New publication: WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme 2017 report

New publication: WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme 2017 report

The WHO/UNICEF JMP has published its first report of the SDG period, Progress on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene: 2017 update and SDG baselines. The report introduces and defines the new indicators of safely managed drinking water and sanitation services. Estimates of safely managed drinking water services, the indicator for SDG target 6.1, are presented for 96 countries, while estimates are provided for safely managed sanitation services (target 6.2) for 84 countries. SDG target 6.2 also includes hygiene, and the JMP has rebranded itself as the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene. This first SDG report presents data on the availability of handwashing facilities with soap and water in the home for 70 countries.

The newly updated JMP website, www.washdata.org, allows visitors to interactively access the full dataset, and download individual country files which include all of the data used to produce the estimates. (Login with username “washdata” and password “preview”.)

The report finds that in 2015, 29% of the global population (2.1 billion people) lacked safely managed drinking water services – meaning water at home, available, and safe. 61% of the global population (4.5 billion people) lacked safely managed sanitation services – meaning use of a toilet or latrine that leads to treatment or safe disposal of excreta. Data on handwashing were too few to make a global estimate, but in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% of the population had access to a handwashing facility with soap and water.

The 2.1 billion people without safely managed drinking water services includes 1.3 billion people with basic services, meaning an improved water source located within 30 minutes; 263 million people with limited services, or an improved water source requiring more than 30 minutes to collect water; 423 million people taking water from unprotected wells and springs, and 159 million people collecting untreated surface waterfrom lakes, ponds, rivers and streams.

The 4.5 billion people without safely managed sanitation services includes 2.1 billion people with basic services, meaning an improved sanitation facility which is not shared; 600 million people with limited services, or an improved sanitation facility which is shared; 856 million people using unprotected latrines or bucket toilets, and 892 million people collecting practising open defecation.

Safely managed services represent an ambitious new global benchmark and estimates are not yet available for all countries. The report identifies a number of critical data gaps that will need to be addressed in order to enable systematic monitoring of SDG targets, if we are to realise the SDGs commitment to “leave no one behind”.

Yet the data we have now are more than enough to show the tasks at hand: to eliminate open defecation for the nearly 900 million people who continue to lack even the most rudimentary sanitation; to bring basic water, sanitation and hygiene within the reach of the most disadvantaged; and to support progress for those who already have basic services, but still don’t have truly safe drinking water or adequate sanitation.

These SDG baseline findings set a clear agenda on the work to be done for all of us across the world to progress towards the shared vision of Water, Sanitation, Hygiene and Health for All.

Link to the report: https://washdata.org/report/jmp-2017-report-launch-version0

JMP website: www.washdata.org  (Login with username “washdata” and password “preview”)

Press release: http://who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2017/water-sanitation-hygiene/en/

 

The Period Movement: Meet the Men Fighting to Stop Menstruation-Shaming

The Period Movement: Meet the Men Fighting to Stop Menstruation-Shaming. Newsweek, July 12, 2017.

Ganga Gautam stood at the back of a high school classroom in Kathmandu, Nepal, helplessly watching as a teenage girl started bleeding. Gautam, a professor of English education at Tribhuvan University, was observing one of his students teach a class two years ago.

Joshua Omanya, center, is an educator with The Cup program who teaches boys in the Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya, about menstruation and gender equality.

Three girls were sitting on a bench next to him, and one of them was clearly in distress.“I noticed that she was menstruating. The blood was coming,” he says. “She wasn’t prepared. She didn’t have a pad, and there was a male teacher teaching.”

Gautam saw the young girl open her pen and drip ink over the blood in an effort to hide it. As soon as class ended, she placed a piece of paper over the red stain and ran out. He never saw her in school again. “That happened many times,” he says. “I saw so many girls bleeding in classrooms and panicking.

They leave the classroom and never come back. That just killed me.”Around the world, girls and women miss classes, drop out of school and fail to reach their full potential because of a natural biological process: menstruation.

Read the complete article.

July 19, 2017 – Franchising Sanitation’ with Julie McBride of MSA Worldwide

JULY MODULE: ‘Franchising Sanitation’  w/ Julie McBride of MSA Worldwide

• July 19, 2017
• 16h00 CEST / 10h00 EST

MSA is “the leading strategic and tactical advisory firm in franchising” according to the International Franchise Association. Our reputation is built on our proven ability in creating sustainable franchise programs that our clients can manage and grow successfully.

• Watch It Live
• Send in a question

This is part of the Toilet Accelerator Fast Forward Series. Julie McBride is a thought leader in the field of social franchising and was recently named one of “Five Innovative Consultants that are changing the world” in Inc. Magazine. 

Julie has devoted her career to helping low income people around the globe gain access to products and services they need to live healthy and productive lives.

Along the way she has gained experience in both commercial and social sectors, including pharmaceutical marketing, social franchising of health care in the developing world, and currently as a social franchise consultant for MSA Worldwide.

Her experience has convinced her that the only way to solve some of the longstanding problems associated with poverty is to combine the proven tools of the commercial and social sectors to create new and better approaches to understanding and meeting people’s needs. For Julie, the most promise lies in the emerging field of social franchising.

Tender: Sanitation solutions for underserved communities in Jordan

The project, initiated by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), focuses on rethinking sanitation systems, by improving existing Wastewater Treatment Plants (WWTP) and exploring the development of small scale Waste Water Treatment (WWT) and Faecal Sludge Treatment (FST) solutions. The goal of these improvements and developments is to increase WWT efficiency and sanitation coverage, and turn waste streams into physical and financial resource streams by ensuring and promoting safe reuse of the treated wastewater and faecal sludge. The focus is on Jordanian host communities as a whole, with a particular attention to be paid to unserved, vulnerable communities, as they are more and more impacted by the lack of adequate sanitation systems. The project will be subdivided into two distinct phases – the inception phase and the main phase.

Project ID 157868|Notice no. 975947

Deadline for submission of the complete bid: 28 August 2017

View the full notice at:
www.simap.ch/shabforms/COMMON/search/searchresult.jsf

WASH’NUTRITION 2017 GUIDEBOOK – Integrating water, sanitation, hygiene and nutrition to save lives

WASH’NUTRITION 2017 GUIDEBOOK – Integrating water, sanitation, hygiene and nutrition to save lives. Action Against Hunger.

The “WASH’Nutrition Practical Guidebook”  was developed to offer practical guidance to help practitioners design and implement programs in both humanitarian and development contexts. Undernutrition in all its forms is the underlying cause of an estimated 45 percent of all child deaths each year. 

Evidence has shown that in many settings, there is a link between undernutrition and poor hygiene, poor sanitation and unsafe drinking water, emphasizing the need for integrated, multisectoral approaches to improving nutrition.

By compiling concrete programmatic examples in a variety of contexts, this manual provides guidance on how WASH activities can contribute to the reduction of undernutrition incidence, and also to the optimization of its treatment,” said Marie-Sophie Whitney, global nutrition expert with the EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations.

The “WASH’Nutrition Practical Guidebook” comprises six chapters, delving into key concepts relevant to WASH and nutrition, as well as existing evidence on the links between nutrition and WASH, practical guidance on implementing integrated programs, setting up monitoring and evaluation systems to measure progress and impact, and tools for advocacy and capacity building for projects and project staff.

The guidebook places special emphasis on integrating WASH and nutrition programs in humanitarian emergencies: safe drinking water and sanitation, in addition to food and shelter, are vital to safeguarding the health of communities affected by crisis. The guide also provides a resources section, which offers tools and examples from the field on how integration efforts may be placed within each phase of a classical project cycle.

 

A defining moment for the future of wastewater?

A defining moment for the future of wastewater? IWA Source, June 2017.

By Pritha Hariram*

As we mark the international year of Wastewater, I’m taken back to my childhood crossing the Adayar Bridge in Chennai, India, in an air-conditioned “Ambassador” (the iconic Indian car that served as high-end taxis in the 80s). The airtight car windows and cool air-conditioning provided little protection from the stench coming from the river, reduced to trickle passing under the bridge on its way to making a very undramatic entrance into the Bay of Bengal. 

On that hot summer day as I sat in my “protected” Ambassador with my family, the Adayar river, once the economic and cultural backbone of Chennai, was reduced to nothing but an active landfill and untreated wastewater discharge zone. To complement the stench, the sight was unbearable, resembling a large septic tank of sludgy consistency filled with debris. Thankfully, the story of Adayar and its estuarine extension, the Coum river, does not end there.

Fast-forward to 2012, and a large, citizen-driven petition led by local NGO, the Consumer Action Group, successfully persuaded the Tamil Nadu government to take action. This has resulted in the development and implementation of a large-scale restoration programme that began with the construction of over 300 sewage treatment plants. This was followed by an eco-restoration phase, including the plantation of mangroves along the estuary stretch of the rivers. The programme is now in its third phase with continued eco-restoration and de-silting of the riverbeds.

This combination of nature based solutions and grey infrastructure has become a flagship project for Tamil Nadu, and serves as an eco-restoration model to be replicated in the rest of the southern Indian state. It’s also a timely reminder for the rest of the world, of what can be achieved when citizens and governments come together to press for change.

Read the complete article.

Water Safety Plans – Water Currents, July 10, 2017

Water Safety Plans – Water Currents, July 10, 2017.

Water Safety Plans (WSPs) were introduced by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2004 as a health-based, risk assessment approach to managing drinking water quality.

WSPs identify potential threats to water quality at each step in the water supply chain and are recognized as the most reliable and effective way to manage drinking-water supplies to safeguard public health. 

This issue contains primarily 2016 and 2017 publications from WHO, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the International Water Association (IWA), and others as well as links to WSP–related websites.

Read the complete issue.