Innovations For Urban Sanitation

"Over half the world's population now lives in urban areas and a large proportion of them lives without improved sanitation. Efforts to tackle open defecation in rural areas has been led by the Community-led Total Sanitation (CLTS) movement. But how can the community mobilization techniques of CLTS be adapted to the more complex situations and transient populations in urban areas? How can landlords as well as tenants be motivated to provide and use safely managed sanitation? Innovations for Urban Sanitation has been developed in response to calls from practitioners for practical guidance on how to mobilize communities and improve different parts of the sanitation chain in urban areas. Urban Community-Led Total Sanitation is potentially an important piece of a bigger puzzle. It offers a set of approaches, tools and tactics for practitioners to move towards safely managed sanitation services. The book provides examples of towns and cities in Africa, South Asia and South-East Asia which have used these approaches. The approach has the potential to contribute not only to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 on water, sanitation and hygiene and SDG 11 on cities but also those concerning the reduction of inequalities and the promotion of inclusive societies. As a pro-poor development strategy, U-CLTS can mobilize the urban poor to take their own collective action and demand a response from others to provide safely managed sanitation, hygiene and water services which leave no one behind"--

This book discusses effective social innovation strategies facilitated by civil society organisations (CSOs) to tackle India’s significant urban sanitation challenge. It presents the contours of an ecosystem that includes citizen participation and strengthening community-managed systems for improved sanitation and public health. The book analyses case studies of effective sanitation programmes as well as experiments with innovative ideas in different regional contexts by CSOs to meet the contextual needs of the community and to ensure access to safe sanitation, especially among the urban poor. It highlights the challenges and the need for active participation of communities for change in behaviour, increasing institutional capacities of municipalities for standardising and scaling up strategies which work. The authors highlight the need for designing low-cost solutions, organising informal sanitation workers, serving marginalised communities and building effective alliances between communities and institutions to influence public policy. Rich in empirical data, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers of urban studies, public policy, governance, political science, development studies and sociology as well as for CSOs and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working on urban sanitation, urban planning and public policy.

Innovations in Urban Sanitation has been developed in response to calls from practitioners for practical guidance on how to mobilize communities and improve different parts of the sanitation chain in urban areas. Urban Community-Led Total Sanitation offers a set of approaches, tools and tactics for practitioners.

Sustainable Sanitation for All describes the landscape of sustainability of CLTS as it is now, and reflects on key aspects, challenges, innovations and insights around sustainability. It aims to clarify a future research agenda and gaps in current knowledge, and make recommendations on policy and practice.

What does it take to address poor sanitation, and the multiple health and livelihoods issues associated with it, at a large scale? How can Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) be operationalized at national and sub-national levels? What do the strategies for achieving exponential growth of Open Defecation Free (ODF) communities look like? CLTS is a rapidly growing approach to solving the widespread sanitation challenges of the developing world. It is an approach that is proving to be effective in country after country, but most experience with the approach to date has been in a relatively bounded, project-based framework. This book looks at a particular experience in Madagascar of taking CLTS to a much larger scale. The Global Sanitation Fund's programme in Madagascar, the Fonds d'Appui pour l'Assainissement (FAA), is in the midst of a remarkable process currently producing thousands of ODF villages, which combine to make ODF communes and ODF districts. 'Promising Pathways' describes some of the mechanisms that have evolved to put this process into action, focusing on innovative strategies and models for scaling up. It identifies and highlights features of the actors and the institutional environment that are key to emerging successes. And it pulls out the lessons which can be applied in other settings where MDG targets for sanitation have not yet been achieved. These lessons are clearly situated in the framework of the bottom-up and community-led principles underpinning the CLTS process. Based on fieldwork conducted at community and national levels in Madagascar during 2013, the research for this publication was guided by Kamal Kar, founder and pioneer of CLTS, and conducted by a CLTS Foundation team. CLTS Foundation is an association of like-minded development professionals and practitioners, focusing on issues around rural and urban sanitation globally. It strives to create a world free from open defecation by means of collective behavior change of the empowered local communities through capacity building, providing technical support and influencing national strategies and policies of the countries. The Foundation also undertakes research and action learning initiatives focused towards poverty reduction, rural and urban livelihoods and governance issues with CLTS as an entry point strategy. It is a Trust (Trust Registration No. 03956) being managed by a board of Trustees and headed by a Chairman with headquarters in Kolkata, India. CLTS Foundation CB 88, Sector 1, Salt Lake Kolkata. Pin - 700064 India www.cltsfoundation.org

Technological innovations in sanitation are poised to address the great need for sanitation improvements in low-income countries. Worldwide, more than 2.4 billion people lack access to improved sanitation facilities. Innovative waste treatment and sanitation technologies aim to incorporate user-centered findings into technology engineering and design. Without a focus on users, even the most innovative technology solutions can encounter significant barriers to adoption. Drawing on a household survey conducted in urban slum communities of Ahmedabad, India, this research brief identifies toilet and sanitation preferences, amenities, and attributes that might promote adoption of improved sanitation technologies among potential user populations. This work uses supplemental insights gained from focus groups and findings from the literature. Based on our research, we offer specific guidance for engineering and design of sanitation products and technologies.

The new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development includes water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) at its core. A dedicated Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 6) declares a commitment to "ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all." Monitoring progress toward this goal will be challenging: direct measures of water and sanitation service quality and use are either expensive or elusive. However, reliance on household surveys poses limitations and likely overstated progress during the Millennium Development Goal period. In Innovations in WASH Impact Measures: Water and Sanitation Measurement Technologies and Practices to Inform the Sustainable Development Goals, we review the landscape of proven and emerging technologies, methods, and approaches that can support and improve on the WASH indicators proposed for SDG target 6.1, "by 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all," and target 6.2, "by 2030, achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations." Although some of these technologies and methods are readily available, other promising approaches require further field evaluation and cost reductions. Emergent technologies, methods, and data-sharing platforms are increasingly aligned with program impact monitoring. Improved monitoring of water and sanitation interventions may allow more cost-effective and measurable results. In many cases, technologies and methods allow more complete and impartial data in time to allow program improvements. Of the myriad monitoring and evaluation methods, each has its own advantages and limitations. Surveys, ethnographies, and direct observation give context to more continuous and objective electronic sensor data. Overall, combined methodologies can provide a more comprehensive and instructive depiction of WASH usage and help the international development community measure our progress toward reaching the SDG WASH goals.

Most of the technological developments relevant to water supply and wastewater date back to more than to five thousand years ago. These developments were driven by the necessity to make efficient use of natural resources, to make civilizations more resistant to destructive natural elements, and to improve the standards of life, both at public and private level. Rapid technological progress in the 20th century created a disregard for past sanitation and wastewater and stormwater technologies that were considered to be far behind the present ones. A great deal of unresolved problems in the developing world related to the wastewater management principles, such as the decentralization of the processes, the durability of the water projects, the cost effectiveness, and sustainability issues, such as protection from floods and droughts were intensified to an unprecedented degree. New problems have arisen such as the contamination of surface and groundwater. Naturally, intensification of unresolved problems has led to the reconsideration of successful past achievements. This retrospective view, based on archaeological, historical, and technical evidence, has shown two things: the similarity of physicochemical and biological principles with the present ones and the advanced level of wastewater engineering and management practices. Evolution of Sanitation and Wastewater Technologies through the Centuries presents and discusses the major achievements in the scientific fields of sanitation and hygienic water use systems throughout the millennia, and compares the water technological developments in several civilizations. It provides valuable insights into ancient wastewater and stormwater management technologies with their apparent characteristics of durability, adaptability to the environment, and sustainability. These technologies are the underpinning of modern achievements in sanitary engineering and wastewater management practices. It is the best proof that “the past is the key for the future”. Evolution of Sanitation and Wastewater Technologies through the Centuries is a textbook for undergraduate and graduate courses of Water Resources, Civil Engineering, Hydraulics, Ancient History, Archaeology, Environmental Management and is also a valuable resource for all researchers in the these fields. Authors: Andreas N. Angelakis, Institute of Iraklion, Iraklion, Greece and Joan B. Rose, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA