Jennifer McConville

Community-based approaches for addressing the urban sanitation challenge

Urban sanitation presents one of the most significant service delivery challenges related to poverty alleviation and sustainable development in the developing world. The past decade has witnessed innovations in service delivery approaches for unserved rural and urban settlements with a clear policy shift to community-based approaches that attempt to overcome the supply-led, over-engineered sanitation solutions of the past decades. This article presents two examples of new developments: the urban-focussed household-centred environmental sanitation (HCES) and the rural-focussed community-led total sanitation (CLTS) approaches. The internationally renowned CLTS approach has achieved considerable success since its introduction, by harnessing community and small private sector capacity to solve sanitation problems locally. Experience with validation of the HCES approach in a variety of urban sites in Africa, Asia and Latin America is presented in the second part of the article highlighting some of the lessons learned. The article closes by arguing that a combination of HCES and CLTS, two field-tested methodologies, has the potential to improve the sustainability of sanitation service interventions.

Pathways for Sustainable Sanitation: Achieving the Millennium Development Goals

The report is a product arising from the work of the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance which was initiated prior to the International Year of Sanitation in 2008 in an attempt to inject sustainable development ideas into the sanitation sector. It functions as a vision document for those policymakers, researchers and practitioners that are striving towards fundamental reform and improvements within the sanitation sector in both rural and urban populations in all countries of the world. It reviews the global progress being made towards achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target on sanitation. A literature review is presented on sanitation provision including human health impacts and the estimated costs and benefits of achieving the MDG target. The report also provides a critique in that the UN has not yet introduced the concept of sustainability into the MDG programme in general and in particular into the sanitation sector which is highly dysfunctional and suffering from limited political leadership at both the local and global levels. It introduces the various sustainable sanitation options available and what approaches can be taken to improve sanitation systems – not just toilets which are only a small part of the overall system of food, nutrients and water cycles. The study estimates the numbers of urban and rural households, including slum populations that are being targeted in all world regions. It also evaluates the historic trends in morbidity and mortality linked to diarrhoea arising from lack of functioning sanitation services comparing these to the UN data on sanitation coverage. The report estimates the potential fertiliser replacement capacity that reuse of human excreta can have for all world regions. Finally it provides a vision for future development within the sector where more sustainable options like source separation and reuse are promoted giving positive environmental or “green” impacts but also catalysing greater involvement and understanding on the part of individuals in society.

Decision Support for Redesigning Wastewater Treatment Technologies

This paper offers a methodology for structuring the design space for innovative process engineering technology development. The methodology is exemplified in the evaluation of a wide variety of treatment technologies for source-separated domestic wastewater within the scope of the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge. It offers a methodology for narrowing down the decision-making field based on a strict interpretation of treatment objectives for undiluted urine and dry feces and macroenvironmental factors (STEEPLED analysis) which influence decision criteria. Such an evaluation identifies promising paths for technology development such as focusing on space-saving processes or the need for more innovation in low-cost, energy-efficient urine treatment methods. Critical macroenvironmental factors, such as housing density, transportation infrastructure, and climate conditions were found to affect technology decisions regarding reactor volume, weight of outputs, energy consumption, atmospheric emissions, investment cost, and net revenue. The analysis also identified a number of qualitative factors that should be carefully weighed when pursuing technology development; such as availability of O&M resources, health and safety goals, and other ethical issues. Use of this methodology allows for coevolution of innovative technology within context constraints; however, for full-scale technology choices in the field, only very mature technologies can be evaluated.

Closing the food loops: guidelines and criteria for improving nutrient management

Abstract As global consumption expands, the world is increasingly facing threats to resource availability and food security. To meet future food demands, agricultural resource efficiency needs to be optimized for both water and nutrients. Policy makers should start to radically rethink nutrient management across the entire food chain. Closing the food loop by recycling nutrients in food waste and excreta is an important way of limiting the use of mineral nutrients, as well as improving national and global food security. This article presents a framework for sustainable nutrient management and discusses the responsibility of four key stakeholder groups—agriculture, the food industry, consumers, and waste management—for achieving an effective food loop. In particular, we suggest a number of criteria, policy actions, and supporting strategies based on a cross-sectoral application of the waste hierarchy.

Urban sanitation technology decision-making in developing countries: a critical analysis of process guides

Planning for urban sanitation in developing contexts is one of the major development challenges of this century. Particularly, the relevance of a broad perspective in sanitation decision-making processes has been increasingly discussed. One possible contribution to achieve comprehensive decisions is through the use of planning guidelines, also called process guides. The present work first identified categories of relevant decision elements, namely: (a) the multi-sectoral approach, (b) the multiplicity of sustainable dimensions, (c) the system analysis perspective and (d) the co-existence of planning scales. Then, for each category, a comparative analysis of urban sanitation process guides was conducted with a focus on technology decision-making. It was found that the importance of considering those categories is increasingly reflected in process guides, although not always in a detailed supportive way. Recommendations are provided to increase the added value of process guides regarding technology selection, as well as, to better integrate them into urban planning.

Using role-playing games to broaden engineering education

Purpose – In today’s complex society, there is an increasing demand to include a wider set of skills in engineering curricula, especially skills related to policy, society and sustainable development. Role-playing and gaming are active learning tools, which are useful for learning relationships between technology and society, problem solving in complex situations and communication. However, use of these learning methods in higher education, and in engineering particularly, is limited. The purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of a role-playing game for learning about complexities related to sustainable water and sanitation management within a civil engineering curriculum. Design/methodology/approach – The game has been used during three consecutive years in a Masters’ level course. Surveys and course evaluations were used to evaluate the effectiveness of this method from both teacher and student perspectives. Findings – The results show that students gained knowledge on complex subjects, and both teachers and students had positive experiences. Better integration of the game within the rest of the course could strengthen its effectiveness. Originality/value – The experiences gained from this study should assist others in the development and use of such active learning techniques in higher education.

Perceptions of local sustainability in planning sanitation projects in West Africa

The purpose of this study was to examine local perceptions of sustainability in the context of sanitation interventions in Burkina Faso and Mali, West Africa. Through a series of interviews with local actors criteria for sustainable sanitation were defined in the local context. These local criteria were compared with criteria found in international literature and planning practices used in two sanitation projects. The results from the interviews emphasize criteria related to behaviour change processes, while criteria in literature are either oriented toward technical assessments or project guidelines. The case studies show an attempt to merge academic and pragmatic perspectives by addressing both the technical requirements and processes of social change. As we seek to improve results within the sector it is important to start reflecting on what criteria and sustainability definitions are used in specific approaches.