Imagine life without a proper toilet: that’s the reality for 1 in 3 people

It’s 2014. So why do we still need World Toilet Day? Because 2.5 billion people still need one. World Toilet Day remains a critical means to raise awareness globally about one of the many important things we take for granted. Every day, 1400 children die from preventable diseases, like diarrhoea, caused by unclean water and inadequate sanitation

Environmentally sustainable WASH? Current discourse, planetary boundaries and future directions

© IWA Publishing 2017. The significant challenge of achieving safe, reliable and continuous service delivery has been a focus of the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector in recent years, with less attention given to other important sustainability considerations such as environmental sustainability. The agenda set by the Sustainable Development Goals prompts a wider lens, bringing water resource management and ecosystem conservation together with water and sanitation access targets in one integrated goal. As we grapple with our approach to this new agenda, it is timely to reflect on how we, as a sector, engage with environmental sustainability. This paper reviews recent literature at the intersection of WASH and environmental sustainability to identify current themes and future directions. Analysis of academic and non-academic sources was undertaken and then situated with reference to the planetary boundaries framework as a useful lens to ground the socio-ecological systems and processes upon which environmental sustainability depends. Findings point to both opportunities and gaps within current sector thinking, which can drive leadership from knowledge and research institutions towards better integration of access and environmental sustainability imperatives

Quality criteria for inter- and trans-disciplinary doctoral research outcomes

Disciplinary, multi‐disciplinary, inter‐disciplinary (ID) and trans‐disciplinary (TD) research are all essential if we are to make headway on the defining challenges of our time: adapting to and mitigating the effects of climate change, eliminating poverty, improving equity, and many others. The role of higher education is to provide high quality offerings and outcomes across these research forms. Quality frames for work within disciplines (i.e. disciplinary and multi‐disciplinary research) have evolved with the development of disciplines. These frames are widely known and used (implicitly) within disciplines. Quality frames for inter‐disciplinary research (IDR) and trans‐disciplinary research (TDR) are less well developed because their nature is to juxtapose different epistemologies, making the process of determining quality fraught, and because they are young ‐ explications of what differentiates this work are still being developed. Our experience in working in the ID and TD field has exposed us to strong differences in how people judge quality in different disciplines and their expectations of ID and TD work. For instance in seeking to publish ID and TD work, papers have received outright rejection from a particular journal, whilst being strongly complimented and accepted to another highly ranked journal. Equally, another example is a doctoral assessment process in which a panel member of one disciplinary background said “I just can’t see a PhD in this work”, while another replied “I can see three”. The gap in quality frames becomes particularly significant for postgraduate students, supervisors, and examiners. Students need to produce a thesis that will pass examination, and papers that will be published. Examiners of doctoral theses need guidance on how IDR and TDR differs from disciplinary research, and to be alerted to appropriate expectations from such work. Supervisors need to mediate the process to help deliver these outcomes. This document seeks to explore and describe appropriate interpretations of broad quality criteria for evaluating IDR and TDR. In line with the view of Kiley and Mullins (2004), we recognise that criteria and their use are just one part of the process of judgement of quality of research that occurs for an examiner of doctoral work, and that many other factors influence how research is interpreted and judged, not least the level of experience of the examiner. In contrast to our approach in this work, Laudel (2006) argues that the answer to evaluating new forms of ID and TD research lies not in different criteria but rather in the ‘relative empowerment of applicants and enforced ‘interdisciplinary learning’ of reviewers with careful monitoring of institutional rules of assessment’. We agree in principle, and in practice, would argue that in the context of the Australian thesis examination process, that is particularly difficult to achieve, since examiners are external, and at arm’s length ‐ typically they do not meet or converse with each other, the candidate, or the supervisor. The opportunity to create and monitor interdisciplinary learning is, for now, severely restricted. We maintain that our focus on criteria is a vital contribution toward providing much needed guidance for students, supervisors and examiners on appropriate standards for an ID or TD doctoral thesis, and forms a valuable input to on

Monitoring the human rights to water and sanitation: An analysis of policy in Pacific island countries

© IWA Publishing 2016. Government monitoring of water and sanitation services is a critical step in realising the human rights to water and sanitation (HRWS). In this study we investigated the national water and sanitation policies of 13 Pacific island countries (PICs) to understand how they envision monitoring the water and sanitation service delivery dimensions put forth by the HRWS framework. In particular, we analysed the policies for fundamental aspects of good monitoring governance and sought to learn how strongly monitoring of each service delivery dimension was represented in the policies. We found that delineation of roles and responsibilities and defined information flows are generally underdeveloped, and that the policies tend to give precedence to monitoring the service delivery dimensions of availability, quality, and sustainability over accessibility, affordability, acceptability, and equality. Donors have considerable influence on which dimensions receive the most emphasis in the policies. If realisation of the HRWS is to be effectively supported in PICs, PIC governments and supporting donors must continue to refine national policy to clarify aspects of good monitoring governance and to be more inclusive of monitoring a wider range of service delivery dimensions

The most significant lessons about the most significant change technique

This article presents field-based insights into the application of the Most Significant Change (MSC) technique as a method to monitor social change resulting from a development intervention. Documentation of this innovative qualitative monitoring technique is slowly growing, but is mostly limited to grey literature. In particular, there is a lack of rigorous investigation to assess the complexities and challenges of applying the technique with integrity in the development context. The authors employ a conceptual model of monitoring and evaluation practicalities (the 'M&E Data Cycle') for a systematic examination of the challenges to, and key components of, successful application of the MSC technique. They provide a detailed analysis of how MSC was employed in two projects in Laos, extracting the lessons learned and insights generated. This practice-based information can inform future deployment of the MSC technique and contribute to its development

Learning to be a “Transdisciplinary” Sustainability Researcher: A Community of Practice Approach

This paper utilises a ‘community of practice’ model to reflect on the post-graduate research program at the Institute for Sustainable Futures, UTS. Our work at the Institute involves resolution of complex problems in today’s society, a task which requires insights generated through multiple disciplines. Over the last five years we have conducted an evolving program of activities for our post-graduate students to equip them with the necessary skills for this challenge. This program has been transformational for both individuals and the group, which now operates as a cohesive, mutually learning team. In this paper we look to the ‘community of practice’ model as a critical lens to examine our program and assist in identifying new opportunities to improve our approach to transdisciplinary research training

Analysing the capacity to respond to climate change: a framework for community-managed water services

© 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. In this paper, we present a conceptual framework for guiding interdisciplinary research on analysing the capacity of community-managed water services to respond to disturbances from climate change. Climate change poses a serious threat to the sustainable delivery of community-managed water services in developing countries. We synthesized key concepts from the latest research on vulnerability and resilience theories into a shared framework that functions as a heuristic for the analysis of different elements of the capacity to respond to climate disturbances and how they are related to community-managed water services. Primary elements of the framework include conceptualisations of the capacities to respond to specific hazards (e.g. through risk management and knowledge of thresholds) and to disturbances in general (e.g. through agency, social structure, and adaptive management practices), the potential for capacity to be differentiated across scales, and the social and biophysical system characteristics that influence capacity to respond to climate change. We describe how each these elements relate to sustaining community-managed water services against climate change throughout the paper. We also discuss subjective choices (temporal frame, system boundaries, scale of inquiry, and desired forms of capacity) that analysts must make when considering how capacity to respond to climate change is analysed