WASH helpdesk

WASH Helpdesk moves to WordPress

2008-05-26T10:57:00.003Z

As an organisation we have chosen WordPress as standard application for our blogs. The current Blogger page will no longer be maintained. Our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause you.

We invite you to go to the NEW LOCATION !

We have transferred all the existing question and answers - up to 15 May 2008 - to this location. Please bookmark the new location of the WASH Helpdesk: http://washhelpdesk.wordpress.com/

Thank you for visiting this page,

kind regards,

Ingeborg Krukkert,
IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre

Effect of access to water and sanitation on achieving MDGs

2008-04-10T10:45:00.007Z

Q: I know that improved access to water and sanitation has a positive effect on more than half of the MDGs. Do you have a 1-2 page summary of these effects?
(sector professional, Dutch NGO)

Answer: The best two-pages are from WaterAid, as far as I know. They illustrate that access to safe water and sanitation will underpin success in achieving all the MDGs and must be part of an integrated approach to development. See: http://www.wateraid.org/international/what_we_do/policy_and_research/6241.asp

Examples of water and conflict

2008-03-03T09:15:00.005Z

Q. The Pacific Institute (USA) is updating, again, our Water Conflict Chronology and we're looking for new (2006-2008) examples you might have come across recently of violence related to water: access, quality, terrorism, etc. in the news.

Answer. Use this link to find articles published over the past year in Source Weekly on "conflict" or "conflicts".

See also the documents published in the Negotiating peri-urban water conflicts (NEGOWAT) project (2003-2006).

How to get involved in the International Year of Sanitation?

2008-01-23T20:07:00.000Z

Q: Ours is a research and development center for the youth under the aegis of the ministry of youth affairs and sports of the government of India. We want to participate in the international year of sanitation and also for the programmes and we want to promote the programme in our area. (Institute of National Instruments, India)

Answer:
If you are interested in getting involved in the International Year of Sanitation, please visit the official site of the IYS. There you will find some ideas to get you started. Go to the section Get Involved for more information.

Diarrhoea impact indicator for water and sanitation performance

2007-12-21T10:37:00.000Z

Q. I remember that some consensus has developed about best indicators for measuring impacts on diarrhoeal disease. If I remember correctly it was asking about the number and type of people (especially children under 5) in the family who have had loose stools in the previous two weeks. Do you have more info on this?
(IRC staff member)

Answer: In 1999 the Academy for Educational Development (AED) developed the following impact indicator for USAID water and sanitation programmes:

Percentage of children less than 36 months of age with diarrhoea in the last two weeks

This indicator is the period prevalence of diarrhoea based on the two-week recall of the child's primary caretaker (usually the mother). It is defined as the proportion of children in a given sample who have diarrhea at the time the information is collected or who have had it anytime in the two preceding weeks. Diarrhoea is defined as more than three loose stools passed in a twenty-four hour period. Age is calculated in completed months at the time the information
is collected from the caretaker. A child who is 20 days old is considered zero months of age, and a child of 50 days is considered one month old.

Source: Bendahmane, D.; Billig, P. and Swindale, A. (1999). Water and sanitation indicators measurement guide. Washington, DC, USA, Academy for Educational Development. http://www.fantaproject.org/downloads/pdfs/watsan.pdf

The World Health Organization (WHO) has developed “Indicators to improve children's environmental health”, which include mortality, morbidity and recurrence rates for diarrhoeal diseases.

The WHO indicator for diarrhoea morbidity is:

Incidence of diarrhoea morbidity in children aged 0-4 years.

Terms and concepts

Diarrhoea: three or more watery stools in a 24-hour period, a loose stool being one that would take the shape of the container (WHO 1996), or local definition of diarrhoea.

Episode of diarrhoea: An episode of diarrhoea begins with a 24-hour period with three or more loose or watery stools. An episode of diarrhoea isconsidered to have ended after 48 hours without three or more loose watery stools within a 24-hour period.

Incidence of diarrhoea morbidity: total number of episodes of diarrhoea during a 1-year period amongst the children surveyed.

Total population of children aged 0-4 years: number of children less than five years of age in the survey, at the time of survey.

Pumps and operation details

2007-11-12T10:08:00.000Z

Q: I would like to get the details of various pumps IWWA (Indian Water Works Association) is using and its operation detail. I need to know more about it, please provide me the details.
(Senior Engineer in an India Manufacturer Company)

Answer: IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre is not related to IWWA. However, we can provide you with some web sites and documents which have information on pumps:

PUBLICATIONS

The publication: "Linking Technology Choice with Operation and Maintenance for Low-Cost Water Supply and Sanitation (2.40 MB)" provides 50 illustrated fact sheets on various low-cost water supply and sanitation technologies. See part II of this guidance manual. Download the PDF file (2.4 MB)

NWP et al. 2004). Smart water solutions : examples of innovative, low-cost technologies for wells, pumps, storage, irrigation and water treatment. Delft, The Netherlands, Netherlands Water Partnership (NWP).
This booklet provides examples of small-scale innovative technologies to increase access to safe drinking water. It includes technologies such as the use of sunlight to purify water, effective low-cost water filters, low-cost drip irrigation and locally produced hand pumps that are five times cheaper than imported pumps.

ORGANISATIONS and NETWORKS to contact for more information on pumps:

ATatWork, a Dutch network of professionals from government, academia, NGOs and the private sector who are interested in the large-scale market introduction of appropriate water and sanitation technologies.

Lifewater Canada, a non-profit group training nationals to drill safe drinking water wells and build handpumps.
See their Water wells tutorial , an on-line tutorial providing technical instructions needed to construct safe drinking water wells. In-depth instructions are provided on using the LS-100 drill machine and Bush (modified Zimbabwe) handpumps. The Handpumps Resources section provides information on and links to over 25 handpumps for shallow and deep wells.

Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN)
Formerly called the "Handpump Technology Network"(HTN) aims to facilitate the provision of safe water and sanitation to the poor and deprived through the promotion of sustainable technologies - primarily hand-pump technology - that are affordable and responsive to the needs of the users.
RWSN Secretariat
Skat Foundation
Vadianstrasse 42
CH-9000 St.Gallen
Switzerland
- Telephone: +41 71 228 54 54
- FAX: +41 71 228 54 55
- E-mail: rwsn@skat.ch

RWSN has published "Handpumps, Mechanised Pumps, Surface Water - Technology Options", a small compendium of technology options for rural water supply. Briefly describing the various types of most common handpumps and providing information on motorised pumps.

Pump Aid, Water for Life
Founded in Zimbabwe, Pump Aid works to relieve poverty in Africa using appropriate and sustainable technology to provide clean water for drinking and irrigation.
- Address: 52 Priory Road
Loughborough
LE11 3PP Leicestershire
United Kingdom
- Telephone: +44 1283 713902
- E-mail: IanThorpe@pumpaid.org, karenmercer@pumpaid.org

Further good info on pumps can be get from Practica Foundation based in the Netherlands. They facilitate research, development and commercial application of technology in the field of water and energy in developing countries. Practica works with a network of partner organisations that produce, promote and sell improved rural products.

More information on documents and organisations dealing with village level handpumps can be found at the Ask IRC page.

Community-Led Total Sanitation

2007-10-29T12:04:00.000Z

Q: Community-Led Total Sanitation is very popular and the approach seems to be copied by many countries. What is your opinion of the CLTS approach?
(Indonesia Sanitation Sector Development Project (ISSDP))

Answer: (by Christine Sijbesma, senior programme officer at IRC)
Please find herewith the (to my knowledge) lastest paper on the Community Led Total Sanitation Campaign. It´s an IDS working paper by Kamal Kar and Petra Bongartz, published in 2006: Update on some recent development in Community-Led Total Sanitation. [2,6 MB]

Although CLTS is a good campaign approach and may also work well in closely knit urban communities, it can in my view be improved:

Gender and a gender equity approach are absent – who take part in e.g. the initial inventory, in discussion and information on latrine options, in decision-making on choice of technology and design, in local leadership, in training of local leaders, in expansion to other communities (one program pays local leaders USD 8 per day to train and guide other communities), in recognition? All data I saw were non-sex disaggregated.
Although cases of solidarity with the very poor have been reported, there is no systematic approach to assist the them, although the methodology does allow this. It only excludes external subsidy as non-sustainable, often inequitable and discouraging action. There are proven ways for systematic solidarity with the poor through internal help in kind/cash in various forms which could be included in CLTS. The PRA tools of classifying and mapping welfare levels (which are in the toolsfile) help planning and accountability of support to the worst-off.
While problem identification and action are community-led, knowledge sharing could be more systematic. It is now up to each individual household to make/improve designs – sharing know-how and technical skils is not a systematic component. I noted the same in Payakumbuh. People did not visit each others’ toilet, design and building were still a private matter. It would be good to systematically include knowledge sharing on design and construction e.g. through discussing designs and ways of building in male and female FGDs and inter-household visits from households (couples!) who are still planning their toilets to households who have already constructed;
Durability (and so sustainability) of the cheapest models is frequently low – while the approach can easily include planned upgrading of initial models over time, this issue seems not to be addressed systematically;
The emphasis is on outputs (100% toilets/no more open defecation) - there is no systematic monitoring and reporting of outcomes (e.g. hygienically used and maintained toilets, water collected by all family members for flushing and handwashing; toilet brush, handwashing soap present, potties for infants, infant and baby stools enddisposed in toilet) , nor consolidation and independent checking of data at above-community level.
Although a key issue, toilets are not the only area for action – other hygiene aspects can be linked

For more information on CLTS, take a look at the Livelihoods Connect Hot Topic ´Community Led Total Sanitation´. This site is part of the research project Going to Scale? The Potential of Community-Led Total Sanitation, managed by the Institute of Development Studies.

Water and sanitation glossary

2007-08-21T12:49:00.000Z

Q: I am about to develop a glossary of common terms to be placed under the umbrella of water and environmental health. I seek generally agreed interpretations of these two terms plus interpretations or definitions of other water and sanitation terms. Do you know if such a glossary already exists?
(researcher, INGO, Ireland)

Answer:
For an overview of glossaries and (multilingual) thesauri in the field of water and sanitation, take a look at the IRC web page on glossaries and thesauri.
This selection is taken from web sites and from publications which are available online.

Health impact of water and sanitation interventions

2007-07-23T13:37:00.000Z

Q: Could you advise me on the latest research on the health impacts of WSS interventions particularly water quality, water quantity, sanitation and hygiene?
(Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Viet Nam)

Answer:

"The impact of sanitation on human health is the most widely recognised benefit of good sanitation and hygiene practices.”

This is taken from the Thematic Overview Paper (TOP) Enhancing livelihoods through sanitation. (2007). By Borba, M.L., Smet, J. and Sijbesma, C.

The figures in Table 1 below confirm this.

Table 1. The impact of sanitation, water and hygiene on morbidity by diarrhoea

Water and Sanitation measures and % decrease in cases of diarrhoea:

Water and sanitation 30
Sanitation (improved excretal disposal) 36
Improved hygiene 33
Quantity of water 20
Water quantity and quality 17
Water quality 15

It is clear from these data, that when sanitation is taken by itself, health improves at a higher level than through provision of water alone. The same can be said about hygiene interventions.

See also Section 5 of the same TOP: Stories from the field: a review of practices presents case-studies from Asia, Africa and Latin America, where efforts are made to improve human excreta management and their impact on people’s livelihoods.

In a working paper of the Harvard University Centre for International Development, Alix Peterson Zwane and Michael Kremer review the research on what works in preventing and treating diarrheal diseases in developing countries. They review the evidence on individual behavior change interventions that can prevent diarrhea, including handwashing and point-of-use water treatment systems.

The paper also discusses the outstanding question of how to induce people to adopt these methods. It then reviews the evidence on the effectiveness of source water quality improvements and sanitation investments.

Rural infrastructure maintenance is another challenge being discussed in their article: while rural water facilities can be long-lived if properly serviced, they often fall into disrepair quickly due to poor maintenance, and though many different approaches to maintenance have been advocated, there is little evidence on their relative effectiveness.

Another document by Guy Howard and Jamie Bartram, entitled Domestic water quantity, service level and health, describes the relationships between water, sanitation hygiene and diarrhoea as well as other infectious diseases, such as trachoma.

“Despite the evidence pointing to the benefits of increased quantities of water on health, the relationship is not simple and most research has made significant assumptions about water use. Hygiene is not solely related to availability of water, but also to specific hygiene behaviours such as hand washing at critical times, for instance before eating and cooking and after defecation.”

And “A number of studies suggest that hand washing with soap is the critical component of this behaviour and that hand washing only with water provides little or no benefit (Cairncross, 1993; Ghosh et al., 1997; Khan, 1982; Oo et al., 2000). Hoque and Briend (1991) showed that whilst less effective than when using a rubbing agent, such as soap, mud or ash, some reductions in contamination were found when washing with water alone, but that use of alternative rubbing agents (mud or ash) provided the same benefits as soap. Hoque et al. (1995) also found that use of mud, ash and soap all achieved the same level."

Read the full documents yourself:

Peterson Zwane, A. and Kremer, M. (2007). What works in fighting diarrheal diseases in developing countries? (CID Working Paper No. 140). Cambridge, United Kingdom, Harvard University. Available at: http://www.cid.harvard.edu/cidwp/pdf/140.pdf

Howard, G. and Bartram, J. (2003). Domestic water quantity, service level and health. Geneva, Switzerland, World Health Organization. Available at: http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/diseases/wsh0302/en/

Guidelines for emergency water and sanitation

2007-07-20T14:45:00.001Z

Q: Do you know about any guidelines for emergency water treatment and safe sanitation facilities?
(Relief program manager, Germany)

Answer: A first step is the IRC page: Emergency water and sanitation resource materials. This page contains documents, links and fact-sheets on emergency water, sanitation and hygiene issues.

Then you could check the library database IRCDOC on ´emergency operations´

Additionally, you may want to take a look at the following sources:

UNICEF´s Emergency WES Resource Kit
Point of use water treatment in emergency and development settings
[2.66 MB!] Presentation by Thomas Clasen of the LSHTM. Presented at the EEHF2007: Third Emergency Environmental Health Forum, 3-4 May 2007, Delft, The Netherlands.
From slide 20 onwards he discusses recent Research in Household Water Treatment.
Based on the results of a research on the level of effectiveness of different water treatment strategies, Thomas Clasen from LSHTM, presented the new approaches defined as highly effective. The presentation addressed the relationship between diarrhoeal diseases and water quality, by showing the results obtained after the application of strategies at source water level and household level. The results shown covered the direct impact of the spread disease reduction and the cost-benefit relationship.

Finally, you may want to discuss your ideas with experts -once you have some substantial info to share- on the water-and-san-applied-research mailing list.

Sanitation policies and gender

2007-07-03T13:56:00.000Z

Q: I am looking for recent sanitation policies that have gender mainstreamed. Do you know any recent policy/ies that I could use?
(senior programme officer, NGO, the Netherlands)

Answer:
[1] An analysis of sanitation policies in Southern Africa: The case of gender policies in sanitation in South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe’, University of Southampton: Southampton, by Martin Mulenga, Gift Manase and Ben Fawcett, 2006 Full document.

[2] Assessing Sanitation Policy: A series of WEDC Briefing Notes

This series of Briefing Notes Assessing Sanitation Policy is based on lessons learned from national sanitation policy assessments carried out in Ghana and Nepal, together with the review and assessment of sanitation policy in these and other countries. The Notes provide concise guidance on the importance of sanitation policy and what can be done to ensure that it is widely supported, relevant and implemented effectively.

These Notes will be particularly useful for government institutions, donors, I/NGOs and private sector organizations who are involved in contributing to the sanitation policy debate, or promoting good sanitation practice.

Briefing Note: Overview – Sanitation policy: Why is it important and how to make it work
Briefing Note: Ghana – National sanitation policy in Ghana: A case for improved co-ordination?
Briefing Note: Nepal – Implementing national sanitation policy in Nepal: Challenges and opportunities
Briefing Note: Review – Comparing national sanitation policy content: An initial review of nine country profiles

Training guideline for sanitation clubs in schools

2007-05-16T14:43:00.000Z

Q: We are about to develop a training guideline on water, sanitation and
hygiene for environmental clubs in schools . We are wondering where to
get a copy for reference that we could use.
Sector professional, The Gambia

Answer: (by Annemarieke Mooijman)
For information on sanitation clubs, the following case studies might be of interest:

Children’s health clubs in schools; opportunities and risks. Many school programs for water, sanitation and hygiene have organized special children’s groups. This paper discusses some of the benefits and risks of these school groups. (2006).
India - The School Health Clubs Project in Kerala, by Snel, Marielle and Kochurani, Mathew (2004).
Kenya - School Health Clubs: Can they change hygiene behaviours? By Snel, Marielle and Rop, Rosemary (2004).

For hygiene education materials, there are several methodologies depending on where and how you want to use it.

A document which I recently purchased and which I would recommend is: Children for Health: children as partners in health promotion. See:
It is fairly cheap and can be purchased through TALC (Teaching-aids At Low Cost), a charity based in the UK.

Another option would be to use the materials used for CHAST in Somalia, see http://www.schools.watsan.net/page/326

More case studies and other information can be found on the WASH in schools website: http://www.schools.watsan.net

Environmental audit for Benedictine communities

2007-05-07T12:26:00.000Z

Q: Do you know where I can find the book “Listening to the Earth”? It is a manual for Benedictine communities to set up an environmental audit, and includes inventories for drinking water quality and for sanitation and waste.
(policy maker, The Netherlands)

Answer: Thank you for bringing our attention to this book. You can find the book here:

Bartlett, W. et al. (2006). Listening to the earth : an environmental audit for Benedictine communities. London, UK, Earth Force, Inc. Available at: http://www.arcworld.org/downloads/Listening%20to%20the%20Earth%20(English).pdf [1.2 MB]

Also available in Spanish and Portuguese.

For those who do not know this book yet, a short description (taken from the preface of the book): The main intentions of this manual are to (1) educate the reader about environmental problems and crises being faced by the world’s populations today, (2) to provide the communities that utilize the manual with a means of assessing how their daily practices may contribute to these problems, and (3) offer ideas and resources regarding better practices.

Water and Sanitation and waste are two of the five subject areas covered in the manual. It includes many cheap, effective solutions for low-income monasteries and their lay and surrounding communities. The book ends with guidelines on how to develop an action plan.

While most of the explanatory text focuses on the conditions of the LAC region, the main environmental principles that underlie the regional-specific information are applicable to any region of the world.

Events on water and sanitation

2007-04-26T10:42:00.000Z

Q: I am looking for an overview of water and sanitation events in the coming months.

Answer: IRC has an such an overview on the Ask IRC page, which includes the Source Conferences and Events Calendar and several other good water calendars. To avoid having to update two locations, I did not copy it here. Please take a look at this page.

If you have an event on water, sanitation and hygiene you would like to have listed, do not hesitate to contact Cor Dietvorst, the editor of Source.

Water wastage in Matjhabeng, South Africa

2007-04-23T09:57:00.000Z

Q: To who can I talk to report serious water wastage in the municipal area of Matjhabeng? Some valves and water mains in this city have been leaking for up to two years!!! I need an E-mail adress or Fax number that I can use to report this unacceptable state of affairs.
(Resident of Free State,

South Africa

)

Answer: Did you already contact someone from your municipality? There is a list with contact details available at the web site of the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF). See DWAF web site – Contact details for the Matjhabeng Local Municipality

One of the persons mentioned is the Water Services Councillor:
Contact: Mr R Spies
Address: P O Box 708
Welkom 9460
Telephone: 057-391-3226
Fax: 057-352-1712
Email: rodneys@matjhabeng.co.za

Alternatively, you could perhaps contact the regional office of DWAF,
Central Cluster (Gauteng, Free State, North West, Northern Cape)
Ms T Mbassa
Private Bag X995
PRETORIA
0001
Tel: (012) 392 1477
Fax: (012) 392 1454
Cell: 082 806 0707
Email: mbassat@dwaf.gov.za

I hope this will help you further.

Ecosan toilet designs

2007-04-23T09:06:00.000Z

Q: I read in Source Bulletin issue No. 47, Feb 2007 that “Siddhipur residents are also building ecosan toilets that collect faeces and urine separately and starting to recycle them as organic fertilizer”. I would like to know how this type of toilet is constructed so that we can replicate it here. Is it the same with VIP latrine which UNICEF taught us how to construct?
(Executive director of an international NGO, Nigeria)

Answer: Thank you for your request for information on ecosan toilet designs.

Ecosan toilets are not the same as VIP latrines. They do not require a deep pit like VIP latrines because urine is diverted allowing faeces to compost faster.

Ecosan toilets are especially suited for regions where water is scarce or where deep pits cannot be constructed because of high groundwater table, impermeable soil conditions or hard rock. They are also suitable for rural and peri-urban areas where urine and faeces can used as fertilizer. Ecosan toilets are more expensive than VIP latrines because the design includes two compartments to keep urine and faeces separate, and special seats are needed for children. They also require more training and awareness raising inputs for proper and safe operation and maintenance.

An intermediate solution in between a VIP latrine and ecosan toilet is to collect urine in a bucket (for women and children) and through a funnel in a jar or jerry can (for men) (see http://washhelpdesk.blogspot.com/search/label/latrines).

You can find more about ecosan toilet designs in:

IRC … [et al.] (2006). Smart sanitation solutions : examples of innovative, low-cost technologies for toilets, collection, transportation, treatment and use of sanitation products.
Morgan, P. (2007). Toilets that make compost : low-cost, sanitary toilets that produce valuable compost for crops in an African context.

GTZ data sheets for ecosan components.

Wafler, M. … [et al.] (2005). Ecological sanitation modules for agricultural reuse implemented by the Innovative Ecological Sanitation Network India (IESNI).

You can further find extensive information on ecosan on these websites:

Hygiene education materials to teach in schools

2007-04-12T12:46:00.000Z

Q: I am working on water and sanitation projects in rural schools in Uganda. I am looking for information on hygiene education to teach in the schools. Do you have information packs to use as aides in teaching or can you advise me where I can get some?

(Sector professional, NGO, Australia)

Answer: The following materials will be useful for your situation:

Khamal, S.; Mendoza, R.; Phiri, C.; Rop, R.; Snel, M. and Sijbesma, C. (2005). The joy of learning : participatory lesson plans on hygiene, sanitation, water, health and the environment. Delft, The Netherlands, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre.

The Joy of Learning guide is meant for teachers and others who want to design participatory learning activities on hygiene and sanitation. It is divided into two parts: theory and lesson plans. The lesson plans are organised into three sections: hygiene (including personal and food hygiene), sanitation and water. Each section contains a series of information sheets for planning, implementing and evaluating participatory learning activities on a specific subject. Examples include personal hygiene, the safe transport and handling of water, protecting local water sources, and locally prevailing disease transmission routes.

Postma, L.; Getkate, R. and Wijk-Sijbesma, C.A. van (2004). Life skills-based hygiene education : a guidance document on concepts, development and experiences with life skills-based hygiene education in school sanitation and hygiene education programmes. (Technical paper series / IRC; 42). Delft, The Netherlands, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre.

The paper is divided into three sections: section 1 gives a general introduction to life skills-based hygiene education; section 2 gives a general overview of the content of life skills-based hygiene education; and section 3 provides a set of examples of lesson plans for life skills-bases hygiene education. Focus is on primary school children.

Mooijman, A. and Zomerplaag, J. (2004). Child-friendly hygiene and sanitation facilities in schools : indispensible to effective hygiene education. Delft, The Netherlands, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre.

This document covers all the stages of a design project, from needs assessment to operation and maintenance. It stresses the importance of active involvement of children, teachers, parents and the community during all of these stages so that they themselves will be able to find solutions for their own problems and needs.

Shordt, K.; Snel, M. and Ganguly, S. (2002). School sanitation and hygiene education - India. Handbook for teachers. (Technical paper series / IRC; no. 39). Delft, The Netherlands, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre.

The complete package consists of two manuals. The Resource Book and the Handbook are practical manuals meant for managers, trainers and teachers involved in SSHE programmes. The handbook is meant specifically for teachers working in pre-schol and primary school. It will help them in the classroom to teach children about hygiene and sanitation by using the child-to-child teaching approach.

The books were developed in the context of the School Water and Sanitation Towards Health and Hygiene (SWASTHH) programme in India. However, they provide many useful guidelines and activities that apply to similar programmes elsewhere.

Finally, many successful examples from programmes around the world could be downloaded in the resource section of the World Bank, WSP, UNICEF Toolkit on Hygiene, Sanitation and Water in Schools:

http://www.schoolsanitation.org/Resources/ReadingsSchoolHealth.html and http://www.schoolsanitation.org/Resources/ReadingsLifeSkills.html

I hope this will help you further.

If you have any additional questions or if the above does not provide the information you are looking for, let me know.

How to get corruption as World Water Day theme?

2007-04-10T14:49:00.000Z

Q: It would be a nice idea to have the theme of the next World Water Day on corruption. As IRC is maintaining the WWD website, I was wondering if you know the right person to contact in this regard.
(Researcher, Germany)

Answer:
(by Dick de Jong, moderator www.worldwaterday.org)

We as NGOs can hardly influence themes of the UN World Water Day, our experience since the start of WWD in 1993 shows. The UN Water people of the 24 agencies involved discuss themes and who takes the lead in the UN system for each year in their closed meetings and workshops. They usually decide on that in the last meeting of the preceding year, but do not make that known to the wider world.

As you can see on our www.worldwaterday.org site they see the forthcoming WWDs as part of the UN International Decade for Action on Water 2005-2015, which was launched on World Water Day - 22 March 2005. The Water for Life Decade 2005-2015 aims to give a high profile to implementing water-related programmes and the participation of women. The UN hopes that the Decade will boost the chances of achieving international water-related goals and the United Nations Millennium Declaration.

Our experience with our Source newsletter shows that the corruption issue is not likely to be raised by any of the UN agencies, as this is not a topic they (or others!) want to profile public attention on. “Governance” as an issue may have a better chance. But this has to be pushed by influential UN officials at HQ and in the field.

Cost of water in developing countries

2007-04-10T14:01:00.000Z

Q: For my project on water privatization I need to find up-to-date information about the cost of water in developing countries. I have been searching online, but have been unable to find information on this.
(Student, International Business Class, USA)

Answer: The cost of water in developing countries depends on many things. Do you mean the costs for the consumers? This depends vary much on the policy and tariff structure used in the village, town, district, region, or country you are living. However, almost in all cases it seems to be the case that poor people pay more for the same amount of water than the better off.

For example: In Manilla, the poor pay 9 times more than ´regular´ consumers, in Lagos, 10 times, in Cairo 40 times, in Jakarta, 60 times, and in Karachi 83 times!

From a management or policy point of view, it is important to know how much it costs to provide -or to improve- access to water (and sanitation).

The calculation of costs of improved water supply and sanitation, as defined by WHO, covers both investment and recurrent costs. For improved water supply the following elements are mentioned:
- House connection
- Standpost/pipe
- Borehole
- Protected spring or well
- Collected rain water
- Water disinfected at the point-of-use

Source: Hutton and Haller (see below), 2004, 9. In their publication you can also read the annual costs for improvements on a per-person-reached basis

For an overview of these and other issues around financing and cost recovery, please take a look at the following publications:

Fonseca, C. and Cardone, R. (2004). Financing and cost recovery. Thematic Overview Paper. Delft, The Netherlands, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre. Available at: http://www.irc.nl/page/7582

This TOP provides an overview on financing and cost recovery for the water supply and sanitation services sector in rural and low-income urban areas of developing countries. The first five chapters of the document provide a general overview and are available as webpages, together with Case studies and Mini Reviews of best publications on financing and cost recovery. Within the sector, much of the data used and issues discussed are highly controversial, which reflects many of the knowledge gaps and research challenges ahead.

Fonseca, C. and Cardone, R. (2006). Cost estimates, budgets, aid and the water sector : what’s going on? : an analysis illustrated with data from 12 Sub-Saharan African countries. Delft, The Netherlands, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre. – 14 p. : 4 fig., 6 tab. – 24 ref. Available at: http://www.irc.nl/page/33109

In this analysis the authors focus on the adequacy of estimates of the cost of providing access to water and sanitation per capita in these countries, rather than how effective or efficient the funding flows may be. This document forms the basis for WELL Briefing Note 36

Hutton, G. and Haller, L. (2004). Evaluation of the costs and benefits of water and sanitation improvements at the global level. Geneva, Switzerland, World Health Organization. 87 p. WHO/SDE/WSH/04.04. [715 KB]

Arsenic removal technologies

2007-04-04T08:10:00.000Z

Q: I am looking for information about arsenic removal, preferably with images and technical details. It should be as simple and user friendly (easy to use) as possible.
(Senior professional officer, IRC, The Netherlands).

Answer: please take a look at the following resources:

[1] Prof. Richard Wilson of Harvard University maintains a regularly updated page on arsenic remediation methods, focusing mainly on Bangladesh and West Bengal.

He gives some important warnings:

“According to a recent study, villagers seem to be more willing to pay for running water than for arsenic free water. Thus, any solution which leads toward running water is to be preferred. […] Many experts and groups have stopped recommending small scale purification. […]. It is unclear … whether there exist ARS [Arsenic Removal Systems] that work on all waters in Bangladesh and which they are; and if a particular ARS only works on some waters how to decide whether it will work on a particular village water and how to explain all of this to the villagers affected.

Alternative solutions mentioned include deep drilled wells (>150 m), sanitary dug wells and rainwater harvesting with safe storage.

Positive results are mentioned for the prize-winning SONO filter, of which 21,000 have been distributed in Bangladesh. This filter is one of the four technologies approved for "provisional" use by the Bangladesh government, the others are READ-F, Sidko and MAGC/ALCAN.

Technology options are mentioned in the Government of Bangladesh Implementation Plan for Arsenic Mitigation. The annexes can be found in: http://phys4.harvard.edu/~wilson/arsenic/countries/bangladesh/National%20Water%20Policy%202003/

[2] Ahsan, T. (2002). Technologies for arsenic removal from groundwater.
In: Wijk-Sijbesma, C.A. van (ed.) and Smet, J.E.M. (ed.). Small community water supplies : technology, people and partnership. (Technical paper series / IRC; no. 40). Delft, The Netherlands, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre.
More information and how to order: http://www.irc.nl/page/1917

[3] Petrusevski, B. … [et al.] (2006). Arsenic in drinking water. (Thematic overview paper). Draft. Delft, The Netherlands, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre
This TOP outlines the global extent of arsenic contamination and its basic chemistry, as well as associated health problems. It looks at removal technologies for centralised and household point-of-use systems, and describes two case-study trials in Bangladesh and in Hungary.
You can download the whole document as a PDF, download separate chapters, or read a summary.

[4] Johnston, R. … [et al]. (2001). Safe water technology.
In: United Nations ACC Sub-Committee on Water Resources. United Nations synthesis report on arsenic in drinking water. Geneva, Switzerland, World Health Organization (WHO)

Rainwater collection - how to calculate the volume

2007-04-03T10:15:00.000Z

Q: How to calculate the volume of a storage tank based on a certain annual rainfall. For our project in Tibet I need technical information on rain water collection, including project design.
(Water and sanitation programme officer, NGO, Tibet)

Answer: In principle, rainwater harvesting is NOT cheap. So, it is either a supplementary source or means with a relatively small storage volume, or people have to be very economic and use more during rainy season and the bare minimum during dry season. If they would accept that then it is a solution. Unless there is a lot of money available. I understand that in your situation, you have a semi-arid condition, so people may be used to be very economic with water.

One option is to collect rooftop rainwater for drinking and cooking, and ground surface runoff/rainwater for other uses. For both you can use groundwater tanks (from simple to advanced, depending on soil stability etc. and availability of funds) and for rooftop rainwater storage an above-ground tank is most common; also to ease the drawing of water.

Calculations
Important is also to determine the volumes people use for drinking and cooking (say between 2-5 litres per capita day (lcd)) and that for other proposes (say between 10-20 lcd).

Using those figures and the number of people you can calculate the amount of water you need per day or month. If you have to collect those volumes all from rainwater (as the sole source) then you can calculate the required surface area and the required storage capacity. Each surface area has a specific runoff coefficient, i.e. the efficiency of collection or the rainfall minus the wasted water. For hard roofing materials the coefficient is between 05-0.9, which means that of each litre of water fallen on the roof you can collect between 0.5 -0.9 litres! For ground surface areas this coefficient is much lower, depending on soil type and condition: usually between 0.10 and 0.25!

Cumulating the volume of water in a diagram
The simplest way to calculate is cumulating the required monthly volume of water (drinking/cooking) in a diagram, and plot the volume of water required to satisfy this demand.

Demand drinking and cooking Q = number of consumers * C1 * 30 = Q [m3/month]
C1 = daily water consumption for drinking/cooking per capita (say 2-5 lcd)
Demand other purposes Q = number of consumers * C2 * 30 = Q [m3/month]
C2 = = daily water consumption for non- drinking/cooking per capita (say 10-20 lcd)

You can then calculate (from the graph, see for an example of this graph the WELL fact sheet on domestic rainwater harvesting). There is not a good indication for the cost as it depends on volume, materials used, location etc. Cost for underground tanks are usually cheaper as the soil pressure holds the tank and the water pressure. Also simple lining materials may be used if the soil is sufficiently stable.

Operation and maintenance
One more issue is the management, and operation and maintenance of the water system; this is well described in IRC’s Technical Paper 30 - Water Harvesting.
If the rainwater catchment is a privately owned system then the house-owner can control use and manage this. If it is a community owned facility the problems are many and conflicts, misuse, mismanagement, are very common and people get dissatisfied and may turn away for contributing to operation and maintenance costs.

Design
There are many manuals/handbooks and guidelines that can help you in designing a rainwater collection system. Both for surface runoff/rainwater and for rooftop harvesting. Below, some of these key references are mentioned. If you want a quick overview of points you could consult the WELL fact sheet on domestic rainwater harvesting.

The specifics of the tank design depend on many factors, including:

• The rainfall pattern; in your case it is a very short season (6-8 weeks) (sounds as a monsoon) and with only a few heavy storms
• Total annual rainfall; in your case also limited 425-500mm
• Available rooftop surface area; roofing material and slope of roof
• Available rock catchment area or ground surface area that could be used for rainwater catchment; and what is the soil type or any hard impenetrable material
• Availability of other water sources, their reliability (volume), availability (seasonality), accessibility (distance and altitude difference), quality of water at source
• Availability of streams, piped water, tankered water
• Number of people to be served
• External and own funding; level/amount of funding
• Availability and Cost of building materials
• Availability uilding skills
• Consumption of water
• People’s attitude towards water use: very economic as water is very scarce to wasting as water is in abundance
• Acceptance of different qualities for different water uses/ purposes
• Level of management and control over source
• Perceptions and beliefs on water quality influences acceptance (e.g. rainwater has flat taste; groundwater is ‘living’ water

Further reading

IRC FAQ sheet - Rainwaterharvesting.org
Web site of CSE India containing (among other topics) urban case studies

Domestic Roofwater Harvesting Programme of the University of Warwick – Development Technology Unit.
Contains much information based on two research projects, see for example Domestic Roofwater Harvesting in the Tropics: the State of the Art, by Terry Thomas, Warwick University, UK (2003).

Various specialised rainwater networks are united in the Rainwater Partnership, such as:

International Rainwater Catchment Systems Association

International Rainwater Harvesting Alliance

SearNet - Southern and Eastern Africa Rainwater Harvesting Network -

RAIN - Rainwater Harvesting Implementation Network - initiated by Bunker Roy (Barefoot College, India). He has left and launched the Global Rainwater Harvesting Collective.

IRC, January 2007
--------------------------
This response has been provided by the WELL Resource Centre Network with funding from the UK Department for International Development (DFID). Since March 2007 the WELL enquiry service has stopped.

Status of the world water crisis

2007-04-02T20:43:00.000Z

Q: Please send me some material on world water: what is the status of world water, how to prevent water stress, what can be done to prevent water loss, and what strategies should developing countries have to cope up with water crisis? (Professional, Social Services, Karachi, Pakistan)

Answer: A good start for information on the global water crisis is the Human Development Report 2006 which focuses on water scarcity this year. It´s title is Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis. Read the article in Source Bulletin (10 Nov 2006) for information and recommendations, http://www.irc.nl/page/31625 Or download the full report at the UNDP web site: http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/

Secondly, in Source Weekly, 18 Sep 2006, there was an article called Water crisis: global action required, say two new studies. Read the article in Source Weekly: http://www.irc.nl/page/30900 or download the studies below.

[1] Dickie, P. (2006). Rich countries, poor water. Zeist, The Netherlands, WWF Global Freshwater Programme. PDF file [2.56 MB] http://assets.panda.org/downloads/richcountriespoorwater.pdf

[2] IWMI (2006). Insights from the Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture. PDF file [2.5 MB] http://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/assessment/files_new/publications/Discussion%20Paper/Insights%20Book_Stockholm2006.pdf

Transparency and public toilets in India

2007-03-28T09:35:00.000Z

Q: Commercial public toilets and so called 'community toilets' have been tried in several cities in India and there is interest in using these on a larger scale. Since both involve some form of payment for use both provide opportunities for corruption and raise issues of transparency and financial accountability. Do you have information on this?
(researcher, LSHTM, UK)

Answer: Lots of public toilets, the majority in slums and peri-urban areas just don’t work right and are really horrible. As with all things where money flows and contractors are used, there can be problems. One good example of transparency in finance and good operating facilities comes from Tiruchi in Tamil Nadu where the public toilet/baths are run by federated women’s savings groups where the members check each other.

Read more on the Tiruchi model:

Ganapathy, V. “A silent revolution for healthy living in the slums of Tiruchi” in Martin J. Bunch, V. Madha Suresh and T. Vasantha Kumaran, eds., Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Environment and Health, Chennai, India, 15-17 December, 2003. Chennai: Department of Geography, University of Madras and Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University. Pages 138 – 142.

Andhra team praises Tiruchi model of pay-and-use toilets, The Hindu, 11 Jan 2005, http://www.hindu.com/2005/01/11/stories/2005011106570300.htm

Documents
In addition, you can find more about public toilets through IRC´s library database IRCDOC, using the following links:

http://www.irc.nl/docsearch/results/?subj=104453 (public toilets)
http://www.irc.nl/docsearch/results/?subj=102046 (community blocks)

One of the publications from the first list gives some interesting insights from outside India:

Ayee, J. and Crook, R. (2003). Toilet wars : urban sanitation services and the politics of public-private partnerships in Ghana. (Working paper / IDS; no. 213). Brighton, UK, University of Sussex, Institute of Development Studies.

This paper examines the impact of the new forms of partnership between the public authorities and private/citizen-based organisations on urban environmental sanitation in the two largest cities of Ghana – Accra and Kumasi. It traces the history of public toilet policies in the two cities and analyses the factors that contributed to their relative failure in poor neighbourhoods. Toilets consistently have been poorly managed and have been the site of local political conflicts – toilet wars – despite efforts at franchising them and involving communities in their management. This is attributable to the politics of patronage at the urban level, the relationship between city government patronage and community level groups, and the failure of regulation. Public-private partnerships have not worked. The provision of reasonable sanitation facilities may require: full public provision of basic infrastructure; transparent, independent and rigorous regulation of any contracts for service provision given to non-state agencies; and the enforcement of “conflict of interest” laws applying to elected local representatives.

A good overview of experiences with public toilets in India is:

Burra, S. ; Patel, S. and Kerr, T. (2003). Community-designed, built and managed toilet blocks in Indian cities. Environment and urbanization ; vol. 15, no 2 ; p.. 11-32.

This paper describes the ten-year programme of community designed, built and managed toilet blocks undertaken by urban poor federations and women’s cooperatives, with support from the Indian NGO SPARC. This programme has reached hundreds of thousands of poor urban dwellers with much improved sanitation and facilities for washing; it has also demonstrated how such provision is affordable and manageable for all Indian cities. But this programme has also demonstrated to city authorities the capacity and competence of urban poor organizations, and helped change the relationship between the residents of slums and local government agencies. The paper begins by explaining why sanitation has been neglected, and describes the inadequacies in government sanitation programmes. It then describes the first experiments with community sanitation and the difficult negotiations in many cities, including Mumbai, Kanpur and Bangalore. Then it discusses the major community toilet programmes that developed in Pune and Mumbai. It highlights the innovations that allowed these to work better than previous public toilet blocks, the reasons why the urban poor organizations took on these projects, the lessons learnt and the ways in which community toilet blocks helped address other problems faced by the urban poor.

WIN
Finally, you may also want to contact the Water Integrity Network (WIN). They are promoting anti-corruption solutions in water, sanitation and water resources management worldwide.

Pre-paid water systems

2007-03-27T10:04:00.000Z

Q: Do you have information about systems to charge users for water use at source? In particular information on pre-paid card or coin operated water points.
(Manager of small waterschemes, Benin)

Answer: here is some background information on pre-paid water systems.

Pre-paid systems are strongly opposed by some NGOs. Their reasons are summarized in: 11 Reasons to Oppose Prepaid Water Meters, http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/right/prepaid/11-reasons-to-oppose-prepaid-water-meters

For news on this issue see also:

Uganda: introducing a pre-paid water system and free sewer connections, Source Weekly, 25 Aug 2006, http://www.irc.nl/page/30487

Namibia: NGO slams prepaid water scheme, Source Weekly, 10 Apr 2006, http://www.irc.nl/page/28645

South Africa: cost recovery policy detrimental for HIV/AIDS-affected households, Source Weekly, 11 Oct 2006, http://www.irc.nl/page/31182

On implementation of prepaid systems see:

Nigerian parliamentarians pay by smart card, Source Bulletin, 14 Nov 2004, http://www.irc.nl/page/6077

Johannesburg Water

- Prepayment water meter, http://www.johannesburgwater.co.za/uploads/publications/Prepayment.pdf

- Presentation of the Operation Gcin’ Amanzi Project to the Pre-Payment Innovation Award Competition, http://www.spintelligent-events.com/auw2006/web-files/pdf/JHB%20Water.pdf

Rainwater harvesting in Uganda

2007-03-26T09:31:00.000Z

Q: Here we receive heavy rains for almost two-three months as it is rigth now, the season has just began and it covers almost the alll country. But no way of reserving this water for the dry season.
(Teacher in secondary school, Uganda)

Answer: On our IRC website you will find information on rainwater harvesting and links to websites and documents at http://www.irc.nl/page/14666

The following organisations may have more specific information on the situation in your region.

The Uganda Rainwater Association (URWA)
Secretariat
Plot 27, Room 203
Clement Hill Road,
P o. Box 34209,
KAMPALA
Tel No: 256-41-340201
Email: urwa@infocom.co.ug, urwa@searnet.org
http://www.gharainwater.org/urwa_aboutus.html

SEARNET (Southern and Eastern Africa Rainwater Network) Global Water Partnership - Associated Programme ICRAF House, UN avenue, Gigiri P. O. Box 30677, Nairobi 00100, Kenya
Tel: (+254 20) 722 44 00 / 722 44 24
Fax: (+254 20) 722 40 01
E-mail: searnet@cgiar.org
http://www.searnet.org/home.asp

The One World Africa website: http://africa.oneworld.net/guides/water/harvesting

I hope this information will be useful.

Handwashing and diarrhoea

2007-03-07T13:48:00.000Z

Q: We are currently undertaking a Cochrane systematic review of the effects of hand washing promotion on diarrhea in adults and children. We are looking for completed (1981-date) or ongoing evaluation studies. Could you help us?
Associate professor, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Answer: You may find the following review study useful input for your review:

Review of hand washing programmes
Overview of research on: the impact of handwashing with soap; handwashing behaviours; promoting handwashing behaviours; and critical issues. It is written by Kathleen Shordt of IRC for the Hygiene Improvement Project (HIP). This project is funded by USAID and supported by the Academy for Educational Development (AED). Incl. 4 p. bibliography.
http://www.irc.nl/page/31717

Basic water quantity

2007-02-21T14:31:00.000Z

Q: I need information on the international quantity standards of basic water supply. I have read 20 litres is a minimum, but does that include hygiene for example?
(Researcher, South Africa)

Answer: 20 liters includes personal hygiene, according to the WHO Technical note for emergencies : minimum quantity needed for domestic use in emergencies:

"Medium term allocation: 15-20 Lpcd (sustainable for a few months)
• Drinking: 3-4 Lpcd
• Food preparation, cleanup: 2-3 Lpcd
• Personal hygiene: 6-7 Lpcd
• Laundry: 4-6 Lpcd"

See Reed (2005) below for more tables and figures on water quantity and its use:

Also, the WHO states on their web site:

Based on estimates of requirements of lactating women who engage in moderate physical activity in above-average temperatures, a minimum of 7.5 litres per capita per day will meet the requirements of most people under most conditions. This water needs to be of a quality that represents a tolerable level of risk. However, in an emergency situation, a minimum of 15 litres is required. A higher quantity of about 20 litres per capita per day should be assured to take care of basic hygiene needs and basic food hygiene. Laundry/bathing might require higher amounts unless carried out at source.

Source: http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/emergencies/qa/emergencies_qa5/en/index.html

And, Les Roberts argues in his article "Diminishing standards: How much water do people need?":

"UNHCR's [1] guideline regarding water quantity in the 1960s was adopted from that of the WHO [2], 30 litres per person per day (l/p/d). This standard was not adapted from empirical data contrasting healthy populations with unhealthy populations, but was established by "experts" estimating the amounts of water needed for cooking, washing, drinking, etc., and then adding up the total daily requirements.

In the 1970s the WHO standard was reduced to 20 l/p/d and the UNHCR target followed suit.

In 1982 UNHCR declared the desirable goal to be 15 to 20 litres [3] and by 1992 it was calling for a minimum allocation of 15 l/p/d. But "when hydrogeological or logistic constraints are difficult to address, a per capita allocation of 7 litres per person per day should be regarded as the minimum 'survival' allocation. This quantity will be raised to 15 litres per day as soon as possible" [4].

Again, the new target was based on what was actually occurring given the relief communities' funding and workload, and was in no way based on human health data. At the time, the average water provision to an African refugee was perhaps only 12 l/p/d, in spite of the UNHCR standard [5].

While the new target is a "survival" ration, millions of refugees throughout the world currently receive between 7 and 15 l/p/d. The new "survival" target enables project managers to say that, while we are not providing an ideal quantity of water, provisions are well above the survival level. Thus, the diminishing quantity standard is fundamentally to provide political protection rather than public health protection.

[…]Thus, from a public health perspective, our guidelines should say "15 to 20 l/p/d are required during the acute phase of a crisis, but less may be sufficient in the later phases", rather than vice versa."

More data and guidelines on (minimum) water quantity requirements are available in:

Nozaic, D. (2002). Water quality and quantity
In: Wijk-Sijbesma, C.A. van (ed.) and Smet, J.E.M. (ed.) (2002). Small community water supplies : technology, people and partnership. (Technical paper series / IRC; no. 40). Delft, The Netherlands, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre.
Download the PDF file (109KB) or go to the IRC web site to download it

Minimum standards in water supply, sanitation and hygiene promotion
In: Sphere Project (2004). The Sphere project : humanitarian charter and minimum standards in disaster response. Rev. ed. Geneva, Switzerland, Sphere Project.

Howard, G. and Bartram, J. (2003). Domestic water quantity, service level and health. Geneva, Switzerland, World Health Organization (WHO).

Reed, B. (2005). Minimum water quantity needed for domestic use. (WHO technical note for emergencies ; no. 9).
Dowload the PDF file (517 KB)

Roberts, L. (1998). Diminishing standards: How much water do people need?
Extract from FORUM: Water and war.

For which topics should we provide funds?

2007-02-13T20:06:00.000Z

Q: Which aspects of the global water crisis and which areas of the world are most in need of funding? How does IRC itself prioritise where its resources will be best put to use?
(Researcher of a philanthropic and nonprofit consulting firm, USA)

Answer: At IRC we have published a report in which we analyse 17 existing trends in the water and sanitation sector.

This report was developed as part of a process of strategy development undertaken by IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre. It includes the outcome of a process of sector trend analysis, and scenario building that was developed over a period of about a year as part of the development of a new five-year business plan for IRC. It is therefore written from a very particular point of view, namely that of a medium-sized non-governmental resource centre, based in the Netherlands but operating exclusively in the South. The paper tries to look into the future, to understand what currently observable trends in the sector, the wider development world, and the rather specific area of Dutch development strategy may mean.

Fonseca, C. and Moriarty, P. (2006). WASH scenarios for 2015 : a trends analysis paper. Delft, The Netherlands, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre.
Download the document: http://www.irc.nl/page/28445.

You could also take a look at WaterAid´s Advocacy issue sheet

DONOR POLICIES

DGIS, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Netherlands

* Drinking water and sanitation for 50 million people - Holland Water Aid, March 2006

DfID, UK

* Why we need a global action plan on water and sanitation, published 11 Nov 2006
* Keeping our promises: A second update on DFID’s work in water and sanitation since the Water Action Plan, 2004

OTHER DOCUMENTS

Human Development Report 2006

Water is life and water for livelihoods are the focus of UNDP's 2006 Human Development Report. Across much of the developing world, unclean water is an immeasurably greater threat to human security than violent conflict, according to the Report, entitled Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis.
Read more : http://www.irc.nl/page/31625

CSD 13: Dutch NGOs propose actions on water, sanitation and human settlements

Following a debate on 29 November 2004 in The Hague, The Netherlands, Dutch NGOs formulated concrete actions on water, sanitation and human settlements in preparation for the 13th Session of the Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD) in April 2005. The NGOs call for inclusion of the human right to water, sanitation and human settlements in national legislation. They also state that water should be recognised as a public trust in national and international law and that it should therefore not be privatised. In addition, absolute priority should be given to improve livelihoods of poor people living in urban slums and rural areas.

The actions proposed covered the following five areas:

* legislation and regulations
* capacity building and education;
* participation;
* financing; and
* coordination and cooperation.

The full text of the Dutch NGO paper is available here: http://www.mondialedo.nl/uploaded_files/NGO%20Paper%20final.doc

Installing a water pump in community

2007-01-18T13:08:00.000Z

Q: we would like to utilise our wedding to raise money to buy a (solar) pump or two and then spend our honeymoon installing it in a community which really needs it. Could you help us?
(couple from Australia)

Answer: Nice idea! Please find below some remarks and suggestions how you could go about it.

Please keep in mind that the other way around might be more appropriate: look at what the community needs and act accordingly, in stead of selecting the technology for them. It might even be that they will benefit more by providing feed for donkeys; strong netting so animals do not eat their crops; or by giving women tools and seeds to start small market gardens, than by giving a solar pump which they might not be able to maintain.

In the publication: "Linking Technology Choice with Operation and Maintenance for Low-Cost Water Supply and Sanitation (2.40 MB)" two basic principles are outlined:
1) communities need to be involved in selecting technologies from the start of the process,
2) planners should adopt a demand-driven approach.

This guidance manual is designed to help in the selection of rural and low-income water supply and sanitation technologies. Part I provides an introduction to operation and maintenance and the factors influencing technology choice. Part II comprises 50 illustrated fact sheets on various low-cost water supply and sanitation technologies.

ORGANISATIONS to contact for more information on (solar) pumps, and for information on their projects and communities they are involved in:

Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN)
Formerly called the "Handpump Technology Network"(HTN) aims to facilitate the provision of safe water and sanitation to the poor and deprived through the promotion of sustainable technologies - primarily hand-pump technology - that are affordable and responsive to the needs of the users.
RWSN Secretariat
Skat Foundation
Vadianstrasse 42
CH-9000 St.Gallen
Switzerland
- Telephone: +41 71 228 54 54
- FAX: +41 71 228 54 55
- E-mail: rwsn@skat.ch
- Web: http://www.rwsn.ch/

RWSN has published "Handpumps, Mechanised Pumps, Surface Water - Technology Options", a small compendium of technology options for rural water supply. Briefly describing the various types of most common handpumps and providing information on motorised pumps, including solar pumps.

Pump Aid, Water for Life
Founded in Zimbabwe, Pump Aid works to relieve poverty in Africa using appropriate and sustainable technology to provide clean water for drinking and irrigation.
- Address: 52 Priory Road
Loughborough
LE11 3PP Leicestershire
United Kingdom
- Telephone: +44 1283 713902
- E-mail: IanThorpe@pumpaid.org, karenmercer@pumpaid.org
- Web: http://www.pumpaid.org/

Further good info on the solar pump can be get from Practica Foundation based in the Netherlands. They facilitate research, development and commercial application of technology in the field of water and energy in developing countries. Practica works with a network of partner organisations that produce, promote and sell improved rural products.
http://practicafoundation.nl/technologies/solarpump.html

PUBLICATIONS

ITDG Practical Brief on solar water pumping

Smart Water Solutions,
Examples of innovative, low-cost technologies for wells, pumps, storage, irrigation and water treatment. A Joint publication of NWP, Practica, Partners for Water, IRC, SIMAVI, Agromisa, NCDO, and Aqua for All.

I hope this will help you further for your wedding. I wish you all the best, and a great day!

Alternative World Water Forum / FAME 2007

2007-01-18T12:38:00.000Z

Q: Do you know when and where the next Alternative World Water Forum, or FAME 2007, will be held?
(General Secretary Latin American Parliament, Caracas, Venezuela)

Answer: We have not received information yet on the next Alternative World Water Forum. Usually they are organised in the year of the World Water Forum, see our April 2006 Source Weekly news item: Alternative forum: water activists issue their own declaration in Mexico City. Local contact for this is: Claudia Campero Arena, COMDA, Mexico.

The Fifth World Water Forum is scheduled in March 2009 in Turkey, see http://www.irc.nl/page/10615.

Matching funds in the water and sanitation sector

2006-12-06T11:38:00.000Z

Q: I am working on the evaluation of water projects. Is there any information available on the use of matching funds in the watsan sector?
Sector professional, Italy

Answer: In our Source Water and Sanitation News Service I have found the following articles:

Aid harmonisation: Denmark takes the lead in the water sector, Source Weekly, 16 Mar 2006
Aid harmonisation: examples from the water sector, Source Weekly, 8 Apr 2005
Harmonisation and alignment in water sector programmes and initiatives, Source Weekly, 23 Mar 2006

There are a few articles mentioning matching funds on our IRC web site:
http://www.irc.nl/content/search/?SearchText=matching+AND+funds&SearchButton=Search

For general background on financing trends in the water sector see:

Islam and water

2006-12-06T11:16:00.000Z

Q: I am looking for publications and articles on Islam and water. Can you help me?
Sector professional of Concern Worldwide, Ireland

Answer: I have found the following references in our database IRCDOC on this topic:

Biswas, A.K. (ed.); Faruqui, N.I. (ed.) and Bino, M.J. (ed.) (2001). Water management in Islam. (Water resources management and policy / United Nations University). Tokyo, Japan, United Nations University Press; Ottawa, Ont, Canada, International Development Research Centre (IDRC).

Khayat, M.H. (1997). Environmental health : an Islamic perspective. (The right path to health : health education through religion; no. 7). Alexandria, Egypt, World Health Organization Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office.

Al-Sheikh, A.F. (1996). Water and sanitation in Islam. (The right path to health : health education through religion; no. 2). Alexandria, Egypt, World Health Organization Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office.

I also came across this paper:
S. Atallah, M.Z. Ali Khan and M. Malkawi (1999). Water conservation through Islamic public awareness in the Eastern Mediterranean Region. Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal. Volume 5, Issue 4, 1999, Page 785-797

You might also find more information on the World Water Day 2006 web site on Water and Culture

Corruption in water sector Kenya

2006-11-27T09:35:00.000Z

Q: I intend to conduct my thesis on corruption in the water sector, looking in particular at the case of the water services decentralization programme currently in progress in Kenya.
I am seeking for professional advice and guidance on how to go about this issue.
Kenyan student

Answer:
Are you aware of the Water Integrity Network (WIN)? WIN promotes anti-corruption solutions in water, sanitation and water resources management worldwide. Its founding members are IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre, Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), Swedish Water House (SWH), Water and Sanitation Program - Africa (WSP-AF), and Transparency International (TI). The latter is also hosting the WIN secretariat.

One of the publications you will find on the WIN web site is:
Tackling corruption in the water and sanitation sector in Africa, by Janelle Plummer and Piers Cross (2006).

Abstract (taken from the WIN site)
For the past three decades a substantial number of governments, donors and NGOs have focused efforts on a range of institutional, financial, technical and social interventions aimed at bringing about much-needed improvements in the delivery of water and sanitation services in rural and urban areas of Africa. Yet the attainment of the water and sanitation MDGs in Africa is unlikely in the majority of African countries – the stability, investment and capacity needed to meet significant and growing demand is lacking. But even if additional finance was to become available, the unacceptable level of leakage of existing resources brings into question current processes and, perhaps, the wisdom of increasing resource flows to the sector. Much of the funding available in ministries, local governments, utilities and village administrations is being used by public office for private gain.

Despite the complexity, leakage, and the potential impacts on the poor, there is currently only a limited understanding of the extent and nature of corruption in the water and sanitation sector in Africa, and limited knowledge of the policies and mechanisms that are required to tackle it. To address this concern, and to help the sector ‘catch up’, the purpose of this paper is to promote more comprehensive understanding of sector corruption and potential anti-corruption mechanisms among a broad audience of WSS stakeholders. The paper describes the plural nature of corruption in the WSS sector corruption by setting out, in a structured framework, the network of corrupt practices prevalent in the sector. It collects together the many types of WSS corruption into typologies of public to public, public to private, and public to consumer interactions. It then describes the range of anti-corruption policies and mechanisms that have been developed to prevent or counter anti-corruption activity in the sector – mapping these over the corrupt interactions – and thus linking the framework of corrupt practices to the menu of existing solutions.

Notwithstanding this effort to promote a more comprehensive understanding of corruption, the paper emphasizes the need to undertake rigorous diagnostics to identify areas of concentrated corruption, and to focus efforts on improving sector understanding of what anti-corruption strategies are most appropriate. Based on sector trends and experiences, lessons of similar sectors, and the increasing shift of anti-corruption activity generally, it suggests that the most promising model for anti-corruption sector reform in the African continent lies in the development of greater transparency and accountability mechanisms – supported by ongoing efforts in WSS sector reform.It argues however for context specificity and for efforts to develop appropriate methodologies and models for sector interventions in the different economic, governance, and WSS contexts of the African region.

- Download: Tackling corruption in the water and sanitation sector in Africa (483 KB) http://www.waterintegritynetwork.net/redir/content/download/174/1434/file/Tackling%20Corruption%20in%20the%20Water%20and%20Sanitation%20Sector%20in%20Africa%20Chapter%20version.pdf

Water saving latrine technology

2006-11-23T13:31:00.000Z

Q: I am an engineer looking into a few toilet bowl designs that would efficiently use water for simple pit latrine with direct pit beneath the bowl, to be implemented in rural areas. The whole purpose of the water is to prevent odor from rising, so the design that I come out with is simple just to satisfy this.
Engineers Without Borders

Answer:
(by Cor Dietvorst). You can find designs for water-seal pour-flush latrines in:

Mara, D.D. (1985). The design of pour-flush latrines. (TAG technical note; no. 15). Washington, DC, USA, World Bank.

Pickford, J.A. and Shaw, R. Latrine slabs and seats.

For general information on low-cost sanitation see:

WASTE ... [et al.](2006). Smart sanitation solutions : examples of innovative, low-cost technologies for toilets, collection, transportation, treatment and use of sanitation products. Delft, The Netherlands, Netherlands Water Partnership (NWP).

Sanitation Connection - On-plot Sanitation Technology

Starting a latrine programme

2006-11-23T10:44:00.000Z

Q: I am interested in low budget sanitation (latrines) for women in my village. About 60% of the house holds do not have toilets. The govt does not provide subsidy. Also the houses are clustered and the people do not know how to construct toilets. Please guide us.
Local politician, India

Answer:
(by Christine Sijbesma, IRC). I will describe the steps that could be followed to start up a sanitation programme, and continue with the types of toilets you can choose from.

STEPS TO TAKE TO START UP A SANITATION PROGRAMME

1) Village sanitation walk
2) Organization of toilet discussion meetings
3) Visits to completed toilets
4) Joint implementation
5) Hygiene education on toilet use and maintenance
6) Monitoring of proper maintenance and use
7) Lack of space
8) Washing hands
9) Operation of a bathhouse
10) Helping people who cannot construct latrines

1) Village sanitation walk

The first step that you may want to take is to organize a village sanitation walk to the open defecation areas. Get as many people (women and men, young and older) to join you on the walk. The purpose of the walk is that everyone will agree on the need to end open defecation, and that all will decide to make the village a ‘total sanitation village’.

2) Organization of toilet discussion meetings

The second step may be to organize a village meeting or meetings to discuss the benefits of toilets and the types of toilets that people can install. Participants are as many male and female family heads as you can get from the families in your village that do not yet have a toilet. If necessary, you can organize several smaller meetings in different sections of the village.

There would be two purposes for the meeting:

1. To find out how many and which families are interested in building a toilet
2. To inform them about the types of toilets that they can install.

You need the following material in the meeting:

· A pile of small slips of paper, several felt tipped pens and a pile of small branches, grass stalks or pieces of string;
· Pictures of different types of household toilets and different types of construction materials. The pictures are in the attached file. You will need to print each picture on a separate piece of paper. If you put each picture into a transparent plastic folder, they can be used many times and still stay clean.

First group activity: Benefits of toilets

After you have introduced the purpose of the meeting, you start the first activity.
This activity is to find out why people without a latrine may want to build and use one.

You start this activity by asking one or more volunteers who are literate and who will write on the slips. Ask them to write the word toilet on the first slip.

Now ask the group to discuss what the benefits are of having a toilet. When someone in the group mentions a benefit, the volunteer writes it on the slip (one benefit per slip). A second benefit is written on a second slip, etc.

The volunteer hands the slip back to the person who mentioned it. This person lays the slip down next to the slip with the word ‘latrine’ and connects the two using a stick, stalk or piece of string.

Other members of the group may mention other benefits. Sometimes they are direct benefits of having a household toilet (examples: not having to walk far, not having to wait until dark). However, there may also be an indirect benefit (example: ‘more hygienic’ may lead to ‘more healthy’). The slip with ‘more healthy’ is then placed next to the slip ‘more hygienic’, with the slip ‘more hygienic’ connected on one side with the slip with ‘latrine’ and on the other side with the slip ‘more healthy’. In this way, you help the group to make a whole network of reasons for having and using a latrine.

It is often useful to do this activity in two or three smaller groups: one with all the adult women, one with all the adult men, and one with the local youth. When each group has made their network, the three groups visit each other and each group explains to the others what they have put in their network.

In the end, the groups may want to make one big network, or simply count how many reasons are the same for all groups and how many are different. In this way, the activity brings out the many reasons for a toilet and the differences between older and young women and men for having a toilet.

Second group activity: Types of toilets

After there is agreement about why those without a toilet would want to build one, you can go into what types of toilets people can build and how much it would cost to build the different types. Other requirements come also out, for example, some types of toilets require water to be collected for flushing, and others can be used dry. The first type may mean more work for women and children to collect water, and problems with water shortages in summer. Some types of toilets also need more space than others and/ or are costlier to build.

For discussing the types of toilets available, you give the group(s) a set of printed drawings of the different latrine types. You ask the group to place them on the floor. You ask them to look at each drawing and discuss which types of toilet they know and which they do not know. To answer any questions on the toilet types, see the separate sheet on ‘types of toilets’.

When the groups have discussed the different drawings, you ask them to place the drawings into a ‘toilet ladder’, with the lowest type of sanitation at the bottom and the highest at the top. People may do this according to how costly each type of sanitation would be, but also which type would mean the most work, or would be the best for the environment (for possible answers see the ‘types of toilet’ sheet).

When they have agreed on the ‘toilet ladder’, you can present the drawings of the ‘types of material’. The drawings help people to understand that one can make cheap or expensive toilets. They also help people to understand that you can upgrade a toilet. For example, a household may first build a pit, place a slab over it, and make a screen from poles and jute. Then, when they have money again, they may build a more permanent wall and roof, but still use a curtain or a loose screen for door. Finally, they may put in a proper door. Inside, they may also make improvements gradually, for example, whitewash the walls or cover (part of) the walls with easy-to-clean tiles.

Using the drawings and the local costs for the different materials, you can now help the participants to make a rough costing of the construction of the type of household latrines in which they are interested.

Give couples and families time to discuss the information among them and note down (either after the meeting or later) who would like to build a household toilet.

Discuss also with the women, the men and the youths (girls and boys) how they see their roles in building and using toilets and in promoting hygienic habits among their peers and young brothers and sisters. Fathers can for example set a good example of toilet use to their children and encourage sons to assist in water collection (or help collection themselves, e.g. by using transport or allowing women to use a bicycle or other means of transport for easier water collection. Encourage people to discuss the amount of work in water collection for the toilets and help them find creative solutions on how to reduce or divide this work.

3) Visits to completed toilets

A third activity can be to ask households who have already constructed a toilet, if they are willing to show their toilet to other families in the village who want to build one. Ask them if they will inform those wanting a latrine about the costs, who made the construction, what they like about it, and what could have been done different/better.
If these are costly toilets, it is important to remind those without one that a simple latrine is better than open defecation.

4) Joint implementation

If there are enough households who want a dry pit toilet and/or a pour-flush toilet, they can consider going for bulk installation. If a group of persons together go to buy the materials and hire a mason to build the toilets, they can often negotiate better prices and/or higher quality materials.

The construction of the first latrine can also serve to check the quality and the actual construction costs. Householders should make sure that they do not pay the whole price upfront, but that they retain funds to pay the final bit only after they are satisfied with the installed toilets.

Simple pit latrines can be built by the householders themselves.

5) Hygiene education on toilet use and maintenance

This is an important part of any toilet programme. Hygiene education before the construction can help in convincing people to build/use a toilet, although there are often more social, economic and cultural reasons for building and using a toilet.
Hygiene education after construction is very important to make sure that everyone in the family uses the toilet and uses it in a hygienic manner. It is often better to discuss separately with the women and the men in the household if they are using the toilet and what they do to keep it clean. This makes it possible to discuss also with the men if they use the toilet and how they see their roles in household sanitation and hygiene.

6) Monitoring of proper maintenance and use

For total sanitation, it is important to monitor each newly installed latrine:
· Is the whole family actually using it, and not only the women and girls of the family?
· Is it used in an hygienic manner?
· Is it properly operated? (For example, do people understand why and when they need to switch the plug in the junction box (Y trap) from one outlet (when that pit is full) to the other (so that this is used for filling)?
· Can hands be washed with water and soap or ashes?

Use by the whole family is important. If half the population does not use the toilet, open defecation will continue. In the fields, people can adopt the cat method (digging a hole, squatting over it to deposit the excreta in the hole and then covering them with soil. (See also the second picture in the toilet ladder).

7) Lack of space

For households that lack space it is sometimes possible to build one latrine between 2-4 households for sharing. It is also sometimes possible to build individual latrines back-to-back and/or side-to-side. They then take less space and are cheaper than when they are built as stand-alone toilets.

If there is no space at all, it is sometimes possible to build a row of toilets in a public place close to where people without toilets live. One option is to build a row of individual toilets, each of which is used and maintained by one or a few families. When the toilets are locked and only the user households have the key, it is possible to keep them nice and clean. Before starting their use it is good to make arrangements and put in writing what each family will do to keep the toilet clean and in good repair and how they will share the use (including by young children in the families).

If there is no possibility to build shared household toilets, it may be possible to construct a group-managed bathhouse with one or more toilet(s). The bathhouse usually consists of:
· a tap with a water reservoir and/or a handpump (either as main water source or as stand-by when the piped system doesn’t work);
· some cubicles for taking a bucket bath (wetting yourself by throwing some water from the bucket over you, then applying soap and then rinsing of the lather);
· one or more toilets;
· a small office where the users pay per visit and where they sometimes get some liquid or powdered soap.
Sometimes there is also a scrubbing board and rinsing trough for clothes washing.

8) Washing hands

Very important for the health benefits of toilets are also that people wash their hands after going for defecation, before preparing and eating food and after cleaning up the baby’s stool and cleaning his/her bottom.

You can create more awareness about how bits of stools from one person can be eaten by him/her or someone else by doing a nice participatory activity (the Six F’s Diagram). You can do it with groups in any open space. You can also teach young people to do the activity with village groups. You need the following materials:

· A pile of pebbles that you explain will represent a stool,
· A piece of fruit or vegetable representing food grown in a field,
· A cup of water representing a flow of water,
· A plate or bowl with some food representing food eaten in the home
· Three pieces of paper, one with a drawing of a fly, one with a drawing of a hand with five fingers, and the third with a drawing of a person (this can be a simply a round for the head, and lines for the body, arms and legs),
· Pieces of string to interconnect the items.

To start you can ask the group if they like to eat particles of human stools (‘shit’). People will usually deny this strongly. You then explain that the purpose of the activity is to show that it can easily happen that people will eat excreta!

Ask the group to put the pebbles representing the stool in one spot. Now ask them to place the cup of water at some distance from the stool. Can the stool end up in the water? When does this happen? (Examples: flooding, drainage, irrigation). Ask the group to put a piece of string between the stool and the cup to visualise the linkage.

Now ask what can happen when a fly sits on the stool and then flies to the house. Where can he sit and bring very small pieces of shit to these new places in such a way that the shit can be eaten? (Example: flies sit on the stool and then on the fruit or vegetable: place a sting between the stool, the fly and the fruit/vegetable. Another example: flies sit on the stool and then on the plate or bowl of food: place a sting between the stool, the fly and the plate/bowl. A third example: flies sit on the stool and then on a child’s mouth: place a string between the stool, the fly and the mouth on the drawing of the person). Stimulate people to think of more links and help them to put them in.

Now consider the fingers: how can bits of ‘shit’ get onto a hand and then be eaten? Think of: wiping your bottom, then preparing or eating food, a child touching his/her stool and then sucking his/her fingers, and so on).

In the end, help people review in how many ways bits of stools from one person can end up in his/her mounth or in the mouth of other people…..

In this way people can come to understand the importance of toilets and hygiene:
(1) Everyone has and uses latrines, so that stools do not get into water (streams, irrigation canals) and then onto crops, or swallowed by people drinking this water or boys when swimming and flies cannot sit on them anymore;
(2) Everyone washes hands with soap or ash and water at the critical times (four important occasions, see above) so that no small bits of stools may be swallowed after getting onto people’s hands.

9) Operation of a bathhouse

Operation of the bathhouse can be by a paid person, for example a poor single woman from the community who needs to have paid work close to her home and will be very motivated to do a good job. This person will clean toilets and bathroom after each use, and take and register the payments. Payments are usually per visit, but there are also communities where the user families pay a fixed weekly or monthly fee for using the bathhouse. It may then not be necessary to have a daily operator, but an agreement on rules of use and regular visits to check adherence an clean the bathhouse will be needed. Any agreement should also look into use (including free or paid use) by children, as part of becoming a total sanitation village. Operation can also be done by women and men from the user households themselves on a roster basis. A user committee can be established to prepare rules, check proper use, do the overall bookkeeping and account for operation, use, maintenance and management to the users and supporters of the facility.

10) Helping people who cannot construct latrines

Every family can build a simple toilet. They can dig the pit themselves and if necessary themselves line the pit and make a slab over it from poles covered with a firm mixture of clay, cow dung and ashes. However, these toilets are not very durable and they are not so easy to keep clean.
Moreover, some people cannot do the construction themselves, for example because they are old, handicapped or chronically ill. Single women also find it sometimes difficult to build a toilet. There may also be people who are too poor to pay for materials that are no longer free, such as poles for slabs and outhouses or grass for roofs, or cannot pay for bought materials such as a concrete slab.

In such cases, the other families in the community may decide to help such families, to achieve total sanitation.

A nice group activity to determine who in the community are too poor to build their own latrine is the ‘welfare assessment and social mapping’.

You will need the following materials:
· three sheets of white paper to draw three types of families
· a large sheet for making the village map
· felt tipped pens in different colours for the drawing

Ask the group to form three sub-groups. Ask each group to make a drawing of a family:
Group 1: a family that has been very fortunate in life
Group 2: a family that has been very unfortunate in life
Group 3: an in-between family

After the groups have made their drawings they present their ‘families’ to each other. It is then decided which colour or shape is used for each type of family when drawing their houses in the ‘social map’.

For the ‘social map’, you ask the group to draw a map of the village with its houses, institutes and physical infrastructure. This is best done by starting with a central house or building such as the temple, school etc. The group then draws the house of the families living in front, to the back and on both sides of the building, using the agreed colour or form designating their position in life. The group goes on until all houses in the village have been drawn. The group also puts a small square behind every house that has a toilet.

When the map is ready, it is possible to see how many of the families without a toilet belong to the ‘unfortunate in life’ group, and how many belong to the two other groups. It can then be discussed (also in a larger village assembly) if the unfortunate families should get any help from the other households or from the Panchayat to construct a toilet.

The ‘social map’ is also a good instrument to monitor which families in each of the three welfare groups have built toilets earlier, which ones are building one now, and which ones need more encouragement to build a toilet. To this purpose, any new latrines are added onto the map and a record is kept for each month (or perhaps every three months) on how many new toilets have been built by the three welfare groups without a toilet.

TYPES OF TOILETS

1. Cat method. This is the simplest safe ‘toilet’. Dig a hole, sit over it to relief yourself and cover your excreta afterwards. Carry a small jar with water and if possible, some soap to wash yourself (if that is your custom) and your hands afterwards. If no soap, use some (clean) soil, or rub your hand firmly while rinsing it.

2. Pit latrine. This is a simple slab placed over a dug hole. The slab can be made of sticks plastered with a mixture of clay, dung and ashes. It can also be of cast concrete/ferro cement. If wanted, you can mix in colouring powder or paint the grey slab with cement paint, to make it look more cheerful. If the soil is unstable, the pit must be lined. This can be done with less or more permanent materials. The sides can be fully covered, so that the liquid soaks away through the bottom, or with a honeycomb brickwork (that is bricks laid with small openings between them) for sideway leakage.

The superstructure can be very simple and makeshift (a frame with reeds or jute, for example) or made from more durable materials. After the pit has become full, it must be emptied or covered and a new toilet built. When covered, you can plant a fruit- or timber tree in the hole after some time, to use the excreta as fertilizer. Pit latrines do not need flushing water, so they are good for a dry area and when water sources are far. Use a fly cover to keep flies from breeding in the toilet, and have water and soap near for washing hands. Throwing ashes in the pit also helps to keep flies out.

3. Sanplat pit latrine. This is the same as no. 2, except that the shape of the slap is concave. This has as advantage that less cement is needed (1/2 bag/slab) and that the slab is very strong. Cleaning water also runs off more easily. The slab is round in size and reinforced by some iron rods. You need an (iron) mould to cast it. Line the pit if needed. When the toilet is full, you can dig a new pit and shift the sanplat over it.

4. VIP (Ventilated Improved Pit) latrine. This is the same as no. 2 or 3, but it has ventilation piped at the back. The ventilation pipe is connected to the pit, and runs at the outside of the toilet hut, so that the sun can warm it. It has a fly screen on top. The toilet has to be dark inside, so must have a permanent superstructure made from clay, sun-dried bricks, bakes bricks or building blocks, and have a roof and a door or dark curtain. The roof can be made of any material. When the pipe heats up, a draught develops and any flies that sit in the toilet are sucked up in the pipe. At the end, the screen stops them from flying away. They fall back into the pit, fly up a gain, and so on, until they are dead from exhaustion. VIP toilets do not need water collection for flushing.

5. Pour-flush toilet. This toilet has a slab with a ceramic pan in it. After relieving yourself, you pour some water in the pan to flush away the contents. Note that the ‘rural pan’ is a steeper model that needs LESS water. There are now plastic pans that cost Rs. Polypropylene toilet pans called ‘EASYFLUSH’ costs less than Rs. 60. See the attached press clipping. The toilet may be build over one pit, but it can also have a double pit. The double pit toilet has the advantage that when the first pit is full, the family can switch to use the second pit. While they use the second pit, the contents of the first pit become very fertile compost. When the second pit is full, the first pit’s contents have become compost. The compost can simply be dug out and used for horticulture, ornamental plants etc.

6. Urine diversion toilet. Human urine is a very good and totally safe free fertilizer! The simplest way is for women and children to urinate over a bucket, or for men to urinate into a funnel placed in a jar or jerry can. You then mix the urine with an equal amount of water and pour it around your plants. You use the toilet only for stools. The advantage of this is that the latrine will smell less (the bad smell comes from urine being mixed with stools) and will compost faster. You therefore need a less deep pit as you can take out the contents faster. However, to dig out the compost, you must switch to using a second pit (e.g. in the double vault toilet, or build a second dry pit toilet) so that the stools in the first pit have time for becoming compost. This can take about 3-6 months, depending on your diet. Stools from vegetarians digest quicker than stools from non-vegetarians, as the first are totally organic.

7. Ecological sanitation (Ecosan) toilet. This is the second toilet from the top. It has a box above the ground, which is divided into two halves. Each half has a special urine diversion pan placed above it (You can see two pans in the drawing). The urine diversion pan has a small hole in the front. Through this hole, the urine and washing water seep away through a hose that ends at a tree or any other type of plant that you want to fertilise. The back hole is for the stools, which drop into the half of the box under it. After six months, you stop using this part of the toilet and start using the other part. When you have done this for six months, the contents of the first part have become compost. They can be removed through a door at the back of the box and used for gardening. You can then start using this part of the toilet again and let the content of the other half become compost.

8. The toilet of the top of the ladder has a septic tank. This is an expensive model, which is not recommended for rural areas. Type 7, the ecosan toilet is also somewhat costly, but it also saves a lot of money as it produces free fertilizers.

BACKGROUND MATERIALS

Smart sanitation solutions
This publication gives examples of low-cost household and community-based sanitation solutions that have proven effective and affordable. It illustrates a range of innovative technologies for toilets, collection, transportation, treatment and use of sanitation products that have already helped thousands of poor families to improve their lives.
Low resolution version, but still 1.6 MB! Is available at http://www.irc.nl/redir/content/download/24282/273405/file/SSS_2006.pdf
A high resolution version (5 MB) at http://www.irc.nl/redir/content/download/27526/293434/file/SSS_2006hr.pdf
Sanitation ladder. Seven drawings indicating the types of toilets to choose from. From low-cost options to higher cost options. Source: COSI Foundation for Technical Cooperation, Sri Lanka. It can be used as training material in discussions on technology selection.

(This response is provided by WELL, a DFID funded resource centre aiming to improve access to information and provide support in water, sanitation and environmental health. The views expressed are not necessarily those of DFID.)

Hygiene education materials

2006-11-23T10:16:00.001Z

Q: We are looking for a curriculum or video teaching tool that we can use to help the workers and children of an orphanage in Monrovia to develop some hygienic practices with the limited resources they have available. Are you able to provide us with information about such teaching materials?

Answer:
(by Bettie Westerhof, IRC). Please refer to the IRC website's frequently asked questions (FAQ) section:
Which hygiene practices can be targeted? and
How do I prioritize which practice(s) to target in hygiene programmes?
Both provide links to useful manuals.
More FAQs on health promotion can be found at http://www.irc.nl/page/7696

Video & Publications

A very good, though old (1986), video film is Prescription for health, an instructional film showing the path of diseases such as typhoid, cholera and dysentery, and the importance of hygiene. (see also http://www.irc.nl/docsearch/title/109481 ). It can be ordered from Precision Transfer Technologies Inc., 22 Hamilton Avenue North, Ottawa, ON, Canada, K1Y 1B6, Tel: (613) 729-8987, Fax: (613) 729-5517, E-Mail: salesott@precisiontransfer.com. The cost of each video is $19.95 CAD for NTSC copies in North America. Shipping and handling are included. Payment can be made by Visa, MasterCard or certified cheque. Specify the VHS tape format required e.g. NTSC, PAL or Secam.

The joy of learning. Participatory lesson plans on hygiene, sanitation, water, health and the environment. This guide is meant for teachers and others who want to design participatory learning activities on hygiene and sanitation. It is divided into two parts: theory and lesson plans. The lesson plans are organised into three sections: hygiene (including personal and food hygiene), sanitation and water. Download from http://www.irc.nl/page/26444

Smart Sanitation Solutions, contains examples of low-cost technologies for toilets, collection, transportation, treatment and use of sanitation products. Download from http://www.irc.nl/page/28448

Smart water solutions gives examples of small-scale innovative technologies to increase access to safe drinking water. Download from http://www.irc.nl/page/28654

Thematic Overview Paper on hygiene promotion. Written by Brian Appleton and Christine van Wijk. Download from http://www.irc.nl/page/27611

Other sources of information are:

The Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing, a global initiative to promote handwashing with soap to reduce diarrhoea, a major cause of child mortality http://www.globalhandwashing.org/

The Safe Water Systems site of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention http://www.cdc.gov/safewater/

Healthlink Worldwide (UK) http://www.healthlink.org.uk/

How to start evaluating projects on health and hygiene

2006-11-23T09:35:00.000Z

Q: We want to start a project with a Fijian village looking at introducing sustainable sewage treatment into the village. We are also addressing the issue of water supply and will also cover health and hygiene. What we would like to do is to evaluate the project success based on several factors including health. I.e. looking at health and hygiene before and after the project. But where and how to start?
Researcher, New Zealand.

Answer:
(by Marielle Snel, IRC). It would be logical to start of with an overall baseline survey to get an idea regarding the health and hygiene. My own area of expertise is in the area of school sanitation and hygiene education (WASH in schools). An example for an overall baseline survey for schools to determine the success of the overall health situation in schools can be found in box 6.1 of the publication `School sanitation and hygiene education - India´.

I would also like to refer to a selection of methods and tools related to WASH in schools assessments. These lists, see especially the four star list under monitoring tools, can be used in the context of WASH in schools.

I would strongly suggest that you contact Val Curtis, PhD, senior lecturer in hygiene promotion at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, for more information. She studied hygiene behaviour in developing countries for many years. She is currently researching the health impacts of handwashing, and the effectiveness of different approaches.

The right to water

2006-11-23T09:02:00.000Z

Q: Do you know where I can find more around right based approach? (various times mentioned in papers, but I am not sure where it stands for.

Answer:
A good intro to rights-based approaches can be found at: http://www.keysheets.org/red_18_rights_based_approaches.html

Specifically for water see:

WHO -Geneva, CH (2003). The right to water. Geneva, Switzerland, World Health Organization (WHO).
Availability: Downloadable document: http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/en/rtwrev.pdf

There are several sites on the right to water:
WWC - http://www.worldwatercouncil.org/index.php?id=705
http://www.righttowater.org.uk/ see especially - http://www.righttowater.org.uk/code/HR_approach.asp

Why this blog?

2006-11-22T14:47:00.000Z

This water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) helpdesk blog has been set up to provide better access to all the questions and answers we have available at IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre. At the moment only a small selection is available at the Ask IRC web site