The Source Water and Sanitation News Service is run in three languages (English, French and Spanish) by the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre in collaboration with local partners. The English, French and Spanish versions comprise:

• The electronic Source Weekly is published 20 times per year by e-mail and online. Spanish and French versions are published 11 times each per year by e-mail and online.
• The electronic Source Features and the Source Bulletin on paper are published four times per year, as are Sources Nouvelles Edition Spéciale and Agua y Saneamiento Boletín Trimestral, the French and Spanish equivalents.
• Source news feeds/blogs
• The Source web site

Electronic news digests

The following products are published only in electronic format and distributed through email and the Internet.

Source Weekly publishes WASH sector news in English and has done so since 1998. It includes short news items, forthcoming events and courses, project updates, new publications and web sites, vacancies, funding opportunities, technology updates and lessons learned related to water and sanitation in developing countries. Each item includes, where possible, an e-mail contact address and the web address of the news source.

Several information specialists compile Source from information found by monitoring over 100 websites, news servers, e-mail discussion lists and press releases, and from readers' contributions and feedback.

Source Weekly is published 20 times a year.

Source South Asia is a regional version of Source Weekly, co-funded by UNICEF ROSA published in English. This is delivered electronically 20 times a year to selected audiences in South Asia who have requested a more regional approach. It covers Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, as well as a selection of stories from other regions of the world.

Noticias Agua y Saneamiento is published in Spanish every month, mainly focusing on Latin America, but also carrying news from other regions of the world. It is published by IRC in collaboration with CINARA, a research and development institution based at Universidad del Valle in Cali, Colombia. Noticias Agua y Saneamiento was launched in December 2002.

Sources Nouvelles is published in French every month with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa, Maghreb and the Middle East, and news from other regions of the world, especially concerning francophone countries. It was launched in 2002. It is published in conjunction with the Centre Régional pour l'Eau Potable et l'Assainissement à faible coût (CREPA) based in Burkina Faso, and H20.net the water magazine.

Source Japanese Since 2005, The Japan International Corporation of Welfare Services (JICWELS) has translated and distributed a Japanese version of Source Weekly to almost 200 Japanese water sector experts. This service was suspended in 2007.

Feature Bulletins - paper and electronic titles

Source Bulletin has been published since 1998. It provides in-depth information about key points of general interest in the areas of water supply, sanitation, hygiene promotion and (community-based) water resources management for rural communities and the urban poor in the developing world.

Source Bulletin is currently published as 12 page editions four times a year both on paper on the web and as a downloadable PDF version. The e-mail version is published as Source Features to subscribers of Source Weekly. In 2007, two contributing partners joined Source Bulletin: GWA, the Gender and Water Alliance and Cap-Net, the international network for capacity building in integrated water resources management (IWRM). In 2008, the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), and the original partner with IRC in this publication, is contributing content and sponsoring two of the four issues.

Source Bulletin contains 10 – 15 short features articles per issue by IRC and partners . In the general features the emphasis is on stories from the field, showing how communities and support agencies have tackled their WASH Problems. Feature articles are usually no longer than 800 words. Two pages feature work undertaken with the support of WSSCC and GWA partners and two pages highlight capacity building undertaken by Cap-Net partners. There are two pages of news about IRC work, as well as news in brief and information about resources and events. In the sponsored issues there are two pages of news from WSSCC.

Also published on paper are the Boletín de Noticias - Agua y Saneamiento in Spanish and the Editions Spéciales des Sources Nouvelles, both published four times a year. These special bulletins include the most important articles from the English editions, and articles written by partners.

Sources Nouvelles – Edition Spéciale and Boletín de Noticias focus on audiences in Francophone Africa and Spanish speaking Latin America. They make English-language sector news more accessible to readers in Latin America and Francophone Africa, as well as keeping readers abreast of activities undertaken by IRC/Crepa and Cinara.

All of these paper editions can also be freely downloaded as pdfs. In addition, special features carried in these bulletins are made available on the IRC website in the Source Bulletin features section. The online versions may sometimes be more extended versions of the features that appeared in the paper editions.

News feeds

In 2008 public news feeds will be made available in the form of blogs, related to the regional, thematic and resource headings of the electronic news digests. Items from these news feeds are selected for inclusion in the electronic news digests. Contributors to these news feeds include not only Source partners but also other sector organisations. Any Source partner can invite and add new contributors to the news feeds.

News web sites

All Source products are published on the web, with separate pages for each language version and for each regional version. Added features of the web site include:

• search facility
• archives
• events and training calendars
• listings of current vacancy and funding opportunities
• interactivity (readers’ comments, news submission and online subscription facility)
• background information (about Source).