News, Blogs and Events

Gender equality, nutrition & WaSH in pastoralist communities

This blog was written by Christine Fostvedt-Mills, Line Richter and Jocelyn Kelln and originally appeared on the Sanitation Learning Hub website. 

In 1985, the global community convened in Nairobi to review and examine the achievements of the UN Decade of Women. Agreeing that the goals of the first World Conference on Women had not been met, participants collectively recognized that all issues are women’s issues, leading some to dub the conference the “birth of global feminism.” In 2000, the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) included promoting gender equality and improving maternal health among the 8 goals and then, in 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) amplified the issue of gender inequality, declaring goal #5 to “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.”

Apply now: Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation for Learning

Develop your skills to more effectively design and improve monitoring and evaluation systems supporting participatory and adaptive practice at an in-person training course at the Institute of Development Studies in September 2022.

Increasingly, development organisations are using complexity-aware, learning-based approaches to design and drive their monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems. This enables practitioners to better understand how change actually happens and how impact is achieved in real time in complex social change contexts. There is also growing awareness of the need for downward accountability and supporting greater feedback from those engaging in interventions to those designing and funding them.  

Reflecting on Robert Chambers' work: Testimonials

As part of Revolutionising Development week at the Institute of Development Studies - colleagues and friends have got in touch to share their written and video reflections on the work of Robert Chambers, who celebrates his 90th birthday this year. 

Sara Bagheri and Seyed Babak Moosavi Nejad
Freelance consultants on participatory approaches, Iran

Tracing Robert’s footprints in facilitators’ narratives

For one of the workshops we were conducting for local extension staff around Lake Urmia, we invited Latif and Leyla to come and share their account of using PRA tools. Imagine, two field facilitators from a small private agricultural enterprise telling government extension staff how participatory work is done. Yes, we were a little nervous! But the day evolved into a celebration of how far good, humble facilitation can go in handing over the stick and making local reality count.

There they were, Latif and Leyla, displaying some of the tools they had used to understand local CDR, and talking about:

Revolutionising Development Week: Celebrating Robert Chambers' work

Join researchers and academics to celebrate the work of renowned development scholar Professor Robert Chambers in a series of events and workshops running from 26 to 28 April. Now a research associate at IDS, Robert is well-known for his pioneering participatory research methods, and his influential participatory workshops.

The events and workshops will explore the legacy of Robert’s work – from past, present and future – and how he has influenced countless people from students, policymakers, activists, NGOs and governments officials. All the events will be open to all, whether watching online or attending in person (limited number). See  below for the full list.

Practitioner stories from challenging contexts

The Sanitation Learning Hub is delighted to to announce the 1st edition of the new series ‘Practitioner Voices’.

About the Practitioner Voices series: the series aims to amplify insightful perspectives of practitioners working within countries at local and regional level. Each edition will have a distinct focus. 

About the 1st edition 'Tough Physical Environments': SLH was very lucky to work with 3 practitioners to present their ideas, challenges and innovations of working on sanitation and hygiene in ‘tough physical environments’.

The published Practitioner Voices stories:

Blog: Hand Hygiene for South Asia

Text 'Blog: Hand hygiene for South Asia'. Find pairs of hands being washed with soap and water

The Sanitation Learning Hub have recently published a blog providing a very brief overview of Hand Hygiene for South Asia , which draws on WHO and UNICEF's Global Hand Hygiene for All initiative and vision.  

Almost 2 in 5 people in South Asia don't have a designated handwashing facility with soap & water on premises. This blog looks at South Asian countries currently producing national road maps to achieve hand hygiene for all.

Tags: 
handwashing
sanitation
sanitation and hygiene
hygiene
WASH
Afghanistan
Bangladesh
Bhutan
India
Maldives
Nepal
Pakistan
Sri Lanka

Research grant: Sanitation, hygiene, gender equality and social inclusion

A large part of the Sanitation Learning Hub’s (SLH) work is around research and learning to support gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) in sanitation and hygiene programming. This includes using and promoting gender transformative sanitation approaches and ‘Leave No One Behind’ policies and programmes: this keeps the focus on the poorest, most marginalised and hardest to reach households and communities.  

SLH is offering up to 3 grants of up to £15,000 (approximately $20,000) for in-country research institutes, organisations or think tanks, to undertake GESI specific research into sanitation and hygiene in low and low-middle incoming countries. Your research will focus on those who have been overlooked or left behind. It must be co-created with local organisations and people, reflect their knowledge and concerns, and develop practical solutions.  

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