Together with communications, advocacy activities represent one of the three pillars of WSSCC's work. They include global level and national level awareness raising and lobbying. To achieve its advocacy mandate, WSSCC develops various sets of advocacy materials, ranging from posters, postcards, stickers and cups to soaps or key rings. They are distributed and displayed at major international sanitation-related events as well as used by WSSCC's National Coordinators and Regional Representatives for their local advocacy activities.
WSSCC advocacy activities mainly aim to put the current global sanitation crisis at the forefront of global and local political agendas so that the condition of 2.6 billion people without access to adequate sanitation does not remain a silent suffering but becomes a reality impossible to wipe out from the decision-makers' priority list.
The centrepiece of WSSCC advocacy activities is the Global Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for All (WASH) Campaign launched in 2001. Its aim is to raise public and political awareness of adequate sanitation services, healthy hygiene practices, and safe water supplies. Integral to the campaign is its people-centred approach – focusing on unserved poor, women, children, and youth.