The 36th WEDC conference that took place from 1 - 5 of July in Nakuru, Kenya, was the first opportunity for IRC to launch its "West Africa Learning and Exchange workshop". This learning event will take place in Cotonou, Benin, from 12th - 14th of November 2013.
Published on: 08/07/2013
About 45 WASH professionals from various backgrounds (government, academics, NGO and private sector) attended the side event organized by IRC on the 1st of July, which aimed at:
IRC reporter Jo Smet invited a panel of WASH professionals to provide examples of challenges faced in their respective country as regards to sanitation:
- In Uganda, CLTS is going on well, but at very slow progress…
- In South Sudan, we have difficulties to monitor the sustainability of ODF status. But how can we make sure that the latrines are used? How can we ensure that there is a real behaviour change?
- In Malawi, we sometimes just do not understand why some people prefer the bush to the latrines. There is additional work to be done to understand the motivations and triggers behind behaviour change.
- In Kenya, years of subsidies have led to a dependency syndrome; people are less willing to change behaviour.
- In Tanzania, we also face problems at national level: up to now, we have no sanitation policy.
- In Burkina Faso, we will not be able to reach the MDG for Sanitation and we aim at reaching ODF around 2025.
Despite the progress made in sanitation in the past 10 years, issues related to sustainability and behavioural change always come back in the discussions. Sanitation coverage has increased in the last 10 years: but for how long will this progress be sustained? What mechanisms need to be put in place to prevent slippage? How do we sustain sanitation services?
The upcoming “West Africa Learning and Exchange workshop”, organised by IRC in partnership with UNICEF, SNV and WaterAid, aims at gathering practitioners to share and jointly analyse failure and success stories – not the conventional ones, but the extraordinary one! - to get a deeper understanding of the underlying motivating (and demotivating) factors for sustainable sanitation.
Do you have any interesting story or case to share? Then join us! Submit your abstract using the link below.
Mélanie Carrasco and Jo Smet – IRC
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