Joint conference on small water/wastewater systems & resource oriented sanitation

12th Specialised Conference on Small Water and Wastewater Systems and 4th Specialised Conference on Resource Oriented Sanitation
02-04 November 2014, Muscat, Oman
Website: www.iwahq.org/1wr/events/iwa-events/2014/swws-2014.html

Organised by: International Water Association (IWA)

Small water and wastewater treatment plants play an important role in the management of water quality in  rural and small communities to treat their domestic and industrial effluents. Resource oriented sanitation concepts promote ecologically socially and economically sound approaches.

Latinosan Panamá 2013 – 3rd Latin American Sanitation Conference, 29-31 May 2013

The Republic of Panama is organizing the Third Latin American Sanitation Conference on 29-31 May 2013. The theme is:  “Universal Sanitation: New Challenges, New Opportunities”.

Latinosan is held every three years.

Latinosan 2013 consists of two events: a technical conference and a meeting of senior officials that will result in the Declaration of Panama.

Main topics:

• the status of sanitation at regional and country levels
• institutions and public policy
• human rights and sustainable development
• post-2015 goals: regional and global

For more information visit the conference website: latinosanpanama2013.com (Spanish only)

RFP: Research for Hygiene Behavioural Change among School Children in the Philippines

UNICEF has issued a request for proposal for “Research for Hygiene Behavioural Change among School Children in the Philippines”.

The aim of the consultancy to “craft a simple, scalable and sustainable strategy, program and tools based on the EHCP [Essential Health Care Program] that would lead to improved and sustained hygiene practice and toilet use”.

The EHCP is the Department of Education’s “flagship national health program for promoting group handwashing with soap, group toothbrushing with toothpaste and biannual deworming in public elementary schools”.

The consultancy will build on the findings of the Sustainable Sanitation in Schools Project, which was launched in 2011 by UNICEF, GIZ and Fit for School.

The main research question is: “Does daily group hand washing with soap in school result in the independent practice of hand washing with soap at critical times, particularly after using the toilet in school and before eating/handling food?”

Project Duration: 12 months (May 1, 2013 – April 30, 2014)

Deadline for submission: 10:00 am (GMT) on Monday, 15 April 2013

For more information read the full RFP.

What have the Romans and aid every done for anyone? Apart from clean water, sanitation and …

Inspired by Monty Python’s “What have Romans every done for us” scene – (“Apart from sanitation, the aqueducts and roads” …), Save the Children have released a mock anti-aid video called “What Has Aid Ever Done For Anyone? Apart from…”.

Arguably, the Romans were more successful than the aid sector, if we consider the recalculated global estimates for safe water and sanitation.

India, New Delhi: garbage trucks to be fitted with GPS and radio devices

Big brother will soon be watching over garbage truck drivers in East Delhi once the local municipal corporation installs an electronic tracking system. The East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) plans to install global positioning system (GPS) and radio frequency identification devices (RFID) in its garbage trucks.

This will enable the EDMC to track the garbage trucks movements and monitor their work performance.

The electronic devices are linked to an  ‘e-municipal solid waste disposal system’, which takes pictures of the vehicles at the garbage station and landfill site, when they pick up and dispose of the waste.

At the end of each day, the GPS will be used to submit a daily route mapping report on the areas cleaned.

East Delhi generates nearly 2,000 metric tonnes of garbage every day and has nearly 150 dump yards.

M/s AKS Software Ltd won the tender to install the electronic tracking system, which costs 19.2 million Rupees (US$ 353,000).

Related news: India, New Delhi: using Facebook and SMS to keep the city clean, Sanitation Updates, 15 Apr 2011

Source: Hindustan Times, 28 Mar 2013 ; PTI/Business Standard, 28 Mar 2013

 

Sustaining sanitation – Pan European Networks interviews Joep Verhagen

In an interview with Pan European Networks, IRC Senior Sanitation Specialist Joep Verhagen explains how sanitation efforts need to begin to increase their focus on sustainability.

EU aid for water and sanitation hit a record €1.6bn in 2009, but in March 2012 the EU announced plans to redirect development to ‘the world’s neediest nations’ with fears that this could harm sanitation efforts in Latin America, Asia and possibly some sub-Saharan African countries. Joep Verhagen shares his thoughts on the EU plans and on how knowledge-sharing partnerships and research are helping to provide sustainable solutions to existing rural and urban sanitation problems.

Read the full interview

Sanitation as a business – the poor will have to wait

Malawian sanitation entrepreneur Martius using “The Gulper” to empty a pit latrine. Photo: Water for People

Providing toilets to the poorest may be “dear to the hearts of many non-profits, aid agencies and governments” but if you want to involve business you have to start with the better-off families first. So says business woman and sanitation entrepreneur Towera Jalakari who runs a pit emptying service in Blantyre, Malawi.

“We will get to Everyone in Blantyre one day, but the only way to make sure Blantyre actually solves its sanitation problems is to recognize that the market must function.  [...]  As we get better, as we scale city-wide, then costs will come down, services will improve, and pressure will build for all people to have a toilet.  We will get to the poorest, but they are not our first targets.  [...] If we rush too fast [...] then the poor will not have lasting services but rather a lot of useless toilets and nowhere to go to the bathroom.”

Malawi is one the countries in Water for People’s Sanitation as a Business program (2010-2014), which is funded by a US$ 5.6 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Water for People has contracted Tools for Enterprise & Education Consultants (TEECs) to support pit emptying businesses in Lilongwe and Blantyre.

Matt Damon continues his global crusade for toilets

As a follow-up to his “toilet strike” last month, actor Matt Damon narrates a new water.org video promoting sanitation and clean water that was released on  World Water Day.

 “Quick, what invention saved the most lives in human history? The answer is the can, the john, the porcelain throne, the bog, the foreign office, the Thomas crapper. That’s right, the toilet,” says Damon. “Whatever you choose to call it, the toilet not only provides a tranquil escape from nagging bosses, spouses and children, it’s also a fast and sanitary way to dispose of waste separate from the water we drink and bathe in.”

The spot ends with a plea to donate to Water.org, the charity co-founded by Matt Damon and Gary White. Despite contradictory evidence, the water.org site continues to state that “only $25 brings one person clean water for life“.

Source: Degen Pener, Hollywood Reporter, 22 March 2013

Top 10 Finalists of the Sanitation Hackathon App Challenge announced

On World WaterDay, 22 March, the World Bank announced the Top 10 Finalists of the Sanitation Hackathon App Challenge. The challenge is a follow-up to the Sanitation Hackathon, which attracted over 1,100 developers in December 2012 to solve sanitation problems.

The Top 10 Finalists apps are:

• Empowering Girls monitors girls’ school attendance to track appropriate sanitation facilities.
• LION Sync provides decision-makers with access to real-time data online and offline.
• LooRewards promotes sanitary behavior by rewarding safe sanitation practices.
• mSchool monitors the status of water and sanitation infrastructure in schools.
• mSewage crowdsources the identification of open defecation sites and sewage outflows.
• San-Trac reminds users about hygienic practices and gathers real-time data for trend analysis (winner of the People’s Choice Award)
• Sanitation Investment Tracker tracks investment and expenditure in sanitation at the household level.
• SunClean teaches sanitary and hygienic behavior through games for children.
• Taarifa enables citizen reporting and tracks decision-makers’ feedback.
• Toilight finds toilets in a smart and easy way.

For more information on the apps click on the video links above or go here.

The Grand Prize Award winners will be announced on April 19, on the eve of the World Bank’s Spring Meetings.

Source: SanHack Team, SanitationHackathon.org, 22 Mar 2013

BRAC WASH offers to help half a million Indian imams promote hygiene

On WaterCouch.tv, Rabbi Awraham Soetendorp shares a practical example of international water cooperation that emerged during the 2013 World Water Day celebrations in The Hague, The Netherlands. In one of the sessions, BRAC WASH programme director Dr Babar Kabir explained that his programme had trained 18,000 imams in Bangladesh to include hygiene messages in their Friday prayers (see Kabir, 2010).

Imam Umer Ahmed Ilyasi

Also present in The Hague was Iman Umer Ahmed Ilyasi, Chief Imam of the All India Organization of Imams of Mosques, “the largest and oldest imam organization of the world”.  Dr Kabir and the Chief Imam “agreed to cooperate on education for water and sanitation”. This cooperation has the potential to create “five hundred thousand new teachers” to spread hygiene messages all over India.

Kabir, B. et al., 2010. The role of imams and different institution[s] in hygiene promotion of BRAC WASH programme : paper presented at the South Asia Hygiene Practitioners Workshop, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 1 to 4 February 2010.  The Hague, The Netherlands: IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre. Available at: www.irc.nl/page/51613

WASH training for imams in Bangladesh. Photo: Masjid Council