UK Community of Sanitation Practitioners

I’ve just spent the day at WEDC, University of Loughborough, at the launch meeting of the new Community of Sanitation Practitioners − a UK contribution to IYS2008, but also to find ways of encouraging young professionals to enter and prosper in the field of sanitation (but effectively water and sanitation) in developing countries. We didn’t cover much on the latter point, but we heard from three very good practitioners and researchers who gave presentations on slum sanitation, community-led total sanitation (info. here), and sanitation demand at the household level in rural areas (info. here). Kibera in Nairobi, Africa’s largest slum, was the focus of the talk on slum sanitation, and what was really interesting here was the installation of a SPARC-style community-managed sanitation block (info. here) − so this Indian solution for slum sanitation can work in Africa, which is very good to know. I look forward to the next meeting in May.