Making sense of sanitation monitoring in Bangladesh

Reblogged from WASH news Asia & Pacific:

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Over the last few weeks and months, people at BRAC in Bangladesh and at IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre in The Netherlands have been working really, really hard to prepare for our first Monitoring and Learning workshop that will happen at the end of February. Exciting, and frankly, a bit daunting to complete the full circle of planning, implementation, monitoring and learning, and adaptation for the BRAC WASH programme that covers half of Bangladesh and seeks to provide sustainable sanitation and hygiene services to almost 55 million people.

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Innovative monitoring tools such as the Qualitative Information System (QIS), sanitation ladders and SenseMaker® are being used in a programme that seeks to provide sustainable sanitation and hygiene services to almost 55 million people in Bangladesh.

Assessing sanitation service levels – 2nd edition

Potter, A.; Klutse, A.; Snehalatha, M.; Batchelor, C.; Uandela, A.; Naafs, A.; Fonseca, C.; Moriarty, P. (2011). Assessing sanitation service levels. (WASHCost working paper; no. 3). 2nd ed. The Hague, The Netherlands, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre. 27 p. : 16 fig. 12 ref.
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Conventional sanitation ladders rank sanitation in increasing complexity of technological options. However, sanitation improvement is not as straightforward as the concept of “a ladder” with incremental improvements, might suggest. For example, from the user perspective, a VIP toilet may in some circumstances be a better option than a septic tank system. There is a wide gap between technologies and service provision, especially when O&M considerations are taken into account. This working paper from IRC’s WASHCost project sets out a common framework to analyse and compare sanitation cost data being collected across different country contexts (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mozambique, India) with different service delivery norms and standards. It represents a fundamental shift away from the focus on capital investment costs, to the costs of sustainable sanitation services.

Inaugural issue of the Journal of Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene for Development online

The International Water Association (IWA) has made the first issue of its  new peer-reviewed Journal of Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene for Development, available online, with free access to the full text PDFs of  all articles.

Access to following issues will be by subscription or pay-per-view only, although authors have an option to pay to make their articles open access.

The first issue includes articles about the sanitation ladder, constructed wetlands, WASH approaches in Zimbabwe, wastewater treatment in Brazil, SODIS and water quality field tests.

Assessing sanitation service levels – new WASHCost project working paper

Conventional sanitation ladders rank sanitation in increasing complexity of technological options. However, sanitation improvement is not as straightforward as the concept of “a ladder” with incremental improvements from op full flush, might suggest.

For example, from the user perspective, a VIP toilet may in some circumstances be a better option than a septic tank system. There is a wide gap between technologies and service provision, especially when O&M considerations are taken into account. A new working paper [1] from IRC’s WASHCost project sets out a common framework to analyse and compare sanitation cost data being collected across different country contexts (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mozambique, India) with different service delivery norms and standards. It represents a fundamental shift away from the focus on capital investment costs, to the costs of sustainable sanitation services.

[1] Potter, A. and Klutse, A. (2010). Assessing sanitation service levels. (WASHCost working paper ; no. 3). The Hague, The Netherlands, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre. 27 p. : 15 fig., 11 ref.
Download full paper