-
-
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. -
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. -
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? -
Reviews
01.01.2016
Water Culture in South Asia: Bangladesh Perspectives, by Suzanne Hanchett, Tofazzel Hossain Monju, Kazi Rozana Akhter, Shireen Akhter, and Anwar Islam 2014, Development Resources Press, 308 pages, ISBN 978-0-9906337-0-9 hbk (colour, US$39.99), ISBN 978-0-9906337-1-6 pbk (b/w, $19.99), eBook PDF $9.99 -
Who really pays? A critical overview of the practicalities of funding universal access
01.01.2016
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include targets to achieve universal access to water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) within the next 15 years (2015–30). To be sustainable, this requires the long-term funding of efficient operating costs, capital maintenance costs, and any costs of capital. It is recognized that this can only be done through a combination of user charges, national taxes, and international transfers. This paper describes the main permutations in present user charges and subsidies, and reports on the ways in which each helps or hinders access by the poor to both rural and urban WASH services. An overview, based on programme experience, academic and grey literature, indicates that it is possible to accelerate the provision of clean water, basic sanitation, and improved hygiene practices ahead of the socio-economic (effective demand) trend line but only with very significant direct and indirect subsidies; direct to consumers and indirect to the supporting institutions or entities (‘the enabling environment’). We conclude that, in the near term at least, it is likely that transfers will have to be acknowledged as a more prominent source of funding for recurrent costs, specifically capital maintenance charges, than donors would prefer. If supporting ongoing services for all, in rural areas or low-income urban settlements, with the necessary level of ongoing subsidies (transfers) is unaffordable for global society, most likely by default, then focusing upon subsidizing the poorest and most marginalized in the long term is the ‘least bad’ alternative approach – but this approach cannot be expected to deliver genuine SDGs. -
Water, sanitation, and hygiene in emergencies: summary review and recommendations for further research
01.01.2012
Water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions can interrupt diarrhoeal disease transmission and reduce the burden of morbidity and mortality associated with faecal-oral infections. We know that rapid response of effective WASH infrastructure and services can prevent or lessen the impact of diarrhoeal outbreaks that can exacerbate the human suffering accompanying humanitarian crises. In this review summary, we present an overview of current knowledge about what works to prevent disease in emergency WASH response. We know that providing safe water, safe excreta disposal, and basic hygiene measures such as hand washing with soap are effective interventions both within emergency settings as well as in longer-term development, but innovation and further research are needed to make WASH response more effective. We propose key areas for critical research to support the evidence base for WASH interventions in emergencies and promote innovation. -
Interview: Sanitation in Zimbabwe
01.10.2011
Peter Morgan talks to Sue Cavill about ecosanitation; the sanitation ladder; an experimental approach to life; 40 years in Zimbabwe; cross-sectoral working; and what keeps him optimistic. -
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.