South Asia workshop: Sanitation and hygiene programmes must reach the poor

Updated - Monday 03 March 2008

Participants at the South Asia Sanitation and Hygiene practitioners' workshop in Bangladesh from 29 to 31 January 2008 identified five priority messages they will push in 2008:

Sanitation and hygiene programmes must reach the poor and this is what should guide partnerships.
More policy focus and funds are needed for urban sanitation for the poor.
Local government and communities are in highest need for capacity building to sustain sanitation services.
Needs of differently-abled people must be incorporated to achieve sanitation for all.
The issue of manual scavenging must be recognised and addressed.

The group will raise these issues and push for change during the International Year of Sanitation (IYS) and the third South Asia Conference on Sanitation (SACOSAN) in 2008, scheduled from 16 to 21 November 2008 in New Delhi, India.

The workshop jointly organised by IRC, WaterAid and BRAC brought together 53 practitioners working in South Asia, including those with specific experience in Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan Bhutan and Vietnam. They work for a wide range of organisations, including partner NGOs of IRC, WaterAid and BRAC as well as WaterAid country staff.

At the end of the workshop the participants agreed to be working together to inject learning from the workshop to sector debates and publications during IYS 2008, and at events such as during World Health Day on April 7, 2008 and through creating a platform for community and civil society perspectives to be heard at SACOSAN 2008.

Areas for joint action research

A quick voting exercise and buzz group discussion led to the prioritisation of possible areas for joint action research:

Developing golden indicators to measure outcomes and impacts - Which indicators would provide sound evidence for attribution of development impacts of sanitation and hygiene programmes on health, education, livelihoods, empowerment etc.?

Cost-effectiveness of hygiene promotion – What is the duration of an effective hygiene promotion programmes and what are the costs? How cost-effective are different approaches in different contexts?

Citizens voices and accountability – This would address the important issues of realising and meeting demands with transparency and accountability. Topics would include the differential access of citizens to information, the roles and responsibilities of different stakeholders to provide information on choices and their implications and their response to the emerged citizen demands, as well as the degree and effects of transparency of funds in promoting sanitation and hygiene.

Other research themes – These focused on the management of the sanitation chain, from sustained excreta containment to safe end-disposal and include:

- the time and cost of moving up the sanitation ladder;

- linking economic benefits of ECOSAN with cost of construction (cost benefit analysis);

- faecal sludge management and biogas options;

- NGO/CBO partnerships for motorized pit emptying;

-development of safety guidelines for low-tech manual pit emptying; and

- modification of septic tanks to make them ‘self treating’.

People interested in pursuing one of these research topics were identified during the workshop.