative has greatly highlighted the extent of the water and sanitation problems in secondary urban centres and helped to develop tools to focus investment decisions on the neediest areas.

Paying attention to communication and media - To ensure maximum visibility for the water and sanitation programme at the local, national regional and international levels, greater focus on documentation and dissemination of successful programme interventions, involvement of grassroots stakeholders in developing and disseminating relevant messages, and targeted advocacy and media engagement is necessary.

Focusing on energy audits and renewable energy technologies - Energy audits, energy efficiency measures and use of renewable energy technologies can significantly reduce the operational cost of access to water and sanitation services. This also provides a stable and clean source of energy for water pumping. Sanitation systems for highly concentrated population such as biogas are potential sources of energy if properly designed and managed.

Promoting Non-motorized transport options for water provision, solid waste management and income generation - The implementation of the “Non-Motorized Transport Project for Solid Waste Management” in Kibera, Kenya has successfully demonstrated opportunities how non-motorized transport options can be established as an alternative, efficient, sustainable and cost-effective tool for water and sanitation service provision. As a further important outcome, new income-earning and business opportunities have been generated for low-income people living in informal settlements.