Engineers without borders – academic day

1. Engineers without borders – academic day OXFAM GB Jenny Lamb Water & Sanitation Engineer Advisor 18th September 2014

2. Session Objective • To present an overview of the following: • What issues are calling out for NGO-academia collaboration? • What might a successful collaboration look like? • Examples, their failures and lessons

3. World figures..... • 748 million people in the world don’t have access to safe water. This is roughly 1 in 10 of the world’s population • 2.5. billion people don’t have access to adequate sanitation, 1 in 3 of the world’s population • Over 500,000 children die every year from diarrhoea caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation. That’s over 1,400 children a day. • This baseline is further exacerbated in an emergency e.g. Before the Haiti earthquake 80% had no access to safe sanitation, and after Haiti a dire situation

4. Diversity of Oxfam’s work.... • WASH – water, sanitation & hygiene • EFSL – emergency food security and livelihoods • Protection • Gender • Policy & Advocacy • Campaigning • Trading • Logistics – warehouse in Bicester • Fundraising

5. Oxfam’s work.....

6. What issues are calling out for joining of the NGO & academic world • Problem statements such as ‘low cost desalination’ and ‘faecal sludge treatment & disposal’ • Increasing the number of engineers interested in the humanitarian sector (short term & long term) • Diversify our graduate engineering competencies – a combination of civil, structural, project management, self starter, and theoretical & practical minded • Quality assurance • Foster links between the North & South Universities; linked to this development of an ‘Academy for humanitarian WaSH engineers’ • Professional Certification – a bridge between CIWEM/ICE for humanitarian WaSH engineers?

7. Characteristics of a successful collaboration • Something tangible! e.g. • A technical brief, guideline • An approach • A piece of equipment • Research initiatives: NGO, academics & MSc students • Secondments • Capacity building (2 way) • Technical working group tasked with a particular subject matter e.g. Faecal sludge management, Desalination

8. NGO & academia collaboration • Day to day professional collaboration: LSHTM, Surrey, WEDC, Cranfield • Uni of Surrey – up flow clarifier, water treatment • WEDC – co authored the ‘Excreta in Emergencies • MSc dissertations with Cranfield & WEDC University • Tsunami – well cleaning / saline intrusion • South Sudan – urban sanitation (sanitation marketing) • Liberia – well chlorination • Bio additives • MSc group work with Cranfield University – no toilet option, and faecal sludge treatment-disposal • Latrine lining prototype with University of Newcastle • No toilet prototype with University of Edinburgh (product designers) • Cranfield University – present at working group with academics, engineering consultants examining student retention, teaching content etc.

9. Collaboration lessons & failures • How to take the prototypes to the next level developed by the University product designer students? • What next for the students after they have completed MSc – our & their expectations • Fore mentioned research (well cleaning, saline intrusion, urban sanitation etc) – have all led to enhanced knowledge by our field staff, and the WaSH sector • Faecal sludge treatment MSc group work – in hindsight should have had chemical-process engineers involved. Pitching to the right audiences (short term & long term)

10. Questions.....