A new video from Plan International and the Water Institute at UNC offers a preview of five exciting lessons on sanitation policy and practice, based on findings from operational research on community-led total sanitation (CLTS). These lessons relate to CLTS planning at the national and local levels, its place in national sanitation systems, and the importance of involving local actors. In particular, government officials, teachers, and natural leaders can play important roles in improving access to basic sanitation, and their involvement can ensure sustainable outcomes over time.
The MapSan study aims to explore the links between sanitation, population density, and health outcomes in Maputo, Mozambique. The video describes a controlled, before-and-after trial of an urban sanitation intervention to reduce enteric infections in children:
Can microfinance help increase access to sanitation? Today, 2.5 billion people do not use proper sanitation facilities. Essential services for maintaining latrines and treating faecal sludge are also underdeveloped. In many places, toilets can cost up to one year of income for poor households. Private operators of sanitation services do not have enough capital to acquire more equipment and respond to growing demand.
Since 2010, Trémolet Consulting and research partners based in Kenya MicroSave have been exploring the potential of microfinance for helping sanitation markets to develop. The research, funded by SHARE/DFID, culminated with an action-research in Tanzania in which financial institutions were trained to provide financial services for sanitation. This film explains why microfinance should be explored further, and potentially, included in sanitation programmes.
The film also presents what has been done in Tanzania under the action-research and takes the views of households, sanitation entrepreneurs, microfinance institutions and researchers.
A new short video “Wastewater: A widespread threat and missed resource” highlights the impacts of wastewater on coastal communities and ecosystems, and the benefits of improving its management. It is part of a series of ocean awareness videos titled Two Minutes on Oceans with Jim Toomey, a collaboration between the popular American cartoonist Toomey and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
iDE congratulates the people of Cambodia in a new video:
“Cambodia: Growing Momentum for Sanitation”
The great progress in rural sanitation is something for Cambodia to be proud of.”
—Chreay Pom, Director, Department of Rural Health at Ministry of Rural Development
The rate at which sanitary toilets are being installed in rural Cambodia has increased dramatically since the Government of Cambodia made rural sanitation a priority in 2008. In the past six years, hundreds of thousands of rural families are experiencing the benefits of improved sanitation for the first time. This video celebrates Cambodia’s progress in sanitation and highlights the people who have made it possible—government officials, local business people and rural families.
“In 2008, the government set sanitation as a priority in order to improve people’s standard of living. Since then, we’ve noticed a huge change in rural communities. People have latrines at home and they understand what good sanitation is, and actually practice it within their families.” —Dr. Chea Samnang, WSSCC National Coordinator
Many national and international organizations have also contributed to the sanitation movement happening in Cambodia. One of these organizations is iDE. iDE is dedicated to outsmarting diarrheal disease by making sure that quality toilets are accessible through local markets at an affordable price.
“…We are helping the private sector learn what people want and helping them produce and sell it at an affordable price. The last few years have been a turning point across the country, with annual toilet sales increasing four-fold since 2008.” —iDE
iDE’s three-year Sanitation Marketing Scale-Up (SMSU) project is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Stone Family Foundation, and technically supported by the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) of the World Bank. The project is supported by the Ministry of Rural Development.
iDE is an international non-profit organization dedicated to creating income and livelihood opportunities for the rural poor. In addition to worldwide programs in agriculture, iDE implements programs in Africa and Asia in the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector. iDE’s WASH programs focus on creating markets around aspirational and effective WASH products and services that reduce diarrheal disease among poor households. iDE has impacted more than 23 million people globally to date through its WASH and agriculture interventions.
Promoted as their best video of the day, the Guardian has produced a short video animation highlighting the plight of the 2.5 billion without a toilet.
More people have access to mobile phones than to bog-standard sanitation around the world. The numbers are actually quite close – both are around the 4.5bn mark. But the implications are clear: as a species, we value a text, a tweet, the incessant pulse of blinking pixels over one of our most basic sanitary needs: the loo.
SNV has produced a short video on the harsh reality of current urban sanitation practices in Bangladesh. Of course they want to change this. That is at least the intention of SNV’s recently launched “Modernising urban sanitation in Southern Bangladesh” project focussing on market-based solutions.
At the first official UN celebration of World Toilet Day on 19 November 2013, a “mobile” toilet takes over the seat of Yemen at the UN headquarters in New York. Listen to the podcast of the UN Seminar and panel discussion entitled “Sanitation for All” here.
Sanitation Updates 