10/31/11
Ben Fawcett is an environmental health engineer, development manager, lecturer and researcher with three decades of work experience throughout the developing world. He spent ten years with Oxfam GB, initially as technical adviser on humanitarian emergencies and long-term development projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America, then as their first Program Manager in Vietnam and finally as Manager of their global Technical Unit.
Ben is co-author of 'The Last Taboo: Opening the door on the global sanitation crisis' (2008) aiming to publicise the scandalous situation in which 40% of the world's people have nowhere to 'go'. Since 2007 he has been based in northern New South Wales, teaching water supply and sanitation at the International WaterCentre as an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the Advanced Water Management Centre of The University of Queensland. He advises Engineers Without Borders and continues to campaign for toilets for those suffering the indignity of life without such basic facilities. Ben has been awarded the 2011 Oklahoma University International WaTER Prize.
This is an exciting topic that I would not like to miss. It fits perfectly into the United Nations Water, Sanitation and Health (WASH) Program which is designed to contribute to the Millennium Development Goals for water and sanitation by 2015.Poor sanitation is a threat to human health has drinking water sources become contaminated not talking about other attendant problems such as health systems overwhelmed and national economies suffering. This presentation is timely because many a time, the sanitation aspect of the WASH program is left out with water put in the limelight. Coming from the third world, I hope to learn how this topic unveils the sanitation problem (especially human waste) and the solutions which it proposes to solve this headache which for me is not only rural but can be found in urban areas as well.
ReplyDeleteThis was a good talk to me personally. One startling thing I learnt is the fact that recognizing slums as Zambia is doing will go a long way to mitigate urban sanitation problems.
ReplyDeleteA great talk by Ben Fawcett who provided a history of modern day sanitation - sewer systems which have been hailed as the most important public health intervention of the last 150 years. A holistic view of sanitation was provided which is captured the f diagram image (see link http://www.wsp.org/wsp/sites/wsp.org/files/publications/wsp-esi-india.pdf) for transmission pathways for disease carried by faeces.
ReplyDeleteNot providing safe sanitation results in losses to GDP in developing countries and a study of 6 Asian countries values this at 5.3% of GDP in or $42 US per capita/year. http://www.wsp.org/wsp/sites/wsp.org/files/publications/Sanitation_Impact_Synthesis_2.pdf
The 3 take away lessons were:
1. we should all be concerned with public health which has been and should be a governmental responsibility,
2. the diseases we are dealing with are all excreta related, and
3. sanitation goes way beyond the toilet
A major challenge is dealing with urban slums which will grow even more in the future. These are places that experience:
Overcrowding
Poor housing
Inadequate water and sanitation
Insecurity of tenure
What's Needed?
Effective partnerships
Facilities and services
Creative financing mechanisms
Political commitment – acceptance that slum dwellers have a right to exist
Everyone should read The Last Taboo. Another good book on sanitation is "The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters" by Rose George. This latter one is the sex in the city version of The Last Taboo.
I totally agree with the Dr.Fawcett, there is an unacceptably weak global policy response to the water and sanitation crisis in the rapidly expanding slum areas of the developing world. Without a serious commitment to redress the low political and financing priority given to sanitation and water in housing and urban development, and slum upgrading, the growing challenge of urbanization risks setting off an unmanageable health, education and economic crisis. For instance, A new United Nations report slum dwellers around the world offers both good and bad news: 22 million people were able to move out of the blighted areas in the last decade, a statistic that is double the millennium development target. On the other hand, the number of people living in slums worldwide increased by 55 million in the same period; the biennial report says that the 776.7 million slum dwellers in 2000 grew to 827.6 million in 2010. It’s interesting to know that unless significant improvements are made, six million people will enter the global slum population annually and the total numbers will reach 889 million by 2020. I certainly think this is one of those global issues with many trickle down problems but little or no solution..So, the key thing now (in my opinion), is to create the awareness, that’s exactly what Dr. Fawcett is actively doing. I gladly join him in this campaign!
ReplyDeleteDr Fawcett began by calling on the need for human waste to have more attention than it receives now. He touched briefly on the Great Stink of London in the 19th century which necessitated massive public health reforms.He went on to draw out lessons that were learnt from the 19th century sanitation headaches:i. Public health is a concern for all and a government responsibility ii. Water-related diseases are actually excreta-related iii. Sanitation goes beyond the toilet and that effective services are needed as well. Putting global sanitation in today's context, he reported that a little over a billion people live in slums (40% of the world's urban population). He defined slums as having the following:i. overcrowding ii. poor housing iii. inadequate water and sanitation iv.insecurity of tenure. He gave specific examples in Mumbai, India and Nairobi, Kenya as urban areas with massive sanitation problems. He concluded by proposing the following solutions:i. Forming effective partnerships with locals, NGOs and governments. ii.Providing facilities and its attendant services iii.Creating finances for the execution of such facilities iv. Having a political will from international, national and local politicians to address the sanitation problem
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed Ben's talk. I liked how he related the sanitation revolution in England to current situations in developing countries. It is thought provoking to think that the taboo of human waste can be the single factor in deciding whether to implement sanitary practices or infrastructure. The cost/benefit analysis done by the WHO was interesting, and it is mind boggling to think why politician and other people of influence are not affected by this information. I think if more was done to inform people with power of the cost/benefit of sanitary systems, governments would take a larger role in sanitation.
ReplyDeleteDr. Fawcett said that currently about 40% of population in less-developed-countries lives in slums, and that is expected to grow. By 2050, it might be that one-third of the world's population may live in slum conditions!
ReplyDeleteOf course I agree that we need to focus on improving sanitation and giving slum-dwellers a more dinified existence. But shouldn't we also recognize that we have a population problem? Is it inevitable that there will be an added billion people with no place to go but a slum?
We have got to stop growing as a species!
One of the most intriguing points was made in the questions phase after the presentation by Dr. Amy Stuart - the legality issue. Providing better sanitation and water supply to people may indeed be seen as the acknowledgement of the legality of slums and their residents. In countries like Turkey (which is where I am from), this is indeed the case - slums are quick to legalize, and sanitation, water supply and other services are provided by the local municipality, because slum residents have the right to vote where they live, and politicians see this as an opportunity to increase their base. In countries where there is such political incentive to legalize slums, the legalization may occur faster and slum residents may have access to municipal services more quickly.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting point in Dr. Fawcett's presentation was the motivation of slum residents to demand basic sanitation - the need for dignity and privacy, rather than increased health. Slum residents do not want sanitation services because they want their infants to live longer - they simply want to be more comfortable going to the bathroom. According to Dr. Fawcett, the demand for any improvement has to come from the people first, and only working with them can the improvement be implemented. One important dynamic to utilize in the implementation of any improvement would be local entrepreneurs, he argued. The market can indeed be a driving factor to achieve change.
I enjoyed Ben Fawcett's presentation about sanitation in the developing world. I also thought his connection between what happened in the 19th century Europe and what is happening today in Asian, Latin American and African slums quite relevant. As much as I enjoyed listening to what the negative statistics are, I would I enjoyed it further if he spoke of some solutions. I understand he said that he doesn't have all the answers but it would have been nice to hear about possible solutions. For example he might have discussed how greatly the caste system in India hinders some groups of people from receiving some basic human needs. Another example would have been how hard it is to implement any kind of system in most developing countries because of corrupt governments. This is a topic that would need more than just engineering systems for it to work because of underlying social,economical and political factor.
ReplyDeleteYes, Maureen, you are right. We have to think about how to deal with the local governments to be able to implement the sanitation system. And beyond that, if you implement communal bathrooms, then you also have to think about vandalism and theft. On the other hand, since in the urbanized context people are living in closer circumstances, that can be something good in terms of being easier and cheaper to design a system.
ReplyDelete