-
A global assessment of budgeting and financing for WASH in schools
01.10.2020
The aim of this review is to assess the literature (published and grey) on capital and recurrent costs of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) in Schools (WinS) facilities and services. The review presents life-cycle costs (e.g. consumables, repair, support, and maintenance) of WinS services and assesses the practical costing exercises and tools currently available for WinS. Furthermore, this review characterizes the typical costs and financial sources for WASH services in (primary) schools and explores the different financial mechanisms available to meet school-level WASH financing gaps. -
A call to action: organizational, professional, and personal change for gender transformative WASH programming
01.07.2020
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and targets aimed at improving access to water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) are also an opportunity for the transformation of gender norms. To facilitate this transformation, this paper makes a call to action for global and national efforts for organizational, professional, and personal change. Several NGOs are leading a process towards a more reflective and transformative approach. This paper presents a number of examples – from headquarters, and others from country offices and research institutes – of the changes under way to support a stronger connection between the ‘outer faces’ of WASH professionals in the sector and the individual, personal inner spaces. The paper concludes with a set of recommendations for personal and organizational change. -
A promising approach for motivating handwashing in Tanzania
01.01.2020
Behaviour-centred design can be used to trigger changes in sanitation and hygiene practices. SNV Netherlands Development Organization used behaviour-centred design in an intervention to address the motivators of washing hands with soap in its Sustainable Sanitation and Hygiene For All (SSH4A) programme. This paper describes the use of emotional demonstrations (emo-demos) for triggering handwashing behaviour changes. The targets were the caregivers of children. Emo-demos focused on the motives of nurture (desire to care for one’s offspring) and disgust (a feeling of revulsion to avoid disease vectors and contamination). The paper provides practical information for implementing a small-scale handwashing promotion emo-demo within a WASH programme intervention. It concludes with lessons learned for wider practice. -
Editorial: Doing WASH well – a set of principles for implementing agencies and their evaluators
01.07.2019
Many of the readers of this journal work in national and local governments and non-governmental organizations. With financial and in-kind support from communities, from national budget allocations, and from funds provided by external donor agencies, they aim to improve water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services at household and community level, and across entire local government administrative areas. -
Assessing change in access to WASH in Palestinian schools
01.04.2019
This paper presents the main results from a knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) survey on water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) in government schools in the State of Palestine (SoP). In 2012 a baseline WASH KAP survey was conducted in 411 schools. In 2015–2016 a statistically representative survey was performed; the sample included 381 of the 411 schools originally sampled in 2012. The survey targeted basic and secondary schools in urban and rural areas of all educational directorates in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The survey was conducted by UNICEF in coordination with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MoEHE). The findings of the 2016 survey show positive changes in the availability of potable water in schools, which also enabled hygiene and sanitation activities to improve. For instance, more schools taught hygiene education to students on a daily basis in 2016 than in 2012. However, the survey revealed that ensuring the participation of parents and students in WASH activities and continuity of supply of soap, toilet paper, and sanitary pads remains a challenge. This paper concludes with recommendations to further improve the access to WASH in Palestinian schools. -
-
-
Transgender-inclusive sanitation: insights from South Asia
01.04.2018
This paper provides insights from initiatives to include transgender people in sanitation programming in South Asia. Three case studies of recent actions to make sanitation inclusive for transgender people (in India and Nepal) are presented, accompanied by reflections and recommendations to guide future practice. Practitioners are recommended to: engage with transgender people as partners at all stages of an initiative; recognize that the language of gender identity is not fixed, varying across cultures and between generations; and acknowledge that transgender people are not a single homogeneous group but rather have diverse identities, histories, and priorities. The case studies aim to raise awareness of the diversity of transgender identities, exploring the needs and aspirations of transgender women, transgender men, and third gender people in South Asia. -
Rethinking the effectiveness of defecation postures and practices: it’s not what you do it’s the way that you do it!
01.10.2017
This paper reports on a piece of research to investigate the effectiveness of defecation postures and anal cleansing method. The research compared how long each bowel movement took on a pedestal toilet with and without a footstool. Volunteers were asked to compare the two positions for speed as well as stress/strain on the body. The effectiveness of the method of anal cleansing was also rated by a subset of the volunteers. Although the study was conducted using volunteers in the UK, the findings have international relevance for sanitation marketing and hygiene promotion programmes. -
Taking Stock: Incompetent at incontinence – why are we ignoring the needs of incontinence sufferers?
01.07.2016
How would you cope if you had no control over how you urinated or defecated and regularly or constantly leaked urine or faeces? How would this make you feel? How would you deal with the smell, with the indignity? What if you were a young teenager, traumatized by very stressful events and returned to bed-wetting as a result? And what would you do if you didn’t have the money to buy spare underwear or incontinence protection products or those are simply not available to you? Could you manage if you were suddenly displaced in an emergency and did not have access to a toilet, shower or bathing facilities, or your usual materials and coping mechanisms? What if you lived in a camp and your toilet or bathing shelter was a 5 minute walk away and had a long line in front of it? Would you be able to stand in line at food distribution or water collection points, go to school, or look for or undertake work?