Infographic of the Biological Urban Sanitation project (BUSP) in Maputo
The Pia Fantastica toilet flushes with just one cup of water under an angle of 45 degrees and has no water seal. It has the convenience of a pedestal like a conventional ceramic toilet, and, if well installed, has no smell or fly problem. It is a toilet made out of concrete which can be produced for a price of just US$ 6.50 and is therefore attractive to the local sanitation market.
The Pia Fantastica was developed as part of the Biological Urban Sanitation Project (2016–2019) where Black Soldier Fly larvae were used for environmental friendly pit emptying.
The project has been translated into a social enterprise “Susamati” run by young professionals in Maputo, Mozambique. Setting up an enterprise is about building a team as well as marketing and sales. At this point, making a financially sustainable enterprise remains a challenge.
Annemarieke J. Mooijman, Yvette E. van Dok, Manuel Lélio A. Gungulo, Björn Brandberg, Promotion of low flush toilets in urban Mozambique from innovation idea to social enterprise, Environmental Science & Policy, Volume 116, 2021, Pages 287-291 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901120314167
Use this link for 50 day free access to full article.
Afar 2016 photo: Petterik Wiggers/Hollandse Hoogte Amsterdam
The Sustainable WASH Systems (SWS) learning partnership is a collaborative activity funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to develop, test, and document high-potential “systems approaches” for local water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) service delivery. The five year project (2016-2021) in Cambodia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda aims to provide concrete improvements to service delivery while placing a significant emphasis on building knowledge and providing evidence to USAID and the global WASH sector on how systems approaches can be applied, adapted, and scaled in different contexts.
Below are some of the most recent SWS publications:
Valcourt, N., Walters, J., Javernick-Will, A., Linden, K., and Hailegiorgis, B., 2020. Understanding rural water services as a complex system : an assessment of key factors as potential leverage points for improved service sustainability. Sustainability, 12(3), pp.1-17 : 3 fig., 3 tab.
Hope, R., Thomson, P., Koehler, J. & Foster, T., 2020. Rethinking the economics of rural water in Africa. Oxford review of economic policy, 36(1), pp.171- 190 : 2 fig.
Hollander, D., Ajroud, B., Thomas, E., Peabody, S., Jordan, E., Javernick-Will, A. & Linden, K., 2020. Monitoring methods for systems-strengthening activities toward sustainable water and sanitation services in low-income settings. Sustainability, 12(17), pp.1-16 : 10 fig.
University of Colorado Boulder. Environmental Incentives, 2020. Defining collective action approaches in WASH. (Sustainable WASH Systems Learning Partnership. Research brief). Washington, DC, USA: USAID Sustainable WASH Systems Learning Partnership. 4 p. : 1 tab.
Harper, D., 2020. Using social network analysis in WASH programs. (Sustainable WASH Systems Learning Partnership. Learning brief). Washington, DC, USA: USAID Sustainable WASH Systems Learning Partnership. 5 p. : 2 tab.
Pugel, K., Javernick-Will, A., Koschmann, M., Peabody, S. & Linden, K., 2020. Adapting collaborative approaches for service provision to low-income countries : expert panel results. Sustainability, 12(7), pp.1-26 : 6 fig., 2 tab.
Chintalapati, P., 2020. Maintenance approaches to improve the sustainability of rural water supplies. (Sustainable WASH Systems Learning Partnership. Research brief). Washington, DC, USA: USAID Sustainable WASH Systems Learning Partnership. 7 p.
Valcourt, N., Javernick-Will, A., Walters, J. & Linden, K., 2020. System approaches to water, sanitation, and hygiene : a systematic literature review. International journal of environmental research and public health, 17(3), pp.1-18 : 4 fig., 3 tab.
Ajroud, B., Hollander, D. & Peabody, S., 2020. Measuring systems change in WASH programming : a practical application of two tools. (Sustainable WASH Systems Learning Partnership. Research report). Washington, DC, USA: USAID Sustainable WASH Systems Learning Partnership. 31 p. : 6 boxes, 3 fig.
ViMPlus is part of USAID’s Resilience in the Sahel Enhanced II (RISE) initiative, which supports vulnerable communities in Burkina Faso and Niger to effectively prepare for and manage recurrent crises and pursue sustainable pathways out of poverty.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY INTRODUCTION METHODOLOGY RAPID DESK REVIEW FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSIONS INDIVIDUAL INTERVIEWS HOUSEHOLD SURVEYS DATA MANAGEMENT AND ANALYSIS RESULTS RESULTS FROM THE RAPID DESK REVIEW GLOBAL LESSONS LEARNED FROM MARKET BASED SANITATION (MBS) IDENTIFICATION OF OTHER MBS ACTIVITIES IN BURKINA FASO RESULTS FROM THE DATA COLLECTION RESULTS FROM THE HOUSEHOLD SURVEY CURRENT HOUSEHOLD DRINKING WATER PRACTICES TYPES OF LATRINES USED BY HOUSEHOLDS HOUSEHOLD DECISION MAKING AROUND WASH PRODUCTS BARRIERS AND FINANCING OF LATRINES . KEY INFORMANT INTERVIEW RESULTS MAPPING OF RISK AND MITIGATION MEASURES DISCUSSION LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Sustainable Development Goal 6 for water and sanitation calls for the realization of safely managed services (SMSS) for everyone by 2030. While there has been significant research and implementation to improve the sanitation service chain in urban settings, little guidance is available on how to achieve and sustain SMSS in rural contexts.
In 2019, WSSCC commissioned this study conducted by Andy Robinson and Andy Peal to examine to what extent Global Sanitation Fund (GSF)-supported programmes enabled SMSS in rural areas with collective behaviour change approaches like CLTS.
This study includes: – A summary of SMSS concepts and issues in rural areas – SMSS findings from GSF-supported programmes in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia – Good practices for monitoring SMSS in rural areas – Recommendations for rural programming
Authors: WSSCC; Publication date: October 2020; Publisher: WSSCC; No. of pages: 155
Being true to #BlackLivesMatter. Report of an IRC Global Talk
Gay Village, Montreal. Credit: Martin Reisch/Unsplash
“The problem isn’t men, it’s patriarchy.
The problem isn’t white people, it’s white supremacy.
The problem isn’t straight people, it’s homophobia.
Recognize systems of oppression before letting individual defensiveness paralyze you from dismantling them”. (Ruchika Tulshyan, founder of inclusion strategy firm Candour)
This is not a quote you would expect to hear from an opening speaker in your usual WASH sector webinar, but the title of the IRC Global Talk on 16 July was anything but usual: “Decolonising WASH sector knowledge and decolonising systems thinking”.
On 18 June 2020, IRC posted a message from our CEO on Black Lives Matter with a commitment to the global struggle against racism. For this Global Talk, we found two, young undaunted voices to help IRC kickstart discussions on our commitments to #BlackLivesMatter. We asked them to elaborate on their recent provocative think pieces on decolonisation. First up was Euphresia Luseka, a WASH Governance Consultant from Kenya who wrote “Initiating De-colonization of WASH Sector Knowledge”, followed by the UK-based writer/facilitator and historian, Alara Adali who believes in “Decolonising systems thinking” for social change.
Market-based solutions are increasingly seen as having an important role in filling gaps in public services provision and bring increased efficiency to humanitarian assistance. UNHCR partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) to investigate waste-to-value sanitation solutions for areas with difficult ground conditions in protracted refugee camp settings in East Africa. In response to a call for sanitation solutions for difficult ground conditions in refugee settings, Sanivation introduced an innovative market-based solution with a waste-to-value component to Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya.
This report examines the business model and financial model that Sanivation developed during the project and illustrates some of the real world challenges and opportunities for waste-to-value sanitation. It is hoped that the insights from this research will provide a useful reference for potential investors and entrepreneurs, as well as humanitarian practitioners looking to design self-sustaining waste-to-value sanitation services in refugee and low-resource settings in the future.
USAID/ACCES has found that hygiene and sanitation marketing is effective in generating demand for latrines and contributes to sanitation market development in both rural and peri-urban communities.
Key ACCES success factors include high levels of community engagement, active community leaders through the VMC model, and innovative financing mechanisms.
Below are recommendations derived from USAID/ACCES’ experience:
Establish fundamental success criteria to use in CLTS site selection.
Develop sanitation product models in advance through participatory approaches to ensure products are well adapted to CLTS sites.
Ensure a thorough mapping exercise to prevent targeting villages with active subsidized latrine projects.
Ensure sufficient locally-based human resources, in both quantity and quality, ideally: two community-level agents for each group of 5 – 6 villages, one to manage the CLTS/SBCC activities and the other to manage the income-generating activities (IGA)/financing activities.
Integrate existing community members and networks into the latrine marketing process (e.g. community leaders, women’s groups, community-based organizations, local entrepreneurs and service providers
Broker lending via microfinance institutions to pre-finance latrine purchases.
Train local networks to promote latrine sales to groups.
Include IGA training activities in the project to better support women’s groups in CLTS communities to generate income, which can be used to purchase latrines.
Encourage women’s groups in CLTS communities to promote Sagal latrines, to provide financing, and to participate in IGA training.
Establish a relationship between local health workers and community-based agents so that patients who do not have adequate hygiene and sanitation facilities at their homes can be referred by the health workers to the project actors.
The annual Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Multi-Stakeholder Forum (MSF) is the most important WASH sector event in Ethiopia with over 300 participants. The first WASH MSF was conducted in 2006 under the auspices of the European Union Water Initiative for WASH sector coordination. The Government Ethiopia’s WASH organisations (education, finance, health and water) took over the WASH sector coordination process later on and, since then, the Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Energy has led the National WASH Steering Committee and the organisation of the MSF.
2019 marked the 10th MSF for WASH and the 2nd MSF for the Joint WASH-WRM. The event was held in Addis Ababa on 26th-27th November under the theme “Accelerating integrated, inclusive, sustainable and quality WASH services and water resources management for achieving the SDGs”. Among the WASH topics discuss, it is relevant to highlight equity, inclusion and accessibility in WASH, WASH marketing, WASH financing gaps and financing and equity, quality in WASH, sustainability in WASH, climate-resilient water safety planning and WASH sector institutional capacity building. The MSF 10 also comprised the launch of Ethiopia’s Open Defecation Free Campaign (2020-24).
The MSF 10 full proceedings present the main highlights of the two days event together with the 12 priority undertakings for the year 2020. From the WASH side, the priority undertakings for 2020 are the following ones:
Improve the institutional capacity to deliver WASH services.
Increase the WASH sector financing.
Improve the business climate for the private sector and improve the private sector’s capacity to deliver WASH services.
Develop robust functional planning, monitoring, and a management information system for WASH.
Develop rollout national strategies and the ODF campaign 2024 to eliminate open defecation (and urination) in rural and urban areas, and to improve the access to safe sanitation with dignity.
We are posting this research article for discussion and below is an abstract and link to the full-text. Please leave any comments or questions about the study in the Comments section:
Impact of an intervention to improve pit latrine emptying practices in low income urban neighborhoods of Maputo, Mozambique. International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health, Volume 226, May 2020. Authors: Drew Capone, Helen Buxton, Oliver Cumming, Robert Dreibelbis, Jackie Knee, Rassul Nalá, Ian Ross, Joe Brown
Safe fecal sludge management (FSM) – the hygienic emptying, transport, and treatment for reuse or disposal of fecal sludge – is an essential part of safely managed sanitation, especially in towns and cities in low- and middle-income countries with limited sewer coverage.
The need for safe and affordable FSM services has become more acute as cities grow and densify. Hygienic pit-emptying uses equipment that limits direct human exposure with fecal sludge and hygienic transport conveys fecal sludge offsite for treatment.
We evaluated whether a program of on-site sanitation infrastructure upgrades and FSM capacity development in urban Maputo, Mozambique resulted in more hygienic pit-emptying and safe transportation of fecal sludge.
We compared reported emptying practices among multi-household compounds receiving sanitation upgrades with control compounds, both from the Maputo Sanitation (MapSan) trial at 24–36 months after the intervention. Intervention compounds (comprising 1–40 households, median = 3) received a subsidized pour-flush latrine to septic tank system that replaced an existing shared latrine; control compounds continued using existing shared latrines.
We surveyed compound residents and analyzed available municipal data on FSM in the city. Due to the recent construction of the intervention, emptying was more frequent in control compounds: 5.6% (15/270) of intervention compounds and 30% (74/247) of controls had emptied their on-site sanitation system in the previous year.
Among those compounds which had emptied a sanitation facility in the previous year, intervention compounds were 3.8 (95% CI: 1.4, 10) times more likely to have to done so hygienically.
Results suggest that the construction of subsidized pour-flush sanitation systems increased hygienic emptying of fecal sludge in this setting. Further gains in hygienic emptying in urban Maputo may be limited by affordability and physical accessibility.
A new report presents data on contributions from 29 civil society organisations (CSOs) to the Ethiopian WASH sector in 2017-2018. The CSOs reached over 8 million people through the implementation of 658 WASH programmes with a total financial allocation that exceeded 2 billion Ethiopian Birr (US$ 61.9 million).
It also provides key recommendations and ways forward which relate to a) fostering the geographic diversification of WASH programmes; b) encouraging CSOs’ involvement in emergency areas; c) revisiting the urban sanitation and hygiene situation; d) focusing further on approaches to WASH that address gender disparities; and e) strengthening the existing national WASH platforms to foster further collaborations in the WASH sector and plan for more targeted WASH interventions.
The report was published the Consortium of Christian Relief and Development Associations (CCRDA) with support from Dorcas Aid, Hilfswerk der Evangelischen Kirchen Schweiz, WaterAid and World Vision.
Sanitation Updates 