News, Blogs and Events

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.  

Event: Policy and practice: Evidence-driven rural sanitation programs for scale, equity, and sustainability in Africa

Text: Policy and practice: Evidence-driven rural sanitation programs for scale, equity, and sustainability in Africa

Thursday 25th November 3pm-4:30pm (UK time)

At AfricaSan6 conference, the Sanitation Learning Hub are co-convenors of this free online session on lessons learned from recent rural sanitation programs.

This session will begin with an overview of the progress in rural sanitation in Africa, including an analysis of funding commitments. It will be followed by a presentation of lessons offered by the most recent evidence on performance of rural sanitation programming programs, featuring the following focal areas:

Tags: 
Local sanitation perspectives
sanitation and hygiene
water and sanitation
sanitation
rural sanitation
community development
community participation
community planning

Event: How to strengthen local government leadership for sanitation and hygiene

Text: How to strengthen local government leadership for sanitation and hygiene

Tuesday 23rd November 2-3.30pm (Nigeria time) 1-2.30pm (UK time)

At AfricaSan6 conference, the Sanitation Learning Hub are facilitating this free online session on how to galvanise and sustain support of local governments for sanitation and hygiene. Register for AfricaSan6

In the session panellists will share concrete examples of local government leadership mainly from West Africa, looking at what leads to prioritisation of sanitation and hygiene, and identifying commonalities and transferable knowledge.

Tags: 
local government
Local sanitation perspectives
Local WASH perspectives
sub-national governance
sanitation and hygiene
West Africa

Blog: Participatory action for nutrition & WASH with pastoralist women in Afar, Ethiopia

Shadow of person taking the photo on left side. They are photographing of young woman crouched down by a hotstone oven which is dug into the earth. She has various pans and pots around her with ingredients for Mulfie. It is set in the desert in Afar, Ethi

This is part two in the blog series written by Christine Fostvedt-Mills (Fostvedt-Mills Consulting (FMC): Participatory action for nutrition & WASH with pastoralist women in Afar, Ethiopia

Christine shares reflections on facilitating participatory Community Action Planning workshops with pastoralist communities in the Afar region of Ethiopia. She also highlights work done towards one of the projects primary objectives - ensuring that the project remains participatory and centred the voices of women in the community, specifically mothers and female community leaders.

These approaches have resulted in culturally appropriate, gender balanced and community-driven actions toward improved nutrition and WaSH practises. She talks about the vital need to build trust with participants by involving them throughout the project, using methodologies like photovoice to center their voices and asking them directly to design solutions to their own problems has demonstrated
promising results.

Tags: 
sanitation and hygiene
water and sanitation
pastoralism
women
gender
community
Ethiopia
Afar
PhotoVoice
community planning
community participation

Consultancy opportunity: Mid-term review of the Sanitation Learning Hub

The purpose of the mid-term review (MTR) is to conduct a formative evaluation and independently assess the relevance, efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability of the programme. The evaluators shall use the OECD DAC evaluation criteria for these 4 areas.

The MTR will highlight successes and challenges since the current project funding phase began in 2019 and will seek to measure the progress towards the intended outcomes and objectives of the programme.

'Education is freedom' - turning the rhetoric of inclusion into action

Paulo Freire is often quoted as saying education is freedom. Education in general has changed drastically in the 100 years since he was born, yet questions remain as to whether these changes are moving us all closer to the freedom that Freire envisaged or whether some people continue to be left behind. To better understand the positive actions that are needed to drive change and deliver freedom, we must examine inclusive approaches to education and pedagogy much more closely.

Assessing our own gender equality and social inclusion credentials

Earlier this year, the Sanitation Learning Hub team published a call for applicants to undertake a gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) audit of the programme to identify how GESI issues are addressed in our activities and internal organisation processes. Over April and May, a team of gender and social inclusion experts from the Water for Women Fund reviewed publications and internal policies, undertook interviews with partners and facilitated the team through a GESI self-assessment tool.

All the data collected was then shared with the team through an online validation, reflection and action planning workshop. The self-assessment tool has now been published for others to use. This blog outlines our experience of the process.

Watch again: Action-oriented forms of participatory research

This session introduced the main themes of the section action-oriented participatory research methods from the new SAGE Handbook of Participatory Research and Inquiry.

Each speaker introduced their participatory research chapter, focusing on how action is used as a way of knowing/learning/doing research. A facilitated fishbowl discussion will then took place where audience members can come in and out of the fishbowl to discuss with the authors.

This was the penultimate event in our Participation Research Week series which forms the launch of the new SAGE Handbook of Participatory Research and Inquiry.

Speakers

  • Mary Brydon-Miller, Department of Educational Leadership, Evaluation and Organizational Development, University of Louisville
  • Alfredo Ortiz Aragón , Associate Professor | Dreeben School of Education, University of the Incarnate Word

Watch again

 

Tags: 
Handbook of Participatory Research and Inquiry

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