Review of 'Synergies and Trade-offs between Sanitation and the Sustainable Development Goals'

It is a fascinating and systematic evaluation of the interactions between sanitation and the SDG. However it would benefit from careful, ruthless editing to ensure clarity through out.

Response: We have reviewed and edited the document.

A flaw with the method is that it is based on looking at the peer reviewed literature. It is therefore only capable of evaluating hypotheses that have been tested previously. This could lead to important aspects being overlooked: for example climate change. As I said this flaw is inherent to the method used and cannot therefore be rectified. However, it can be acknowledged as a limitation of the study.

Response: We agree that this is a limitation of the study which is why we advocate the need for context specific cases in our results and discussion section and also acknowledge this limitation in our methods section. We do identify links with climate change in discussion sections for environment and natural resources and governance based on published evidence and this is where local case studies would provide added value on how communities build resilience and adapt to climate change and how the infrastructure.

The lessons for policy makers practitioners and researchers are well made. However, the discussion will be more powerful if it focusses on those conclusions we can reasonably draw from the research presented and refrains from sentiments which though laudable are not directly supported by the findings of the researchers.

Response: We edited the conclusion section and removed sections which did not link directly to our discussion section. The recommendations part was re-worded in order to more directly link to the study itself. Only a few higher-level recommendations were kept in order to link to the arguments made by the study. We added the following sentence to explain they have emerged from this research but more directly came from the workshop: “These recommendations emerge from the combination of results discussing governance and partnerships with discussions held during the internal workshop organised with development practitioners.”