Resources

In discussions on sanitation and Covid-19, the continuity of long-term sanitation goals throughout and beyond the pandemic is often missing. To respond to this gap, the Sanitation Learning Hub (SLH) and UNICEF hosted a webinar series to share knowledge and experience on ways programmes have changed and adapted.

The two webinars presented examples of initiatives which have continued to pursue long-term sanitation objectives during the pandemic.  Successes and setbacks are highlighted by the panellists, along with essential adaptations made to continue and improve efforts.

During the webinars space was also made to reflect on possible future impacts of Covid-19 on sanitation planning, implementation and monitoring.

This 6-page webinar report shares key learning and recommendations from the two webinars.

Please note, there is a French translation and a Portuguese translation available.

SDG 6.2 calls for sustainable sanitation for all before 2030. Yet over 2 billion people still lack access to basic sanitation facilities. Ensuring good sanitation and hygiene practices for everybody means ending open defecation, tackling existing challenges with access and use, and ensuring all sanitation facilities are safely managed.

Climate change is an added complexity in an already challenging landscape – it exacerbates these challenges and has cascading effects on health and livelihoods. Climate change impacts disproportionately affect already disadvantaged and marginalised groups, jeopardising efforts to Leave No One Behind in the drive for sanitation and hygiene for all. There is a real risk that progress made in improving rural sanitation access and coverage will slow, or even reverse.

The global sanitation sector has taken initial steps to incorporate responses to climate change into rural sanitation programming and services. However, much of the discussion has focused on technological improvements.

There is limited actionable guidance on how the rural sanitation and hygiene sector can make systemic changes through planning and implementing project delivery, enabling demand, changing behaviour, addressing social norms, monitoring and evaluation, and more at the local level. Furthermore, the voices of vulnerable people, households, and communities who are at the forefront of experiencing climate change impacts on sanitation are largely absent in existing discussions.

This publication aims to address these gaps in rural sanitation and hygiene thinking through:

• unpacking the reasons behind the limited progress towards addressing climate change in the sanitation and hygiene sector;
• exploring climate impacts on rural sanitation and hygiene practices;
• placing people, households, and communities at the centre of programming using participatory methods for learning; and
• providing actionable ideas to integrate climate thinking and learning into rural sanitation and hygiene programming at the household and community level.

Rural sanitation practitioners already consider many types of risk in the design and implementation of programmes. This publication supports rural practitioners in civil society and government to add a climate lens to existing programmes. It provides the sector with a menu of options and ideas from a climate change perspective. It is not a prescriptive list or a ‘one size fits all’ approach.

Practitioners can draw on various ideas and parts of this guidance and modify them to suit specific programmatic and regional contexts. The quotes included are from interviews with sanitation and hygiene practitioners. They describe their experience with programming in contexts increasingly challenged by climate related concerns.

The Sanitation Learning Hub's Frontiers of Sanitation series provides practical, evidence-based guidance and recommendations on essential emerging issues and approaches to programming and learning.

This paper focuses on an Immersive Research Approach designed by Praxis, the Sanitation Learning Hub at IDS and WaterAid whereby researchers lived in villages in recently declared open defecation free districts, to gain an in-depth understanding of ground realities and community perspectives of the Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin.

The study shed light on key aspects and dynamics influencing local ownership, behaviour change and construction quality, and also revealed multifaceted exclusion processes. The immersive approach helped build trust with villagers and allowed a unique insight into the SBM in its ‘real life’ context, necessary to explore hidden dynamics and diverse perspectives, and understand the complexities involved.

Despite some practical challenges, undertaking immersive studies and experiences would be beneficial for improving the Swachh Bharat Mission and other sanitation programmes. The approach could be adopted pragmatically, but always respecting some basic principles and ethical behaviour.

Accountability is a complex issue in South Africa. The country has high levels of inequality, and marginalised groups – as in many countries – struggle to make themselves heard by those in power. Yet the issue is further complicated by an interacting set of factors, including the legacy of apartheid, gender and religious issues, and the lack of access to those in power.
 

Through a six-year research project, the Sustainable Livelihoods Foundation (SLF) used a range of technology-enabled participatory processes to unpack this lack of government accountability. This report focuses on four case studies, which examined the lived realities of marginalised groups and the activists that campaign on their behalf: activists against gender-based violence and for community safety; community care workers and health committee members working for public health; informal traders and the informal economy; and traditional medicine, Rastafarian bossie doktors and indigenous rights.
 

Using a multi-method research process, SLF supported these groups to work together and identify the accountability issues that they felt were important, and then consider how they could raise their voice collectively to those in power and those who shape and implement policy. As well as providing valuable findings, which SLF fed into the policy dialogue, this process also strengthened the capacity of these groups to speak out – not least through the use of different participatory technologies including digital storytelling, filmmaking, PhotoVoice, geospatial mapping and infographics.
 

This report reflects on the different tools used, considering not just the effectiveness of the outputs generated but also how these tools can empower citizens and bring marginalised groups together. Lastly, the report reflects on SLF’s role as an intermediary organisation, and how this role can influence the path that marginalised groups take in their efforts to make government more responsive to their needs.