Dear Readers,
as much as I would like to share the following link to a very nice training toolkit with you – a toolkit that has been up online for some time now and recently got an extra section on sustainable sanitation – I am seriously wondering what the good folks at UNEP’s Environment, Humanitarian Action and Early Recovery programme are doing all day long. Probably not anything related to knowledge management & IT.

“UNEP and Groupe URD have developed a training toolkit to assist humanitarian actors to integrate environmental considerations into their policy development, planning, programme design and operational activities. The training toolkit consists of 11 modules, with each substantive module containing a summary, PowerPoint presentation, trainer’s guide, training materials and key supporting documents.” (src)

I know it isn’t good style to publicly criticize others, but producing a toolkit that consists of documents saved in DOCX, PPTX or WMV format just isn’t appropriate in any way. This may work for those in charge behind their desks in Europe or the US, but not out there in the field.

Instead, all documents should rather be in Portable Document Format (PDF). Along with a free & light-weight portable PDF viewer. There are quite a few out there with open licences.  And the videos – how about AVI instead of Windows (!) Media Video (WMV)? Or Theora? And a portable VLC player for MS Win, OSX and Linux.

How many dev workers in Africa are on Apple computers due to the malware threat? Right.

This publication is just an example. In fact, there are many others – yes, even in 2012 – that are produced in a similar way and which make me think that there’s no real passion behind it. This issue probably wouldn’t arise if everything was accessible via the web – which could also be displayed on small mobile phone screen, instead of 48 MB *.pptx files. Maybe we also have to blame ourselves for producing PDFs that can be shared on- and offline, but whose content would be much better in old-fashioned html.

An example of a passionate project is Alex Weir’s CD3WD collection. That’s much more information than any one of us can handle, yet it’s all usable.

What do you think?

Our colleagues from EcoSan Club Austria recently published issue no. 6 of the popular Sustainable Sanitation Practice (SSP) magazine – a journal also available as a PDF which is highly recommend as it provides collected first hand experiences from the international sustainable sanitation scene.

SSP should fill a gap that we have identified in the last few years in which sustainable sanitation has become an important issue that is discussed among many disciplines. For SSP a sanitation system is sustainable when it is not only economically viable, socially acceptable and technically and institutionally appropriate, but it should also protect the environment and the natural resources. (src)

Issue no. 6 covers the topic “Toilets”, with reports from Central and South Asia, East Africa and South America on Urine-Diverting Dry Toilets (UDDTs). Download (PDF; 3.2 MB)

Previous issues:

• Issue 5 (Oct 2010) “Sanitation as a Business” (PDF; 2.2 MB)
• Issue 4 (Jul 2010) “The ROSA project” (PDF; 2.3 MB)
• Issue 3 (Apr 2010) “Use of Urine” (PDF; 1.4 MB)
• Issue 2 (Jan 2010) “Operating & Maintenance – Successful Models for O&M of Sanitation Systems” (PDF; 1,7 MB)
• Issue 1 (Oct 2009) “Greywater – Treatment and reuse” (PDF; 2.2 MB)

This book gives practical guidance on the use of urine in crop production as a vital component of sustainable crop production and sanitation systems. It also includes guidance on how to start activities that will facilitate the introduction of new fertilizers to the agricultural community. This general sourcebook is for professionals, extension workers and practitioners in the field of agriculture, water and sanitation and should serve as a support tool for the development of locally adapted guideline versions.

The publication is available as a PDF (1.7 MB)

download this map as a PDF (0.1 MB)

Steffen Blume of GTZ-ecosan, who created this map for his colleagues at work & agreed to share this with us, kindly asks for some feedback in return. So if you’re active or know of an active NGO within the water / sanitation sector that isn’t listed here, please directly send your feedback to Steffen Blume or kindly use the comment form below. Thank you!

Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in schools programmes are globally recognised as essential to promoting children’s right to health. WASH in schools influences a generational change in health promotion behaviour and attitudes. If schoolchildren have access to clean and appropriate toilets, functioning handwashing facilities with soap, sufficient and safe drinking water and have developed adequate hygiene skills, they are more likely to be healthier and to positively influence hygiene practices among family members and the wider community.

This book is meant for managers and trainers involved in water, sanitation and hygiene programmes in schools, whether operating at state, district or block level. It provides information on a number of essential topics related to WASH in schools and contains relevant activity sheets.

Download (PDF; 5.6 MB)

[via IRC website]

For this reason it is important to investigate the contribution of the waste sector to GHG emissions and integrate the mitigation potential in waste management. Besides many interesting papers presented at conferences worldwide about the importance of an integrated organic waste and wastewater management and its influence on climate change, GHG emissions and the potential of CDM-projects in this field, instruments are needed that show the potential of emission reduction in the waste sector.

One of those instruments available is the recently published “Tool for calculating Greenhouse gases in solid waste management (SWM-GHG Calculator)“. The SWM-GHG Calculator was developed by IFEU Institute and sponsored by KfW Development Bank in cooperation with GTZ. It is based on Excel as a common spreadsheet application and accompanied by a user manual. By help of the calculator waste management strategies can be compared by calculating the GHG emissions of different waste fractions over their whole life cycle following the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach. It does however not provide an in-depth LCA and is not suited for calculating the anticipated quantity of certified emission reductions in the CDM-framework.

More tools that demonstrate the relationship between sanitation and climate change are definitely needed.

See also: Website of the SWM-GHG Calculator (in German).

Public investments of varying forms enable an absolute increase in the number of poor people gaining access to sanitation, varying from 20 percent to 70 percent, according to a study of six cases in Bangladesh, Ecuador, India, Mozambique, Sénégal, and Vietnam by the World Bank-administered Water and Sanitation Program (WSP).

This publication seeks to identify the best-performing approaches and the relevant factors and issues to consider in designing a sanitation financing strategy. The report offers guidance to sector professionals developing on-site sanitation projects and programs, which play the leading role in providing access to sanitation.

The Water and Sanitation Program is a multi-donor partnership administered by the World Bank to support poor people in obtaining affordable, safe, and sustainable access to water and sanitation services.

(via)

“School sanitation is an important but often neglected issue for public health. Children are most vulnerable and affected by poor sanitation conditions. Related diseases, particularly diarrhoea and parasite infections hinder the children´s physical and intellectual development. In a number of countries, evaluations have shown that pupils are dropping out of school due to bad toilet conditions.

This publication gives background on what are important issues to make school sanitation sustainable and success stories. The focus is on urine diverting dry school toilet (UDDT) systems …(which)…offer high quality and comfort. Because of the separation technology in the toilet device, these toilets do not smell or attract flies. For the operation, no water is used for flushing. Water is however needed for the hand washing facilities which are always included in the projects.

This publication is in particular intended for school directors and teachers, administration employees, engineers, architects and construction workers from the field and NGOs.”

The 28-paged publication contains examples from Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia.

Highlights of this release are the translation into French – done by our colleague and dear friend Dr. Abdoulaye Fall from Paris/Dakar – which will hopefully also reach those from Francophone countries. The newsletter currently has 3.960 subscribers from all over the world

The newsletter is available for download as a PDF file (English or French, 0.4 MB) and may also be subscribed to on this page (which also offers other interesting GTZ newsletters). An archive of previous editions is also available on the website of the GTZ ecosan program.

These 2-page guidelines focus on the operators and users of the different installations, to improve acceptance, maintenance and safety.

Available are:

• Nutshell guideline 1: Small scale composting of human faeces (PDF; 0.5MB)
• Nutshell guideline 2: Fertilization with human urine (PDF; 0.5)
• Nutshell guideline 3: Maintenance of public urine diverting toilets (PDF; 0.5MB)

Further publications from RESPTA are available here.