Sanitation Sustainability Index

A new index for on-site sanitation systems is proposed and tested in the context of South Korea. It incorporates the technical, social, and economic aspects of sanitation systems, including onsite waste recycling.

Hashemi, S. Sanitation Sustainability Index: A Pilot Approach to Develop a Community-Based Indicator for Evaluating Sustainability of Sanitation Systems. Sustainability 2020, 12, 6937. DOI:10.3390/su12176937

Abstract: Evaluating the sustainability of sanitation systems is essential in achieving the sixth sustainable development goal. However, there are only limited number of available evaluation indexes, which are utilized to macroscopically determine a community’s sanitation coverage. Consequently, an index is required, which can evaluate different sanitation options for a specific community. In this paper, the sanitation sustainability index (SSI) is suggested as an indicator for evaluating the sustainability of sanitation systems. The SSI has sub-indexes that consider the technical, social, and economic aspects of the sanitation system, and all the variables are dimensionless and heavily dependent on the current state of the community where the sanitation system is going to be implemented. The applicability of the SSI was demonstrated by evaluating the implementation of two onsite sanitation systems, including one septic tank system and one resource-oriented sanitation (ROS) system in South Korea. A sensitivity analysis defined the variables that have significant impact, and the statistical distribution of the SSI for both systems was forecasted. The results showed that for South Korea, which has a profound history of utilizing human waste as fertilizer, utilizing the resource-oriented sanitation system is more sustainable, although it has a lower social sub-index score compared to the septic tank system.

Priorities for the WASH sector in Ethiopia: report from a multi-stakeholder forum

By María Florencia Rieiro, Independent WASH Consultant

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.

Examining the Sustainability of USAID’s Millennium Water Alliance Activity in Ethiopia

Examining the Sustainability of USAID’s Millennium Water Alliance Activity in Ethiopia

The USAID Water Office hosted a webinar on May 17, 2018, “Examining Sustainability of USAID’s Millennium Water Alliance Activity in Ethiopia.” 

The webinar presented key findings from a soon-to-be released USAID ex-post evaluation of the Millennium Water Alliance-Ethiopia Program (MWA-EP) between 2004 and 2009 in 24 rural woredas (districts) of Ethiopia.

• Download the handouts
  • Webinar Slides
  • Final Evaluation Executive Summary
• Learn more about the event

Rushing into solutions without fully grasping the problem

Which factors in the enabling environment and which links between actors are key to achieving reliable sanitation services?

Tanzania did not reach the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) concerning improved sanitation facilities in 2012 (JMP Report 2014). Several years later – in the era of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – there is still a lot to be done in the sanitation sector.

Angela Huston (IRC Programme Officer) and Dr Sara Gabrielsson (Assistant Professor at Lund University) are working on an upcoming book chapter about deconstructing the complexities that perpetuate poor water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services in East Africa. Departing from Sustainability Science, the chapter aims to identify which factors in the enabling environment are key to achieving reliable WASH services. This article highlights Huston’s and Gabrielsson’s insights into this topic.

Sanitation options for sustainability: reflections from the UNC Conference

Sanitation options for sustainability: reflections from the UNC Conference, by Lillian Mbeki, Social Marketing and Private Sector Development Specialist Consultant at Water& Sanitation Program. 

I am attending the 2016 Water and Health conference organised by the Water Institute at University of North Carolina USA. The conference whose theme is ‘where science meets policy’ focuses on safe drinking water, sanitation, hygiene and water resources. Participants and presenters include members of academia, governments, development banks, donor agencies and WASH implementers.

When thinking about ODF sustainability and moving up the sanitation ladder an important consideration has been introduction of sanitation options/products. A number of organisation s have to date tried many product options and intervention strategies with varied levels of results. iDE had some lessons to share on what they have learnt from implementing sanitation marketing in Cambodia.

What is the ideal product for households? What is stopping you?
The discussion started with this simple question. The core message being that most programs design products based on some defined assumptions and then invest in changing behaviours of communities to adopt that product. When in essence a consumer centric approach has been seen to be more effective. The iDE experience in both toilet and water filter product development and marketing, led to the conclusion that listening to the consumer’s voice, obeying it and correctly interpreting the consumer’s desire results in much higher program success even at the BoP. So the question is, if we know this, why are we not doing it? Answers to this question include: fear of risk by private sector, lack of data, difficulty in building consensus, limited funding, affordability and lack of appropriate solutions.

If we identify the barriers to developing and designing the ideal solutions for households then we can identify possible solutions to removing the bottlenecks. This is usually the point at which different partnerships with various strengths are identified and the strategy becomes how to leverage their capabilities to make the ideal happen.

Read the complete article.

 

IRC WASH Toolkit

IRC has compiled a growing repository of tools and guidance for strengthening water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) service delivery.

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of universal access to WASH by 2030 requires a systems approach, This means tackling all dimensions such as monitoring systems to see whether services are delivered; financing frameworks that define who pays for what and how; and procurement mechanisms for infrastructure development.

The toolkit is organised around the two related goals of delivering services and delivering change.

The toolkit covers both water supply and sanitation. Sanitation and hygiene-specific tools have been grouped under the sanitation and behaviour change blocks.

Included are best practices, case studies and approaches developed and tested in IRC’s work with governments, NGOs and other partners in over 20 countries.

The tools come from big, multi-country initiatives, such as WASHCost, Triple-S and WASHTech, as well as more focused pieces of work, such as our partnership with the government of Ethiopia to develop guidelines for self-supply.

We are in the early stages of development, so for now the toolkit is a beta product. We encourage you to use and build on our work. We do, however, request you to acknowledge the source and share your experience with us. We also welcome your feedback as we continue to expand and refine the toolkit. Please send your comments, questions and experiences to info@ircwash.org.

The toolkit is available at: www.ircwash.org/wash-tools

 

Sustainable Sanitation for All: Experiences, challenges, and innovations

Sustainable Sanitation for All: Experiences, challenges, and innovations, June 2016. Practical Action.

• Download entire book or by chapter

Great strides have been made in improving sanitation in many developing countries. Yet, 2.4 billion people worldwide still lack access to adequate sanitation facilities and the poorest and most vulnerable members of society are often not reached and their specific needs are not met. 

Moreover, sustainability is currently one of the key challenges in CLTS and wider WASH practice, subsuming issues such as behaviour change, equity and inclusion, physical sustainability and sanitation marketing, monitoring and verification, engagement of governments, NGOs and donors, particularly after open defecation free (ODF) status is reached, and more.

Achievement of ODF status is now recognised as only the first stage in a long process of change and sanitation improvement, with new challenges emerging every step of the way, such as how to stimulate progress up the sanitation ladder, how to ensure the poorest and marginalised are reached, or how to maintain and embed behaviour change.

There have been several useful studies on sustainability that have highlighted some of these different aspects as well as the complexities involved. This book develops these key themes by exploring current experience, practices, challenges, innovations and insights, as well as identifying a future research agenda and gaps in current knowledge.

Describing the landscape of sustainability of CLTS and sanitation with reference to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and through examples from Africa and Asia, the book captures a range of experiences and innovations from a broad range of institutions and actors within the WASH sector, and attempts to make recommendations and practical suggestions for policy and practice for practitioners, funders, policy-makers and governments.

DFID should ensure sustainability of its WASH programmes – independent review

Richard Gledhill

By Richard Gledhill, ICAI lead commissioner for WASH review

62.9 million people – almost the population of the UK – that’s how many people in developing countries DFID claimed to have reached with WASH interventions between 2011 and 2015.

It’s an impressive figure. And – in our first ever ‘impact review’ – it’s a figure the Independent Commission for Aid Impact found to be based on credible evidence.

We assessed the results claim made by DFID about WASH, testing the evidence and visiting projects to see the results for ourselves. We  concluded that the claim was credible – calculated using appropriate methods and conservative assumptions.

But what does reaching 62.9 million people really mean? Have lives been transformed? And have the results been sustainable?

Accelerating and sustaining behaviour change: New handbook launched at GSF learning event

This week, the Global Sanitation Fund (GSF) and the GSF-funded ‘Fonds d’Appui pour l’Assainissement’ (FAA) in Madagascar launched a new handbook on accelerating and sustaining the end of open defecation.

The handbook was launched during the GSF Learning Event in Antananarivo, Madagascar, inaugurated by Madagascar’s Minister of Water Sanitation and Hygiene, Roland Ravatomanga.

A community celebrating the creation of their ‘model latrine’ for others to replicate during a FUM session in Madagascar. Credit: WSSCC

The ‘Follow-up MANDONA’ (FUM) handbook is a field guide for practitioners of Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) – an empowering approach for improving sanitation and hygiene through collective behaviour change, rather than external subsidies or prescription. FUM aims to systematically engage communities after they have been initially ‘triggered’ and committed to ending open defecation.

‘Mandona’ is a Malagasy word which means ‘to push’. FUM brings the entire community together for a self-analysis of their sanitation situation, which then helps them immediately create models that prevent the ingestion of faeces. The approach harnesses the power of Natural Leaders to replicate these models across the community, which includes helping those that are least able, in order to advance to ODF status. By focusing on sustainable behaviour change, FUM is also a useful tool for addressing issues surrounding ‘slippage’, which relates to returning to previous unhygienic behaviours.

FUM was developed and refined by MIARINTSOA NGO, a sub-grantee of the FAA programme. Given the success of FUM in Madagascar and elsewhere, the GSF and FAA created the FUM handbook to provide a practical guide for how CLTS practitioners can implement the approach in their own contexts.

Download ‘Follow-up MANDONA: A field guide for accelerating and sustaining open defecation free communities’ (English/French)

The weeklong global event where the handbook was launched brings together implementing partners, WASH experts, and high-level government representatives from GSF-supported programmes. These actors are exchanging ideas and sharing best practices for achieving improved sanitation and hygiene behaviour at scale.

During the launch, WSSCC Executive Director Chris Williams highlighted how FUM is engraining the sustainability of sanitation and hygiene behaviour change in Madagascar and beyond. “Once a village, or an entire commune, has reached ODF status, the story isn’t over. In fact, the work continues. This important publication documents the innovations that Madagascar has put together to systematically follow-up with villages. FUM aims to ensure that the change in attitudes and creation of convictions that my ‘sanitation problem is your sanitation problem’ – ‘or my shit is your shit’ – is dealt with as a collective community effort.”

WSSCC Executive Director holds up the Follow-up MANDONA handbook at GSF Learning Event opening ceremony. Credit: WSSCC/Okechukwu Umelo

FUM has become one of FAA’s most important tools for empowering over 1.6 million people to live in open defecation free environments on their own terms. Due to its success in Madagascar, FUM has recently become a core strategy for national sanitation and hygiene programmes in Uganda, Nigeria, Benin, and Togo.

Community members in Nigeria agreeing to trigger their neighbours and help those who don’t have the means to build their own latrine. Credit: WSSCC

Kamal Kar, the Chairman of the CLTS Foundation, which has extensively supported the FAA programme to develop their CLTS approach, emphasized the importance of the handbook in sharing proven approaches to practitioners around the world: “I am glad that the Malagasy NGO, MIARINTSOA, with the help of the FAA programme, WSSCC and the GSF, has systematically documented their experience of post-triggering follow-up from their implementation of CLTS over the last 4-5 years. Publication of this Follow-up MANDONA handbook is indeed a step forward towards country-wide scaling up of good practice of CLTS in Madagascar and beyond.”

Eugène De Ligori Rasamoelina, Executive Director of MIARINTSOA NGO, which developed and refined Follow-up MANDONA. Credit: WSSCC

“I must say that the emergence of thousands of ODF villages in Madagascar, starting with my multiple support visits to the country since 2010 to strengthen the approach, is a brilliant example of quality CLTS implementation with its central philosophy of local empowerment. I believe that this handbook will be useful in understanding and ensuring post-triggering follow-up in CLTS for sustained behaviour change.”

Find out more about the Global Sanitation Fund on the WSSCC website.

Do donor restrictions affect sustainability of water and sanitation interventions? Results from a Pilot Survey

Do donor restrictions affect sustainability of water and sanitation interventions? Results from a Pilot Survey, 2015. Improve International.

• Full text

During August-September 2015, Improve International prepared and distributed a survey via Survey Monkey. Out of 14 questions, five allowed open-ended responses, six were multiple-choice and three were yes/no. Three multiple-choice questions allowed for more than one response and seven questions contained comments sections.

The survey was intended for international development organizations (for-profit or not-for profit), civic groups, universities, volunteer groups, or community-based organizations that raise funds from US-based donors to implement or fund water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions.