SanMark Community of Practice website

The Sanitation Marketing (SanMark) Community of Practice  is a WASH Reference Group initiative supported by the AusAID Innovations Fund and managed by WaterAid Australia.

The WASH Reference Group is an Australian-based Community of Practice comprising 25 organisations working on water, sanitation and hygiene promotion in developing countries, including NGOs, research organisations and the Australian water industry.

The website provides information on SanMark webinars and in-country training events. Visitors to the website can submit a question (Ask an Expert), contribute a case study, story, experience or photographs to the SanMark blog, and apply online for a SanMark practitioner training. There is also section on resources (links and tools) and news.

Website: www.sanitationmarketing.com

Learning Fund – Menstrual Hygiene Management

Menstrual Hygiene Management, Learning Fund.

• Full-text (pdf)

Menstrual hygiene management has long been taboo in many countries. During the learning events, participants talked about their efforts to break the silence, working with women and girls to ensure menstrual hygiene management needs are addressed through WASH programs.

Messages for WASH Sustainability

• Menstrual hygiene management is a critical aspect of WASH service provision and needs to be considered and discussed in a sensitive manner with communities and partners during project planning.
• Talking directly with adolescent girls and female teachers to understand their needs and preferences is essential when designing facilities for schools.
• There are opportunities to support small enterprise providing affordable locally made menstrual hygiene management products, generating income while providing essential services for women.

Winning the race: sanitation in rapidly-growing towns in Southern Africa – workshop video report

“The number of people without access to adequate water and sanitation facilities in Africa has risen fast in recent decades [as] rapid urbanisation has outpaced the ability of many African governments to provide essential services”, writes David Schaub-Jones in the background paper for the Learning & Sharing Session “Winning the Race: Sanitation in rapidly-growing towns”.

The 2 day session, held from 10-11 November 2011 in Lusaka, Zambia, explored proactive, tangible ways to deal with pressing sanitation issues in towns experiencing rapid growth in Southern Africa. It was hosted by the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre, together with UCLGA, WIN-SA and AusAid.

Read the full background paper

Read more about the Learning & Sharing Session “Winning the Race: Sanitation in rapidly-growing towns”

Australia: Christian group wants government to increase aid to water and sanitation

Australian MP Rob Oakeshott climbs aboard a giant toilet outside Parliament House to highlight the lack of proper sanitation in poor countries. Photo: Ray Strange / The Australian

A Christian group is calling on the Australian government to provide WASH access for 8.8 million people each year by increasing aid to water and sanitation from the current A$ 117 million (US$ 114 million) to A$ 500 million (US$ 487 million) per annum by 2015. Based on the estimated A$ 70 billion a year that is needed to meet the MDG targets for water and sanitation by 2015, the group believes that Australia’s fair share in this effort amounts to A$ 500 million per year.

As part of their Micah Challenge campaign, the group set up a giant toilet outside Parliament House to draw attention to global poverty and the link between decent sanitation and preventable deaths.

Asia: accelerated and sustainable progress in sanitation and hygiene is within our reach, hygiene experts say

Accelerated and sustainable progress in sanitation and hygiene is within reach in Asia, as long as we aim at district-wide coverage and build a broad alliance under leadership of local governments. This is the main conclusion of sanitation and hygiene experts from five countries (Nepal, Bhutan, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia) participating in a workshop for governance on water, sanitation and hygiene organized by the Nepal government together with SNV Netherlands Development Organisation and the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre from 13 to 17 September 2011.

Regional sharing and learning from experiences is an important aspect of the Sustainable Sanitation and Hygiene for All programme being implemented in 17 districts across Nepal, Bhutan, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, implemented by local government partners and assisted by SNV and IRC since 2008. Last year, this programme was intensified with co-funding from the AusAID Civil Society WASH Fund and recently with support from DFID in Vietnam. The aim is to contribute to giving two million rural people access to improved hygiene and sanitation facilities by the end of 2015.

Winning the race: Sanitation in rapidly-growing towns in Southern Africa

This is a call for participants and contributors to an in-depth learning and sharing session on sanitation in rapidly-growing towns.

IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre, together with UCLGA, WIN-SA and AusAid, are hosting a Learning and Sharing Workshop around this crucial topic in November 2011. The 2 day session, to be held near Johannesburg (in the week of 7 November), will explore proactive, tangible ways to deal with pressing sanitation issues in towns experiencing rapid growth in Southern Africa.

SADC participants (eligible countries in green here) are invited to apply to participate or contribute to the workshop – which discusses practical and pragmatic ways to seize the current ‘window of opportunity’ that exists in rapidly growing towns. The application deadline is 5 October 2011.

For more information and an application form go to: www.irc.nl/page/66412

Sustainable Sanitation and Hygiene for All: Performance monitoring instruction sheet

This document summarises the performance monitoring framework for the AusAID and The Netherlands Directorate-General for International Cooperation (DGIS) funded “Sustainable Sanitation and Hygiene for ALL” programme implemented by SNV, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre and local partners in Nepal, Bhutan, Laos, Cambodia and Viet Nam. The performance monitoring framework for rural sanitation and hygiene was developed jointly by SNV and IRC, with a large number of inputs from different partners and colleagues from the countries.

The monitoring framework is based on the Qualitative Information System (QIS) developed by IRC together with Pragmatix India.

Read the full Performance monitoring instruction sheet

Sanitation for kids: Australian web resource for schools

Sanitation is one the issues featured on AusAID’s Global Education Website. The objective of the Global Education Website is to increase the amount and quality of teaching of global education in Australian primary and secondary schools. The site supports the AusAID Global Education Program which aims to raise awareness and understanding among Australian school students of international issues, development and poverty, and to prepare them to live in an increasingly globalised world and to be active citizens shaping better futures.

The Sanitation global issue page provides the following case studies and teaching activities on:

• community-led total sanitation
• improving toilets
• spreading disease
• urban poor getting connected in Bangalore

There are also two project pages on Sanitation and Disease, one for lower and upper secondary years (LS-U/Sec) and one for upper primary years (UP)

South East Asia & Pacific: Water Report Highlights Need For Improved Sanitation and Water

The [Australian] Parliamentary Secretary for International Development Assistance, Mr Bob McMullan, […]  welcomed a report that highlights the sanitation and water challenges facing developing countries in [the South East Asia & Pacific] region.  The report by a coalition of academic and non-government organisations, including the Institute for Sustainable Futures and WaterAid Australia, was released to mark World Water Day [22 March 2009]..

“Meeting the Sanitation and Water Challenge in South East Asia and the Pacific” outlines priorities and actions for tackling the challenge of scaling up access to sanitation. […] The report was produced following the Sanitation and Water Conference held in Melbourne in October 2008

“The outcomes from this conference have helped develop the [Australian] Government’s Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Strategy and the related $300 million Access to Clean Water and Effective Sanitation Initiative,” Mr McMullan said.  “This initiative will increase the Government’s focus on meeting the challenges of sanitation [and water supply] in the Asia-Pacific and Africa and […] will also support water and sanitation infrastructure in schools.

Read the report here .

Source: AusAID, 22 Mar 2009

Sanitation and Water Conference 2008, 27-29 Oct 2008, Melbourne, Australia

Meeting the Challenge in East Asia and the Pacific

An international conference hosted by World Vision Australia and the Watsan Reference Group and supported by the Australian Government, AusAID

Conference Objectives

The conference will seek to review the status of sanitation and water in East Asia and the Pacific region, review best practice and key entry points, and devise actions and approaches that can best provide large scale sustainable solutions with a view to achieving the Millennium Development Goals. The conference will also provide a forum for AusAID to discuss its increased focus on sanitation and water.

The afternoon session on 27 October will focus on sanitation and hygiene in East Asia and the Pacific, with the following presentations:

• Keynote: Meeting the Sanitation Challenge in East Asia and the Pacific by Almud Weitz, RTL, WSP-EAP
• Keynote: Changing Sanitation Behaviour and the experience of CLTS by Andy Robinson, Sanitation Specialist
• Experience in Hygiene Behavior Change at scale in East Asia: Case Study by Jocelyn Loughman, World Vision Vanuatu
• Small Sewer Systems by Andreas Ulrich, BORDA
• Global Sanitation Fund – Opportunities for East Asia and the Pacific by Barry Jackson, WSSCC, Geneva
• Round Table on San/Hygiene Policy in East Asia with country presentations from: Laos, Cambodia, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam

For more information and registration details go to the conference web site