Published on: 29/01/2012
The Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector is facing serious challenges: 2 billion people are without sanitation and 800 million lack water services. And when services are provided, most are unreliable, of poor quality and prone to failure. In South Asia alone, 570,000 children die every year as a result of diarrhoea caused by poor sanitation and hygiene.
As sector professionals we need to learn why our exisiting approaches are not always fully effective, and we need to build on best practices to improve our implementation models.
Evidence-based learning can make the sector progress, and learning from peers is inspiring and fun. That is why IRC and partners organise recurrent regional practitioners’ workshops where experiences are discussed, analysed and documented for further sharing - and for action. The next regional workshop will be held from 31 Jan-2 Feb in Bangladesh. Over 50 professionals will meet and reflect on improving sustainability, equity and monitoring in Sanitation and Hygiene in Asia. We'll be exploring questions like:
This is the 3rd Asian workshop in this series and builds on inspiring exchanges in 2008 and 2010, where participants discussed the importance of reaching the poorest, dealing with final disposal of feces (after the pits fill up, who deals with the mess?) monitoring handwashing and other safe hygiene behaviors and the importance of catering for menstrual hygiene needs of girls and women.
The following video comes from the Q&A session on menstrual hygiene in the 2010 workshop.
This time, over 23 papers have been submitted. They can be accessed at http://www.irc.nl/page/68058. IRC sythesised key lessons from eight regional sanitation and hygiene workshops organised between 2007 and 2011. The sythesis document and supporting materials are available here
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