The Lingering Failure of Sanitation – Why?

Thursday 21 August
Workshop 8 - Full Day Workshop

Convenor : Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI)

Co-Convenors : Department of Water and Sanitation in Developing Countries (Eawag/SANDEC), German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) together with Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA) and Water Supply & Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC)

Major action-oriented milestones for sanitation are many: the first United Nations water conference at Mar Del Plata in 1977 established a goal of Water and Sanitation for All; the 1980s were declared the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade; and the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets seek to halve the proportion of people lacking access to improved sanitation by 2015. Yet, with approximately 2.6 billion people still lacking improved sanitation, the results have clearly been poor. A critical review and renewed efforts on health and hygiene issues are urgently needed. How can we utilise field experiences from past commitments in efforts to design and implement approaches for sanitation that will improve the situation in the future? For instance, how can fl exibility be included in the approach to meet changing conditions?

The workshop will provide a platform for participants to discuss strengths and weaknesses in existing sanitation approaches. It will identify causes for frequent failures in planning, decision-making, implementation, management and operation. Emphasis will be given to the role of rapidly changing urban, human and political contexts that impact sanitation. Case study abstracts that illustrate how sanitation projects and programmes have been planned and implemented during recent decades, and to what extent and why they have functioned or failed, are invited.

Workshop Details :

Chair: Mr. Roland Schertenleib, Eawag
Co-chairs: Ms. Christine Werner, GTZ, Germany and Prof.Laszlo Somlyody, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary
Commentators: Dr. Barbara Evans, WSP, Mr. Jon Lane, WSSCC and Dr. Andrew Cotton, Loughborough University, UK
Rapporteur: Ms. Saskia Castelein, WSSCC