IRC is co-organising a workshop together with GIZ and EAWAG/Sandec on "Planning Tools for City-wide Faecal Septage Management using Whole System Approaches".
Published on: 15/01/2015
This week (19-23 January 2015), IRC will be present at the 3rd International Faecal Sludge Management (FSM3) conference in Hanoi, Vietnam to co-present a workshop on city planning for faecal sludge management. This conference revolves around the safe containment, collection, transport, treatment, and reuse or disposal of faecal matter from onsite sanitation technologies. Poor management of sludge accumulating in pit latrines, or other facilities which are not connected to a sewer, is a root cause for disease outbreaks and environmental damage. This conference will deal with technologies, business and governance models of faecal sludge management to address some of the pressing issues in this field.
Faecal sludge management is finally receiving the attention it deserves. Despite that onsite sanitation technologies make up for the vast majority of all sanitary facilities in middle- and low-income countries, most public funding is still directed towards sewerage, thereby only benefitting a city's wealthier neighbourhoods. As more and more governments and donors realise the importance of faecal sludge management, the FSM3 conference is a great occasion to showcase IRC's work and to learn from others in this sector.
On Thursday 22 January from 14.00 – 17.30, IRC is co-organising a workshop together with GIZ (German Society for International Cooperation) and EAWAG/Sandec (Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science & Technology) titled "Planning Tools for City-wide Faecal Septage Management using Whole System Approaches". In this workshop IRC will conduct an exercise on how to plan for faecal sludge management from different stakeholder perspectives while various sustainability dimensions are taken into account. It will also be a great opportunity to discuss with sector professionals IRC's whole system approach in urban sanitation and in particular on faecal sludge management. A short outline on this approach can be found in the briefing note "Achieving systemic change in faecal sludge management", which can be downloaded below.
Furthermore, IRC will also together with partner organisations present some collective projects. One of these will be the results from the action research on faecal sludge management undertaken as part of the BRAC WASH programme.
For more information contact: Ingeborg Krukkert, Programme officer, IRC, krukkert [at] ircwash.org, @krukkert
Follow the conference on Twitter: #FSM3
