New compendium supports environmental sanitation

In February 2000, experts from a wide range of international organisations involved in environmental sanitation met in Bellagio, Italy, and proposed guiding principles to underpin planning and implementation of environmental sanitation services. These Bellagio Principles were further worked out by the Environmental Sanitation Working Group of WSSCC into the "Household-centred environmental sanitation (HCES) approach” for implementing the Bellagio Principles on sustainable sanitation in urban environmental sanitation.

In 2005 "Provisional guidelines for decision-makers on implementing the HCES" were produced, and by 2008 Sandec -- the Department of Water and Sanitation in Developing Countries at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) -- as the coordinating agency of the WSSCC Environmental Sanitation Working Group, had conducted or supported field trials of the approach in Kenya, Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Laos, Nepal and Costa Rica.

The ten-step HCES departs radically from central planning approaches since it places the household and neighbourhood at the core of the sanitation planning process. Using the concept of zones, the demand-responsive approach aims to create and maintain conditions whereby people lead healthy and productive lives, where the natural environment is protected and enhanced.

Further promotion needed

However, the HCES approach needs further promotion and support. While the sector is increasingly aware of the need to design sanitation programmes that are both socially and environmentally appropriate and sustainable, promoters of the HCES and similar planning approaches still face a number of misconceptions in discussions with decision-makers, for instance, the myth that basic and simple technology cannot be good technology.

One of the main bottlenecks encountered worldwide is the limited knowledge and awareness about more appropriate and sustainable systems and technologies that keep project costs affordable and acceptable, while providing users with a fully acceptable level of service. Abundant information exists about sanitation technologies, but it is scattered throughout dozens of books, reports, proceedings and journals, and often not picked up by the systems designers and decision-makers, who therefore largely stick to what they know.

To tackle this problem, Eawag/Sandec has worked over the last two years to develop a "Compendium of sanitation systems and technologies". This joint production by Sandec and WSSCC has been developed to support the wider HCES planning approach, by pulling essential information together in one volume and promoting a systems approach.

52 technology information sheets

There are two main sections to the Compendium. Section 1 describes different system configurations at the macro scale. Section 2 consists of 52 different Technology Information Sheets, which describe the main advantages, disadvantages, applications and appropriateness of the technologies required to build a comprehensive sanitation system.

By presenting an extensive array of available options, it is hoped that the compendium will help to promote people-centred solutions to real sanitation problems by providing information to those who are looking for alternatives to the most common offerings. It is a powerful new tool for those promoting demand-responsive sanitation programming approaches.

The HCES provisional guidelines can be downloaded for free in English, French and Spanish at www.sandec.ch and www.wsscc.org.

The Compendium of Sanitation Systems and Technologies will be launched officially during the World Toilet Summit in November 2008, after which it will also be freely available through these same websites.

A full-colour, bound copy can be ordered by sending an email to info@sandec.ch. The compendium costs US$ 30, but consideration will be given to requests for free copies from developing countries.

Keywords

• Participatory Management
• Sanitation - On-site sanitation