Fw: Sanitation and Water News, Wednesday, July 20, 2011
pk...@worldbank.org
Dear all,
The Indian's story on the ministry tasked to end OD is quite interesting.
Phyrum
Global: Gates Foundation: 'We need to reinvent the toilet' (CNN)
The toilet is broken -- and not because it won't flush.
This unsightly piece of technology, which everyone uses but no one seems to think much about, is in desperate need of an overhaul, according to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which launched a challenge to "reinvent the toilet."
The foundation announced $41.5 million worth of grants on Tuesday aimed at getting someone to reengineer the flushing porcelain pot, which has been in use since the 1700s.
"No innovation in the past 200 years has done more to save lives and improve health than the sanitation revolution triggered by invention of the toilet," Sylvia Mathews Burwell, president of the foundation's global development program, said in a statement. "But it did not go far enough. It only reached one-third of the world. What we need are new approaches. New ideas. In short, we need to reinvent the toilet."
So what exactly is wrong with the current commode?
It's too expensive for people in the developing world; it requires water and a sewer-system hook-up, which aren't always available; and it does nothing to actually treat human waste, said Frank Rijsberman, the foundation's director of water sanitation and hygiene.
"We like the toilet. It was invented in 1775, saved millions of lives," he said. "At the same time, it didn't reach two-thirds of the world's population."
So it's high time for an update, he said.
About 2.5 billion people don't have access to toilets as we've currently imagined them, and this lack of toilet access encourages the spread of diarrheal diseases, which are blamed for the deaths of 1.5 million children each year, according to the World Health Organization.
"We want to look at waste as a resource and recycle it," Rijsberman said. "We think we can recycle the energy, the minerals and also the water. We want to reinvent the toilet that is cheap, that doesn't cost more than a few pennies, that poor people want to use and that will recycle minerals, energy and water."
The Gates Foundation has given out eight grants (here's the list as a PDF) to universities that are trying to dream up a toilet 2.0.
Here are a few of the most striking ideas from those grantees:
• Andrew Cotton, from Loughborough University in the UK, is making a toilet that will "recover water and salt from feces and urine."
• Georgios Stefanidis, from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, is working on a toilet that will generate electricity from waste, which will be "gasified into plasma" using microwaves. That gas can be used to generate electricity, according to the proposal.
• Yu-Ling Chen, from the University of Toronto, is trying to make a toilet that will "sanitize feces within 24 hours" so human waste doesn't transmit disease through a community. Chen plans to use a process of dehydration, filtration and smoldering to render the waste harmless.
• Michael Hoffmann, from the California Institute of Technology, plans to develop a solar-powered toilet. Solar cells generate enough power to process waste and turn it into fuel for electricity.
The Gates Foundation warns that none of these efforts constitutes a "silver bullet" that would solve the world's sanitation problems and says new toilet designs must be pursued in tandem with better wastewater treatment and sanitation systems.
Some efforts to remake the toilet have gone down the tubes.
"There have been a lot of toilet projects out there and a lot of failures," Marla Smith-Nilson, executive director of Water 1st International, told The Seattle Times.
But the Gates Foundation remains hopeful that "radical innovation" can help.
The universities that received funding are expected to have working prototypes within a year, and the foundation expects some of the projects to be ready for rollout in three or four years, Rijsberman said.
Although these redesigned toilets are targeted at third-world countries, some of these ideas would be helpful in United States and Europe, too, Rijsberman said, especially in addressing water shortages.
"How much sense does it make to clean up water to drinking water standards and then flush it down with sewage in an expensive pipe system?" he said. "We think modern science and technology can produce something that is more like the cell phone of sanitation."
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/07/19/toilet.design.gates
Rwanda: AfricaSan 3: Civil Society Demands African Governments “Walk the Talk on Sanitation” (Sanitation Updates)
Civil society organisations (CSOs) are calling on African leaders and international governments to take urgent action on the continent’s critical sanitation situation. The call was issued on the eve of AfricaSan 3, the only Africa-wide conference on sanitation, which is taking place from 19-21 July 2011 in Kigali, Rwanda.
“Despite our collective efforts, since the last AfricaSan 2.1 million children under-five have died of diarrhea caused by poor sanitation, water and hygiene in Africa,” said civil society leader Doreen Wandera Kabasindi from Uganda.
“We are striving to bring an end to these preventable deaths and this huge suffering so we call on our governments to take urgent action.”
In consultation with over 230 African CSOs, INGO WaterAid, Freshwater Action Network (FAN), the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) and the End Water Poverty campaign, they are demanding that their governments and development partners to:
§ Develop clear financial plans to ensure that 0.5% of GDP is spent on sanitation, as per the eThekwini Declaration, and that these funds are targeted to those most in need
§ Work together to support the global Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) partnership to ensure high-level coordination of funds, targets and practises.
§ Work transparently so their progress can be monitored and assessed, especially in relation to the implementation of the Human Right to Water and Sanitation
Read the full statement
Official conference web site: www.africasan3.com/
You can follow live conference updates on Twitter at @Africasan3 (official) and @WaterAid/sanitation and with the hashtags #AfricaSan and #AfricaSan3
Who’s doing what at AfricaSan 3? The following organisations have dedicated web pages on their involvement in conference:
§ African Development Bank
§ IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre
§ Water and Sanitation Program (WSP)
Malawi: Women Get Dirty to Stop Water Scarcity (IPS News)MACHINGA DISTRICT, Malawi, Jul 19 (IPS) - Ethel James cannot wait for the gravity-fed water scheme in her area to be fixed so that she and the other women in her village will no longer have to wake up before dawn everyday to queue for water.
She is part of the team of local villagers repairing the existing water system, which consists of a pipeline connected to a reservoir. At various points in the village are taps connected to the pipeline, but there is no running water just yet.
The water supply system fell to disrepair in the mid-1990s after government could no longer maintain it.
With the assistance of Water Aid Malawi, an international charity that assists people in accessing safe drinking water and sanitation, the community has taken over ownership of the scheme that covers Kwilasha village in Machinga District, southern Malawi and 13 surrounding villages.
People have been organised into clubs, with women assuming leading roles. Women are also involved in the laying of pipes and the digging of trenches. Community members are replacing old pipes with new and larger ones and expanding the network to reach more people.
Every morning before James begins work on the repairs, she rises at 4am and walks an hour to the only functioning borehole in the neighbouring village. She returns home with just a bucket of water, which her five children use to get ready for school.
The nearest alternative source of water is a river just 10 minutes away, but at this time of the year it is dry. But even during the rainy season it is a river that James avoids because there is a possibility of encountering crocodiles here. They swim up from Malawi's main Shire River, which is linked to this tributary.
"So we just dig wells in the village, but that is also a problem because cholera becomes rampant since the water is unsafe. Now that it is the dry season, the wells no longer have water, so we rely on the borehole," says James. Until the mid-1990s, access to running water was not a problem in the district as it had 10 functional water schemes, which government constructed in 1980.
However, all the schemes collapsed in 1994 when government changed the ownership policy and wanted the communities to manage the schemes. Many villagers did not have the skills to repair the facilities and were unable to raise money to buy spare parts. So the schemes collapsed.
"Government heaped the responsibility of running the schemes in the laps of people who were ignorant on how to go about managing them," says villager Ndojime Zakaria who dug trenches for the scheme in 1980.
The government also decided to move away from building and maintaining gravity-fed water schemes to focus on drilling boreholes as a means of providing water.
However, water sector analysts in Malawi have faulted boreholes sunk in the decade after 1994. They say the intervention was often not based on hydrological expertise, but on the influence of politicians seeking patronage. Many were also accused of giving business to drilling companies in which they had interests. This resulted in an inequitable distribution of water points and the malfunctioning of most facilities.
The community suffered on both fronts: their gravity-fed scheme had collapsed and the borehole system had largely failed. This forced women to fetch water from unsafe sources or crocodile-infested rivers in the district.
"Without the scheme, the alternative water sources are either distant or dangerous because most rivers here pour into the main Shire River, which is home to thousands of crocodiles. Sometimes, these crocodiles follow the smaller rivers posing such a danger to women who go there to get water," says Steve Meja, the district water officer for Machinga.
But now Water Aid Malawi and the Machinga district council have since trained the community in leadership, project management, finance raising, catchment area conservation and sanitation. It is expected that once the repair to this water system is completed, it will reach Kwilasha village and 13 other surrounding villages. Its reach will spread to about 45,000 people, which is three times more than it used to serve in the 1990s.
James says that repairing the water system will make a difference to the lives of the women in her village. "Women suffer most when there is a water shortage. Now we’re learning every skill so that we (can) maintain the scheme ourselves and ensure a reliable water supply. Our work does not stop at digging trenches; we also join men in laying pipes and fixing the facilities," says James.
Monalisa Nkhonjera, the programme officer responsible for communication at Water Aid Malawi, says the involvement of women in "rough and dirty" jobs, such as fixing pipes, enables them to rely on themselves to maintain the scheme.
The scheme has started functioning in some villages and each household contributes 13 cents a month for buying accessories and constructing new water points. The community has been organised into a water user association. They have a bank account where some of the money is saved as capital for when Water Aid Malawi hands over the facilities to the people.
In the sections where water is running, women are also taking the lead in promoting sanitation and hygiene. Through volunteer sanitation committees, the women visit households to discuss proper water storage, the need to wash one’s hands after using the toilet, and how to manage water points.
James thinks the scheme will not collapse again, mostly because women are no longer spectators in the project. She says she now knows how to repair a tap and where to buy spare parts for the system.
"Having suffered the worst since the collapse of the scheme, we are doing all we can to learn everything so that we are able to maintain it ourselves even when the men are not there. An efficient water supply will help us look after our families well," she says.
Water Aid Malawi has already assisted with the rehabilitation of another water scheme in the district. Government is set to revive the rest of the schemes with an African Development Bank loan using the same approach of community ownership.
Alaska, USA: USDA Provides $24 Million for Rural Alaska Sanitation Improvements (Arctic Sounder)
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced today that 14 communities, many with populations that are predominately Alaska Native, will receive $23.6 million through the Rural Alaska Village Grant program to fund water quality improvement projects in rural Alaska villages, said a written statement from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The announcement of funding follows a new Memorandum of Understanding between Rural Development and program partners to improve efforts to provide clean water and improved sanitation services to the villages.
"Rural Development made a commitment to streamline the Rural Alaska Village Grant program and this funding is the result of that commitment," Vilsack said. "Residents of these rural communities will now be able to have running water for cooking, cleaning and laundry that most people take for granted."
The Memorandum of Understanding is the result of an initiative launched by USDA in April of 2010 through a Rural Alaska Village Grant (RAVG) Process Improvement Conference in Anchorage. The conference was attended by representatives from USDA, Alaska's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, U.S. Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), Indian Health Service and the Denali Commission and focused on ways to improve communication, simplify the application process and maintain grant funds accountability.
The inter-agency collaboration has produced results throughout the streamlining initiative. In 2009 and 2010 USDA invested more than $65 million in RAVG construction and planning projects.
For example, the community of Old Kasigluk will use grant funds to construct core facilities, including a water treatment plant, washeteria, a water storage tank, lift station, and a sewer force main to transport wastewaster directly to a recently constructed sewage lagoon. The washeteria, a centralized running-water facility, will provide the residents of Old Kasigluk, a rural community in southwestern Alaska, with access to clean water for cooking, cleaning and washing. The improvements are the first upgrades needed to provide the community with quality sanitary services and replace structurally unsound facilities that can no longer be used. The residents of the community currently haul water and dispose of wastewater by utilizing "honey" buckets.
Communities receiving grant funds under this announcement include: Toksook Bay, $5,252,400; Stebbins, $5,064,367; Kasaan, $3,393,750; Togiak, $937,509; Old Kasigluk, $4,082,250; Shungnak, $1,492,500; Nunam Iqua, $137,655; Igiugig, $1,326,122; Kwigillingok, $973,875; Saxman, $303,938; Eek, $210,000; Golovin, $74,700; Kobuk, $33,750; Kotlik, $375,000.
In June, President Obama signed an Executive Order establishing the first White House Rural Council, chaired by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. The White House Rural Council will work throughout government to create policies to promote economic prosperity and a high quality of life in our rural communities.
Since taking office, President Obama's Administration has taken significant steps to improve the lives of rural Americans and has provided broad support for rural communities. The Obama Administration has set goals of modernizing infrastructure by providing broadband access to 10 million Americans, expanding educational opportunities for students in rural areas, and providing affordable health care. In the long term, these unparalleled rural investments will help ensure that America's rural communities are repopulating, self-sustaining, and thriving economically.
USDA, through its Rural Development mission area, administers and manages housing, business and community infrastructure and facility programs through a national network of state and local offices. Rural Development has an existing portfolio of more than $150 billion in loans and loan guarantees. These programs are designed to improve the economic stability of rural communities, businesses, residents, farmers and ranchers and improve the quality of life in rural America.
India: India's Youngest Ministry Tasked to End Open Defecation (Indo-Asian News Service cites World Bank)
New Delhi -- India's youngest ministry has the enormous task of ridding rural areas of open defecation and unsafe drinking water with about 245 million people in the country still without access to sanitation facilities and nearly 76 million still not getting adequate safe drinking water. The creation of a Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation is expected to accelerate efforts to provide access to adequate potable water in 150,000 rural habitations and access to sanitation to about 30 percent of 833 million rural population lacking these basic amenities, officials said.
Drinking water and sanitation earlier constituted a department of the Ministry of Rural Development. The new ministry will deal with water supply, sewage, drainage and sanitation in rural areas. After Gurudas Kamat failed to take the responsibility of the new ministry in last week's cabinet jig, its charge has been given to Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh.
Officials of the new ministry are happy about their elevated status. As a department, it had a huge budget of Rs.11,000 crore (Rs 110 billion) this fiscal. "We learnt about the decision of the new ministry only after the cabinet reshuffle," a senior official told IANS, speaking only on condition of anonymity. The officials said that drinking water in both urban and rural areas should come under the new ministry to give it a better profile and to tackle water management in an integrated manner.
"Standards of water supply in both areas should be the same. Urban areas mostly get water from rural areas but the effluent waste goes to rural areas, affecting the quality of water there. We can't look at issues in isolation," one official said. But he agreed that the issue was more acute in rural areas. "About 1.5 lakh (150,000) of the 16.6 lakh (1.66 million) rural habitations which is about 76 million people in the country do not have access to adequate safe drinking water," he said.
Another official said that rural sanitation coverage "had gone up from 27.35 percent in 2004 to 70.37 percent in 2010-11 but about 245 million people still do not have access to sanitation." He said though the country had set itself the goal of 100 percent rural sanitation coverage by 2012, the target has now been revised to 2017 -- due to the enormity of the task.
The government is keen that by the end of the 12th five-year plan (2012-17), at least 55 percent of rural households should be provided with piped water, and at least 35 percent should have household connections. Rural drinking water is one of the six components of Bharat Nirman, an initiative of the government to build the rural infrastructure since 2005. The programme aims to cover rural habitations not having drinking water facilities and to address problems related to water quality such as contamination of arsenic and flouride.
A World Bank study last year said that India loses almost $53.8 billion or 6.4 percent of its GDP through hygiene-related diseases, lost productivity and other factors stemming from poor sanitation. Only about 366 million people - around a third of population - had access to proper sanitation in 2008, according to a UN study.
According to a UNICEF report, combined effects of inadequate sanitation, unsafe water supply and poor hygiene were responsible for 88 percent of childhood fatalities from diarrhoea in the country. Poor sanitation and unsafe drinking water cause intestinal worm infections, which lead to malnutrition, anaemia and retarded growth among children. The report said about 638 million people in India defecate in the open, which is about 55 percent of the total population defecating in the open in the world. India's first nationwide programme of rural sanitation, the Central Rural Sanitation Programme (CRSP) was launched in 1986. Another programme, Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC), was launched in 1999 with the aim of ending open defecation.
(Prashant Sood can be contacted at prash...@ians.in)
India: City Wakes Up to Threat of Water Scarcity (The Times of India)
RWAs, NGOs Join ‘Blue Delhi’
Neha Lalchandani TNN
New Delhi: It’s no secret that Delhi has no additional sources of water and in the next few years the city could be facing a major water crisis. While the government is fighting the Centre for Renuka Dam and Haryana for the Munak Canal, Delhiites have come together in a unique initiative to make the city self-sufficient by 2016.
The Blue Delhi programme will be joined by resident welfare associations, students, concerned citizens, NGOs and government bodies, including Delhi Jal Board, who will work through various task forces to educate, monitor and implement programmes on water conservation.
“The Blue Delhi plan is perhaps the most ambitious, trend-setting water plan ever. It will bring together powerful partners for a goal oriented task. It will also minimize additional resource requirements by using existing schemes and funding opportunities towards the objective. The plan will recognize that the city will have no additional water very soon and work towards making Delhi self sufficient in its water resources,” said Jyoti Sharma, director, Forum of Organised Resource Conservation and Enhancement (FORCE).
Statistics compiled by FORCE say that Delhi’s poor face a water-supply shortfall of between 40 and 100 per cent. DJB officials accept that there are huge variations in supply, primarily due to the population expanding at a rate that was never factored in plans. “We are working to make the supply system equitable but even then it is imperative for residents to understand that there is just so much water we have. Water is not a luxury and one must use it with utmost caution,” said a senior DJB official.
Blue Delhi will see groups working towards conserving groundwater, implementing projects at the ground level, implementation of the groundwater bill, recycling and reuse of waste water for horticulture, promoting techniques for saving water at the household level and bringing about equality in distribution.
“We met for the first time on Monday and outlined a programme that can be followed. Over the next few months there might be some changes. However, the broad outline for the project is to make Delhi a zero rainfall outfall city and to ensure that all water bodies are filled with fresh, treated waste or flood water. We also plan to implement the use of treated waste water for horticulture, reduce the flow of contaminated water into the Yamuna and form an army of Jal Rakshaks who can implement the agenda at the ground level,” said Sharma.
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