E-learning course Governance in Urban Sanitation

The Local Development Programme of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) is conducting the next session of its e-learning course Governance in Urban Sanitation from 19 March to 25 May 2012.

The e-course aims to enhance the capacity of local decision-makers and sanitation practitioners to make the most enlightened decisions and investments in the area of urban sanitation. It provides analytical tools to understand the financial and institutional framework of the sanitation sector, taking into account the needs of urban poor communities. This e-course has been awarded with the International ECBCheck Quality Label for e-Learning.

The deadline for registration is 14 March 2012.
Registration fee: US$ 400

Full information about the course is available at www.unitar.org/event/sanitation2012

The effect of cord cleansing on neonatal mortality in rural Bangladesh

The Lancet, Early Online Publication, 8 February 2012

The effect of cord cleansing with chlorhexidine on neonatal mortality in rural Bangladesh: a community-based, cluster-randomised trial

• Full-text

Shams El Arifeen DrPH, et al.

Background – Up to half of neonatal deaths in high mortality settings are due to infections, many of which can originate through the freshly cut umbilical cord stump. We aimed to assess the effectiveness of two cord-cleansing regimens with the promotion of dry cord care in the prevention of neonatal mortality.

Design – We did a community-based, parallel cluster-randomised trial in Sylhet, Bangladesh. We divided the study area into 133 clusters, which were randomly assigned to one of the two chlorhexidine cleansing regimens (single cleansing as soon as possible after birth; daily cleansing for 7 days after birth) or promotion of dry cord care. Randomisation was done by use of a computer-generated sequence, stratified by cluster-specific participation in a previous trial. All livebirths were eligible; those visited within 7 days by a local female village health worker trained to deliver the cord care intervention were enrolled. We did not mask study workers and participants to the study interventions. Our primary outcome was neonatal mortality (within 28 days of birth) per 1000 livebirths, which we analysed on an intention-to-treat basis. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT00434408.

Results – Between June, 2007, and September, 2009, we enrolled 29 760 newborn babies (10 329, 9423, and 10 008 in the multiple-cleansing, single-cleansing, and dry cord care groups, respectively). Neonatal mortality was lower in the single-cleansing group (22·5 per 1000 livebirths) than it was in the dry cord care group (28·3 per 1000 livebirths; relative risk [RR] 0·80 [95% CI] 0·65—0·98). Neonatal mortality in the multiple-cleansing group (26·6 per 1000 livebirths) was not statistically significantly lower than it was in the dry cord care group (RR 0·94 [0·78—1·14]). Compared with the dry cord care group, we recorded a statistically significant reduction in the occurrence of severe cord infection (redness with pus) in the multiple-cleansing group (risk per 1000 livebirths=4·2 vs risk per 1000 livebirths=1·2; RR 0·35 [0·15—0·81]) but not in the single-cleansing group (risk per 1000 livebirths=3·3; RR 0·77 [0·40—1·48]).

Interpretation – Chlorhexidine cleansing of a neonate’s umbilical cord can save lives, but further studies are needed to establish the best frequency with which to deliver the intervention.

India – Government funds for sanitation inadequate, private sector should pool in

by Anupam Tyagi, Economic Times - Feb 9, 2012

More people die from inadequate sanitation-related causes in India everyday than 10 aeroplanes filled with 200 people each. This has high economic costs. Therefore, achieving adequate sanitation is an imperative.

A summary of the report on economic impacts of inadequate sanitation in India, released on December 20, 2011, by Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) of the World Bank, shows that lack of adequate sanitation in India resulted in an annual loss of $53.8 billion ($161 billion in purchasing power parity, or PPP) or $48 per capita ($144 in PPP) in 2006, the year of evaluation in the report. This was equivalent to 6.4% of GDP in 2006. 

Most of these losses were related to health (71.7%; $38.5 billion), and mostly concentrated in children below five years. Other quantified economic losses from inadequate sanitation in this report relate to getting access to cleaner drinking water, time losses from not having access to sanitation, and tourism-related losses.

Vacancy: Programme Officer Sanitation and Hygiene

IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre is looking for candidates for the position of Programme Officer Sanitation and Hygiene.

The Sanitation and Hygiene Specialist will be part of the Africa team and will be expected to participate in multi-disciplinary project teams and the IRC Sanitation and Hygiene team.

Salary scale: Programme Officer, BBRA scale 10 or 11 (min. €2,396.62 to max. €4,380.72) depending on qualifications and experience.

Application deadline: 11 March 2012

For more information and application details please go to www.irc.nl/page/69584

Global market for household cleaning agents to reach US$ 83.23 billion by 2015, according to business analysts

Photo: www.arkwrights-groceries.com

Growing concerns about hygiene and the spread of infectious diseases are expected to boost the market for household cleaners in emerging economies such as China, India, Indonesia, Brazil and Mexico, according to a new report by Global Industry Analysts, Inc (GIA).

Increased consumer focus on satisfying safety, social, and self-actualization needs, especially by enabling safe food storage, disinfecting household surfaces, controlling garbage in a hygienic manner and by improving sanitary conditions are driving gains into the global household cleaners market. Rapid proliferation of lifestyle gurus and home experts across the globe are also driving consumers to take household maintenance to a next level, thereby encouraging them to use advanced household cleaning and safety products.

The report emphasises the importance of advertising for the household cleaners industry, which is increasingly using social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

GIA published “Household cleaners : a global industry outlook” in January 2012. It costs US$ 1450.

Related web sites:

• Hygiene Council
• IFH – Home Hygiene & Health

Source: PRWeb.com, 08 Feb 2012

Rose George – Dirty little secret: the loo that saves lives in Liberia

Diarrhoea kills more children than HIV/Aids, tuberculosis and malaria combined – and its main cause is food and water contaminated with human waste. Liberia’s president is trying to change all that.

• Feb 3, 2012 – Rose George, The Guardian

For the worst country in the world, Liberia looks lush. All along the long road to Fish Town, the sumptuous rainforest on either side is a comfort, a green bath to soothe the dreadful red dust that is constant and the potholes that cause nose-bleeds, head-bumps and nausea even in this well-cushioned Toyota Land Cruiser belonging to WaterAid. We are scrunched into this car for days, because that’s how long it takes to get to Fish Town, only a few hours from Liberia’s capital Monrovia if you’re a crow, but 36 hours otherwise, because the country has only one decent main road.

Not just a flash in the pan: President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, is on a mission to educate her people about the link between early mortality and bad sanitation. Photograph: Aubrey Wade for the Guardian

To get there, we must loop north, brushing the border with Guinea, before swooping back down to a town that isn’t much of a town, the joke goes, and doesn’t have much fish. But it’s busy these days because NGO 4x4s such as ours are zooming through on their way to help refugees escaping from Ivory Coast, the latest poor sods in this region to be kicked out of their country by war.

We, though, are not zooming towards refugees but towards something far less newsworthy. It is my sixth visit to Liberia. The first was in 2004, six months into the country’s first peace in 20 years. Liberia had suffered years of stunningly brutal civil wars, orchestrated largely by Charles Taylor, now on trial in the Hague for war crimes (a man who once sued a journalist for saying he had eaten a human heart, and lost); and by other warlords with names such as General Butt Naked, General Peanut Butter and Devil. And this war’s stories were more horrific than most: mass rape; boy soldiers kept going by drugs, looting and raping; parents killed by their own boys; checkpoints made from intestines. Imagine the worst and, if you looked, you’d find it here doubled.

Germany: Metalheads get their own personal toilet

The personal Metal Mobil WC, 2012 model. Photo: Wacken.com

Nowadays some (older?) fans of black metal, death metal, gothic metal and the like are not averse to a bit of luxury. Since 2007, the organisers of Wacken Open Air (W:O:A), an annual heavy metal festival in Germany, offer attendees the chance to rent a personal mobile toilet. Costing 120 Euros each, there are 150 MMWCs (Metal Mobil WCs) on offer. The MMWC provider will clean your toilet too, for an additional 25 Euros.

In 2011 all 150 personal toilets were booked within 4 hours, according to the festival web site.

The vast majority of the 80,000 festival goers will still have to queue, as usual, in front of the public mobile toilets available for free on the festival site.

Moving beyond construction: Asian practitioners identify sludge management as a major issue

Learning cloud gives a glimpse of the future of WASH in Asia

Which issues will sanitation and hygiene practitioners focus on in Asia? This was the question posed to the more than 50 professionals attending the 3rd Asia Regional Sanitation and Hygiene Practitioners Workshop which ends today in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Based on the above “learning cloud”, sludge management appears to be a major concern.

SuSanA is now five years old and still going strong!

The Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA) celebrates this week its 5th anniversarysince its formation at the kick-off meeting in Eschborn, Germany on 29 January 2007. Looking back we can all be proud of what we have achieved together. Therefore the SuSanA secretariat wants to take this opportunity to thank everybody for their cooperation, dedication, support and interest to work as a network on a common vision of sustainable sanitation.

A brief overview of the achievements in the past five years: SuSanA has grown to be a diverse network with 172 international partner organisations and more than 1100 individual members working together in 11 working groups. So far 14 SuSanA meetings have been held in nine different countries around the globe to provide a platform to discuss, exchange experiences and work together. The SuSanA website (www.susana.org) has become a vibrant tool for knowledge exchange, capacity development and communication within and outside the network, with typically 7500 hits per month. Many excellent publications from the working groups, partners and members have emerged from a joint effort to show viable avenues to solve the sanitation crisis in the world. The SuSanA Library contains already over 1100 publications and it continues to grow.

SuSanA activities have instigated dialogue in many developing countries and countries in transition amongst the governing authorities and local and international sanitation experts. The concept of sustainable sanitation promoted by SuSanA is today well known to most decision makers. In 2008 for instance, the Indian Prime Minister mentioned in his inaugural speech at the Third SACOSAN conference: “New technologies have to be affordable and sustainable” while speaking about the reuse and recycling options in sanitation and wastewater management. The NGO CAPS (Center for Advanced Philippine Studies) in the Philippines developed the “Sustainable Sanitation Framework” based on SuSanA’s definition of sustainable sanitation which was adopted by the Philippines’ government to formulate the “Sustainable Sanitation Roadmap”. For more information please refer to Dan Lapid’s presentation at the Stockholm World Water Week last year.

India, Bihar: Poo Highway

The high incidence of open defecation in the Indian state of Bihar is not due to a lack awareness about toilets, according to this new Water for People video. In their view, it’s more of a supply chain, marketing problem.

The toilets on offer are not particularly good.

Until recently, Water for People India had worked mainly in West Bengal state, but in 2011 the NGO expanded into Bihar, where it is collaborating with the local government.

The current sanitation coverage in Bihar is less than 25% with usage percentage much lower, according to the SWASTH (Sector Wide Approach to Strengthening Health) Programme web site. In the district where Water for People will be working, sanitation coverage is only 14%.

Related web site: Water for People – India