Sanitation and hygiene in South Asia : progress and challenges

This paper provides an overview of the South Asian Sanitation & Hygiene Practitioners’ Workshop organized by IRC, WaterAid and BRAC in Dhaka, Bangladesh, 29–31 January 2008.

What can the world learn from achievements and challenges in the field of South Asian sanitation provision? Considerable progress has been made in 10 subject areas: policy development, low-cost solutions, user choice, decentralization, mapping poverty areas, funding of demand creation, motivating users, local production and supply, phasing out ineffective subsidies, and going beyond numbers to healthy practices. Ten others are still under-developed: diversification between and within households, cost-effective promotion, targeting remaining subsidies with equity, upgrading toilets
over time, environmental safety, scope for dry toilets, sanitation in urban slums, short-term versus long-term programmes, sustainability of facilities and programmes, and organizational and human capacities, especially at intermediate level. (Author's abstract)