Why this practitioners seminar?

In the drive to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, the primary focus of many country programmes is to facilitate infrastructure provision for safe household and school sanitation. As a result, there is a growing knowledge gap in terms of learning and sharing lessons which would stimulate good practices towards ensuring the implementation of sustainable sanitation services, which are used effectively and hygienically towards improved health.

It is crucial that lessons and good practices in household and school sanitation and hygiene are shared and documented within and between regions in sub-Saharan Africa. This will enable the replication and upscaling of good practices, counter-act the duplication of errors and wasted resources, and is needed for informing changes in policy and approach towards effective sanitation provision that achieves the intended benefits.

The Seminar for Practitioners Household and School Sanitation and Hygiene in East and Southern Africa, for which this collection of papers and presentations was prepared, was a step towards enhancing information and lesson learning and sharing, encouraging practitioners to reflect critically on factors for improved impact, and documenting and sharing these lessons and practices

The two-day Seminar (19-21 November 2007) was also an opportunity to synthesise lessons and experiences for broader dissemination through a composite publication of similar Seminars held in South Asia and Latin America, towards actions to be taken in the International Year of Sanitation (2008), and for political discussion and follow-up on regional/national actions at the AfricaSan+5 Conference (2008).