Maximizing the benefits of training engineers about gender

Gender is an important aspect of multidisciplinary provision of water and environmental sanitation services; however it is not just the responsibility of social scientists, but the whole team. Training engineers about gender has been difficult, or even not attempted due to perceived professional boundaries, but a research project looking into ways gender can be “mainstreamed” into infrastructure development has produced a new way of getting the message across to a technical audience. This however may be in a form that social scientists may not recognize

Developing engineers and technicians: Notes on giving guidance to engineers and technicians on how infrastructure can meet the needs of men and women

Engineers are increasingly being involved in social issues. These notes are designed to assist the managers and trainers of engineers in raising awareness of some of the issues with their staff. They are written in the form of training notes in 38 Units, together with 7 Checklists for use in meetings. It accompanies the book (also available from WEDC) Infrastructure for All which has been produced to help engineers, technicians and project managers ensure that the facilities they design and build are beneficial to all members of society. Using many examples, especially examples related to water and sanitation, Infrastructure for All demonstrates that 'one size does not fit all'. It shows how women, men and children frequently have different needs and different priorities because they use infrastructure in different ways. It explains how the community that will use the infrastructure is generally structured by inequalities of various kinds. The engineer may intend that the facility should serve the needs of all; but if there is no analysis of social issues then this intention is not likely to be realized. Infrastructure for All seeks to make gender analysis intelligible to engineers working at the project level; to enable them to co-operate with social scientists, and to increase their awareness of the need to work with women and men in the user community. The book emphasizes the practical ways in which taking account of gender relations will improve the design, implementation and use of infrastructure. With this in mind, it is focused on what civil engineers actually need to know to improve their projects, to give the 'civil' aspects of their work equal weight with the 'engineering' aspects. This book, together with Infrastructure for All, will be of great interest to all engineers, technicians and project managers concerned with infrastructure development in low- and middle-income countries. This book is one of the outputs from a Knowledge and Research project funded by the Department for International Development (DFID) of the British Government

Cholera: a relief or a development issue?

WASH is often promoted as a way of preventing water borne diseases such as cholera. The overwhelming opinion is that the only sustainable way of preventing outbreaks is by decent water supplies, sanitation and hygiene behaviour, yet WASH actors do not appear to be active in the fight against the disease, with initial responses being led by medical issues. The concept of the disaster cycle should lead from relief to recovery to prevention, but the handover from emergency response to development is weak, made worse by the transfer of the lead agency from health to WASH, with differing priorities, actions and data needs. The idea of early recovery tries to bring “development” closer to the emergency response but this leads to blurred boundaries and ill-defined responsibilities. A stronger emphasis on prevention with clear practical actions would provide more focus for the eradication of this preventable disease

Maximising the benefits of urban drainage

Urban drainage has important health, economic, environmental and personal impacts. However current design techniques focus on water quantity issues. A multidisciplinary approach brings more factors into the design process, increasing the benefits of a drainage system, but this changes the design information required and the range of solutions available. The increase in factors to be considered also requires the institutional arrangements to be reviewed, to reflect the wider range of issues involved

Integrating sanitation and environment assessments for use in emergencies

Emergency response is characterised by the need for rapid and effective assessment of the existing situation to allow for informed decision making. It is within these constraints of limited time and resources that personnel are expected to implement life sustaining interventions. During this time the consideration of cross-cutting issues such as the environment are limited as they are not seen as an integral part of immediate emergency response. Environmental awareness needs to be improved during emergency response to avoid future implications for the population and the environment upon which they depend. This study therefore focused on determining the likelihood of successful integration of environmental considerations within an existing emergency sanitation assessment. It tested two assessment methods, one for environmental sanitation and one for environmental impacts in a refugee camp in Zambia and makes recommendations on the practical application of these frameworks

Communication within multi-stakeholder platforms in water resource management: Ethiopian case study

Despite Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) being advocated as a sustainable approach to water resource management, it is not clear how to implement it. Participatory management has been advocated by scholars and leading agencies, but apart some tools that can address involvement in a single sector (e.g. irrigation), models to implement a multi-stakeholder approach are still under development. Multi-Stakeholder Platforms (MSPs) seem to be a potential candidate for an organizational structure which could support this challenge. This paper analyses if there is the capacity among stakeholders to handle water-related information, in order to support a meaningful participation within the MSPs, by investigating the Ethiopian context as a case study

Developing a capacity building framework for NGOs in the WatSan sector

NGOs have an important contribution to make to the provision of water and sanitation services. Like any organisation they need resources to deliver these services and human resources are vital. Providing quality, targeted and efficient capacity building across the diverse and scattered requires co-ordination and planning. This paper describes the development of a framework for capacity building of watsan NGOs and their umbrella organisation, providing a strategy to improve the ability of NGOs to help meet the challenging targets for coverage of water supply and sanitation services. A participative process was used to engage with NGOs from all regions of Uganda, in order to inform and develop a possible national funding mechanism that included both international and grass roots organisations. This case study provides an example of the participative development of a training strategy

Sanitation ‘secrets’ and menstrual hygiene management: what can perimenopausal women tell us?

An increasingly ageing population brings a rise in the number of perimenopausal women, who commonly experience changes and irregularities in their menstruation, which they wish to conceal from view and keep ‘secret’. The WASH sector has paid attention to the menstrual hygiene management (MHM) needs of adolescent girls, whilst the MHM needs of perimenopausal women are ignored. Using narratives provided by women in Ghana through oral history interviews, participatory mapping and PhotoVoice, and using a vignette method to engage stakeholders, this paper discusses how MHM during the perimenopause is affected by inadequate sanitation provision. Sanitary materials which fail to provide effective menstrual protection also raise related issues of access to sanitation, toilet and bathing infrastructure design, and the need for good solid waste management. The sanitation needs of menstruating perimenopausal women can be addressed through adapting existing hardware and software solutions

Infrastructure for all: Meeting the needs of both men and women in development projects - a practical guide for engineers, technicians and project managers

This book has been produced to help engineers, technicians and project managers ensure that the facilities they design and build are beneficial to all members of society. Using many examples, especially examples related to water and sanitation, the book demonstrates that "one size does not fit all". It shows how women, men and children frequently have different needs and different priorities because they use infrastructure in different ways. It explains how the community that will use the infrastructure is generally structured by inequalities of various kinds. The engineer may intend that the facility should serve the needs of all; but if there is no analysis of social issues then this intention is not likely to be realized. The book seeks to make gender analysis intelligible to engineers working at the project level; to enable them to co-operate with social scientists, and to increase their awareness of the need to work with women and men in the user community. The book emphasizes the practical ways in which taking account of gender relations will improve the design, implementation and use of infrastructure. With this in mind, it is focused on what civil engineers actually need to know to improve their projects, to give the 'civil' aspects of their work equal weight with the 'engineering' aspects. This book will be of great interest to all engineers, technicians and project managers concerned with infrastructure development in low- and middle-income countries

Surface water management in humanitarian crises

This paper reports on the scoping stage of a practical toolkit being developed to support the application of surface water management practices in humanitarian contexts. The toolkit is predominately aimed at refugee and IDP camps for displaced people and aims to address the lack of suitable guidance in this area (Abbot et al. 2017). Effective surface water management will protect the health, dignity and wellbeing of communities in humanitarian crises. In developing the toolkit, the authors recognise the challenges posed in creating a document that can effectively support an audience with diverse interests and roles within humanitarian contexts. This will be a key focus for the next stage of the project