Safely managed drinking water and sanitation are central to environmental health protection, yet broad access to basic services does not necessarily ensure safe, reliable, and adequately managed provision. This study examines the gap between basic and safely managed water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services using a country-year panel of 118 countries from 2015 to 2024. Drawing on WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme indicators reported through the World Development Indicators, Worldwide Governance Indicators, and structural controls, the study constructs separate basic-to-safe service gaps for drinking water and sanitation. Larger gaps identify settings where infrastructure access has not been fully translated into water availability, accessibility, contamination protection, or safe excreta management. The analysis assesses whether broader governance capacity is associated with smaller WASH safety gaps after accounting for income, urbanization, population size, regional differences, and common annual changes. Pooled panel models, between-country models, Mundlak decompositions, and a stacked water-sanitation specification distinguish cross-national differences from within-country changes. Stronger governance capacity is consistently associated with smaller drinking-water safety gaps, whereas the corresponding sanitation association is weaker and less precisely estimated. Decomposition results indicate that the principal relationship is between countries rather than within countries during the study period. Population-weighted estimates support the direction of the main drinking-water pattern, while strict country fixed-effects models produce attenuated estimates. The findings suggest that environmental health protection depends not only on expanding infrastructure access but also on regulatory capacity, monitoring systems, public-service accountability, and sustained service management. Because the outcomes measure service coverage rather than pollutant exposure or disease incidence, the results support associative and institutional interpretations rather than causal health-effect claims.

Keywords: WASH; safely managed services; drinking-water safety; sanitation safety; governance capacity; environmental health; public health; SDG 6

Dr. Amar Razzaq is an Associate Professor at the Business School of Huanggang Normal University, China, and a Research Fellow at Shinawatra University, Thailand, and INTI International University, Malaysia. With a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics and Management from Huazhong Agricultural University, he is a leading researcher in environmental economics, water resource management, and agricultural policy. His groundbreaking work on groundwater markets, sustainability, and equitable water use has been published extensively in high-impact journals. His peer-reviewed research has also been cited in policy and technical publications from the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Food Programme, UN ESCWA, IFPRI, the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, and the Global Commission on the Economics of Water.

Dr. Razzaq is Chief Editor of the International Journal of Advanced Social Studies, an Associate Editor for Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, and serves on the editorial boards of several reputable journals, including Frontiers in Environmental Science and the Asian Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development. He has also led special issues as a guest editor, focusing on sustainable food systems and climate-smart agriculture. Recognized as a prolific reviewer, he has contributed to more than 300 peer reviews for top-tier SCI and SSCI journals.

His contributions extend beyond research, as he has delivered keynote speeches globally on water resource governance, rural transformation, and sustainable development. Dr. Razzaq's work has significantly influenced policy dialogues, particularly on integrating informal water markets into sustainable water conservancy strategies. He is a recipient of several prestigious awards, including the Chinese Government Distinguished Scholar Award. With a cumulative impact factor exceeding 200, Dr. Razzaq is widely recognized for advancing research and fostering collaboration in water and agricultural economics.