In September 2015, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted in the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit. Target 6.3 of the SDGs stipulates that “by 2030, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater” should be accomplished.

o support the activities of countries in Southeast Asia to achieve the target, the Conference on Watershed Management for Controlling Municipal Wastewater in Southeast Asia was held in Nagoya, Japan on 28 July, 2016. In the conference, participants shared information about water environment and wastewater management in each country and discussed the future development of policies and infrastructure in the region. All the participants agreed on the necessity to promote wastewater treatment in the region to achieve the SDGs target. As a conclusion of the conference, the countries agreed on the importance of regular information sharing on topics related to wastewater management. Based on the result of the conference, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) and Ministry of the Environment (MOE) of Japan proposed the establishment of “Asia Wastewater Management Partnership (AWaP)” at the Third Asia-Pacific Water Summit (11 and 12 December 2017 in Yangon, Myanmar). AWaP will consist of officials from ministries developing wastewater management policies and infrastructure. This Partnership will organize regular meetings to share good practices and technologies, provide knowledge and know-how through web-based information platform, and tackle common issues in collaborative projects of partner countries. The goal of this Preparation Workshop was to have a common understanding of the challenges to achieve the SDGs and exchange views on the activities of the Partnership. The specific objectives of the Workshop are as follows: (1) To reconfirm the importance of achieving Sustainable Development Goals, especially target 6.3. (2) To understand the importance of mainstreaming wastewater management in Asia to achieve the SDGs target 6.3. (3) To discuss and identify the vision and mission of “Asia Wastewater Management Partnership (AWaP).” (4) To discuss and identify the action items of the Partnership.