Socio-cultural and Institutional Challenges in Sanitation

1. Socio-cultural and Institutional Challenges in Sanitation Bahadar Nawab, PhD Head Development Studies/Sustainable Sanitation COMSATS University, Abbottabad, Pakistan bahadar@ciit.net.pk

2. Paradigm Shifts in Sanitation Conventional water and sanitation Sustainable Sanitation Ecological Sanitation Sustainable Sanitation Time line Since human life until 1800 1800 till to date Since 1980s New baby

3. Sustainable Sanitation Must not be imposed on Society

4. Sustainable Sanitation Development of Technical solutions together with community Society

5. Different problem definitions Different solutions Technical problem? Better designs… Ecological problem? Improved toilets, treatment or re-use of waste… Poor hygiene practices? Health and hygiene training. Economic constraints? Subsidies or loans. Not only who should define the solutions, but who should define the problem????

6. Water and Sanitation in Pakistan Acute crisis, fear of health problems from poor sanitary conditions Problem: lack of sanitation and water facilities Solution: Provision of water, toilets and/or latrines

7. Importance of understanding socio-cultural aspects of sanitation Current policy and technologies are based on very simple, universal, western-based ideas of problems and solutions within sanitation: What is the problem? How is it identified? What is the solution? How is impact measured?

8. The Challenge • Little attention is paid to understanding how people view sanitation or think about potential links between hygiene, poor health and sanitation. • Many countries blindly followed the conventional and the western excreta handling approaches

9. The Challenge • Today the focus of intervention is to eliminate open defecation by constructing latrines, toilets and drains • But does it help? • People who are excreting and government departments who are dealing with excreta tend to have different understanding and know-how, malignancy, disposal techniques and re-use options

10. The Challenge • How to enter the community • People’s perceptions about sanitation • How they make choices and decisions about sanitation • How they get support for their desired project and implement it

11. The Challenge • Who sets sanitation policies? • Who defines their goals and objectives? • Who is implementing the policies how and for whom? • Are the existing and proposed sanitation institutions in compliance with local actors’ perceptions, values, local institutions and practices? • How do the different actors perceive and communicate with each other? • Do they have common ground for understanding and overcoming sanitation issues?

12. The Challenge How can we understand local people practices, priorities, preferences and perceptions about sanitation and development technical solutions together with them

13. Institutional aspects Socio-cultural aspects Ecological aspects

14. How we overcome those Challenges? • We need to better understand how individual residents, local communities and government staff reason and view their sanitation conditions in order to improve the success rate of interventions • We need to know the historical and prevailing norms, attitudes and perceptions about sanitation arrangements

15. How we overcome those Challenges?(Three Stories from Pakistan)

16. Case-1 (Wet Ecological Sanitation) • 49 household • 673 individual • One tube well • 53 underground water tank • 12 households have pit latrine • Greywater in the streets

17. Methodology • Individual meetings with key persons • Community meetings with the men • Open-ended interview with: • Household heads/ members • Religious scholars/Imam • Head of local government • Group meetings with women

18. Community Initiative • Made village committee with a name of ”Help Yourself” • Negotiate with local government • Implement ecological sanitation project

19. Greywater

20. Option 1 Option 2 Options 3 Options 4 Street pavements Flush toilet + sewer system Pit latrine Urine-diverting toilet + treatment system for greywater Commnity Choice Households toilet connected to sewer system +treatment through wetland (ecological sanitation) Sanitation Solution Constraint and opportunities

22. Constructed wetlands in Faizabad Machaki

23. Constructed wetlands (cont)

24. Water-based Ecological Sanitation

26. Case-2 Natural Treatment of Wastewater Constructed wetland: • 6900 m2 • 11 ponds • 455 m3/day • 7.8 days retention time

28. Processes for retention of pollutants

29. Aerial Photograph of Gadoon CW

30. Results

31. Results

32. Wetland performance Pollution retention 2003 • 67% solids • 74% anions • 25% BOD • pH to 6.8 2004 • 87% heavy metals • 88% anions • 70% solids • 53% COD and increase pH

33. Case- 3 Dry Ecological Sanitation in Northern Pakistan

34. Case-3 from Northern Pakistan (cont.) superstructure Pit Pit holes Excreta

35. Case-3 from Northern Pakistan (cont.) Raw pit manure Pit emptying door Photo: Ghulam Mohammad Human manure in the field

36. How can we understand socio-cultural values and engage people to improve their lives?

37. Action Research?

38. Documenting the change process • Data gathering • Identifying present state and barrier to change • Building trust and relationship with people • Monitoring the change • Ongoing review of method and outcomes • Evaluating the effectiveness of the change programe Diagnosis Specifying learning Action planning • Issue and problem identification • Data interpretation Learning process • Formulating strategy and policy for action • Developing leadership for change Evaluation Action taking • Feeding back data analysis • Gaining ownership and commitment to action • Identify change • Fine-tuning change Action Research Model (Susman & Evered, 1978)

39. Action Knowledge Dual Aim of Action Research(McNiff & Whitehead, 2006) • First you can improve learning to improve practices. • Second you can advance knowledge and theory, i.e., new ideas about how things can be done and why; facilitate communication.

40. Conclusions • Local people have the potential and capability to solve their sanitation problem if they are given the opportunity to be involved from inception to completion of the sanitation projects • Ecological sanitation needs to be diversified and adapted to people’s culture, values and demands rather than generalize solutions developed under completely different conditions.

41. Conclusion • The worldwide hue and cry on sanitation is encouraging sign but the efforts of decades seems less productive. • New sanitation approaches and slogans are discovered and implemented which often drains the donors and public money but contribute little to the environmental and health benefits associated with the improved sanitation.

42. Conclusion • The whole reform of sanitation institutions is restricted to experts and bureaucrats who decide the technical, administrative, legal and policy solutions for the rest of the actors. The experts’ solutions therefore, usually fall short of community expectations

43. Conclusion (Cont.) • If research is to improve practice, then action research has much to offer research as well sanitation solutions, and it may assist bridging the gap between research and practice. • We need to understand sanitation problem in a holistic way and then build on local men and women’s practices, norms, values, and institutions and try to make their existing practices safer rather than imposing on them new regulations and foreign solutions.

44. Socio-Cultural aspects Technical aspects Sustainable sanitation Economic and Institutional aspects Ecological aspects Health Development New Paradigm of Sustainable Sanitation

45. Thank You