Storm-water management in low-income countries

Rapid urbanisation coupled with a changing climate is increasing surface run-off in many cities in low-income countries. Badly managed run-off has a disproportionate impact on the poor. In a series of ten research projects the state of storm-water management in Vietnam, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Pakistan and India has been examined, including issues of management, maintenance, health impacts (such as malaria) and design standards. The findings show that institutional issues such as urban planning, financing, management responsibility and skills levels are areas that require attention if storm-water is to be controlled effectively. Integrated approaches are required, making institutional coordination critical. Technical issues also need to be addressed, with silt and solid waste being a significant design problem

Exploring the capacity building ladder

Prompted by several visits providing support to universities in Africa, the author explores the challenges in delivering appropriate training to WASH professionals that is both accessible locally and sustainable in terms of time, finance, and human resources and physical facilities. The paper explores the two extreme scenarios of short-term local training courses and longer-term educational programmes in training centre or universities. As educational theory (pedagogy) has a jargon that may not be understood by the WASH sector, analogies are used to compare course design with the use of the "ladder" model, in particular the design of household and centralised water treatment systems and the challenge of moving from one model to another

Surface water in temporary humanitarian settlements

In the Humanitarian Innovation Fund Gap Analysis for water, sanitation and hygiene issues (Bastable and Russell 2013), field staff identified environmental management of surface water as an area of concern, although this was not reflected at a head office level. This difference of perspectives could be an under reporting of this aspect of environmental sanitation to the global humanitarian community or a failure of experts to communicate the required response to surface water management in camps for displaced people. Reviewing core humanitarian engineering texts and global standards, this paper sets out the current state of the art and shows that there is a lack of clarity in the “ownership” of the problem and the established responses are disjointed and poorly articulated, especially at field staff level. Since the core texts have been written, there has been a change in the way surface water is being managed in urban areas. Sustainable urban drainage practices may have potential in resource poor but densely populated situations such as some refugee camps. The paper highlights the lack of adequate advice in both content and delivery mechanisms. More gaps and challenges were identified than solutions, but this is research narrowed down the gaps identified in 2013 to more specific issues, which is a step further to solving the problem

Diversity training for engineers: making ‘gender’ relevant

In 1992, at the UN International Conference on Water and the Environment in Dublin, delegates adopted the principle that ‘women play a central part in the provision, management and safeguarding of water’. While this principle has been largely accepted at policy level in international development, it has proved harder to put into practice. Gender training for engineers and allied professionals was treated as a socioeconomic issue and not part of mainstream infrastructure and basic public service provision. As part of a 3-year study into this area and a series of subsequent training courses, a team of engineers and training professionals has developed new conceptual approaches to training engineers, focusing on the practical application of the Dublin principle. The study looks at the concepts of relevance, engagement and practical skills required to deliver infrastructure services to the whole of society

Engineering and gender issues - evidence from low-income countries

Engineers' work has an impact on society, economically, environmentally and socially. However, society is not uniform and some people will benefit or be adversely impacted more than others. Access to decision making is one important factor in determining the impact on different social groups. In low-income countries, the development of infrastructure can transform the domestic chores of collecting water, fuel or food and can improve the local environment through improved sanitation. Many of these tasks are the responsibility of women, yet they can be excluded from the development process. Engineers can contribute to the inclusion of socially excluded groups of people through increasing the involvement of men and women in engineering decision making and adopting technologies that suit women's needs, resulting in better infrastructure and more equitable societies

Developing professional competencies for humanitarian engineers

One of the roles of engineering institutions is the registration and regulation of engineering professionals, assessing their competence in both technical and management areas. A similar approach is being promoted for professional humanitarian engineers, identifying core competencies relevant to emergency relief work. This would improve standards in the workforce, allow training and experience to be independently evaluated, and facilitate the careers of people working in a very mobile sector. Using the experiences of RedR UK in recruiting and training humanitarian engineers, this paper explores the skills, knowledge and other attributes that distinguish an enthusiastic but ill-informed and inexperienced person from somebody with the expertise to work efficiently, effectively and ethically in a challenging humanitarian context

WASH in emergencies problem exploration report: Solid waste management

Solid waste is a very visible issue in an emergency, but it is often a neglected area of environmental sanitation. It is a diffuse problem that can impact adversely on health, sanitation, drainage and the wider environment. Solid waste also affects public space, reducing the sense of ownership of the problem, both to the general population and to the aid agencies providing relief. Each agency produces waste, from its activities (especially bringing in supplies from elsewhere), their general operations (using and maintaining vehicles) and from their staff (whose living conditions may be in contrast to those of the local population). The solutions for solid waste management (SWM) are technically simple but managerially complex (UNEP/OCHA, 2011). Very little innovation is taking place in the area, although reporting failures is common. Current SWM initiatives focus mainly on restoration of public service

WASH for the perimenopause in low-income countries: changing women, concealed knowledge?

WASH for the perimenopause in low-income countries: changing women, concealed knowledge

Emergency sanitation: developing criteria for pit latrine lining

Pit latrine linings for emergency sanitation facilities require different performance criteria from those for pits used in longer-term development work. Various international initiatives are currently under way to develop new methods of supporting the pits used for latrines in emergencies, but before a solution can be found, the problem needs to be defined. Current field guidance lacks the level of detail required by humanitarian workers to construct durable pits in a timely manner. Consultations with international humanitarian field staff and UK-based geotechnical engineers were used in this research project to identify design, construction, and operational requirements of emergency pit-lining systems. However, rather than closely defined performance requirements, the study identified a wide range of criteria that need to be considered and clear distinctions between emergency and longer-term solutions. Latrines constructed in the initial stages of emergencies are likely to be communal, with long rectangular pits that require frequent emptying. Current knowledge of suitable pit support methods is sufficient to provide a limited range of standard designs that could be selected to meet local requirements

Unveiling hidden knowledge: discovering the hygiene needs of perimenopausal women

The provision of adequate water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services to ensure good health and wellbeing for all is incorporated into the Sustainable Development Goals, with the aim to ‘leave no-one behind’. The WASH needs of perimenopausal (PM) women are largely absent from academic literature. These personal needs are hidden knowledge. However, this article demonstrates the use of participative methodologies to ‘unveil’ these. A UK-based phenomenological review set the research agenda using PM women’s narratives; this was later developed in urban Ghana using oral history interviews, participatory mapping and PhotoVoice. Allowing for some adaption of these tools to account for local taboos in the global South, issues were revealed that are invisible to many but still warrant attention. Moving beyond theoretical discourse, practical approaches identified infrastructural issues and ensured the inclusion of PM experience. Unveiling hidden knowledge in this way has wider implications for other issues in development agendas