Communications Advisor, Tanya Glanville-Wallis, talks us through the process of developing Sani Tweaks—a series of communications tools for technical staff, promoting best practices in sanitation. Visiting the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, I reflected on just how few women use emergency latrines. Having worked in the humanitarian sector for years, using camp latrines is nothing new to me. Yet …
We must do more to make emergency sanitation safer
Why do so few women and girls use emergency latrines? Rachel Hastie shares key findings that could help make sanitation safer in camps. We looked at the latrine with dismay, as Sarah told us how her relatives had been killed in South Sudan. She had walked to the Ugandan border with her three children and nine nephews and nieces. Their …
A user-centred handwashing kit for emergencies
Foyeke Tolani, Public Health Promotion Adviser and Project Coordinator, describes how a collaboration with a UK school sparked the process of developing Oxfam’s innovative new handwashing kit. For over a decade, we had been exploring handwashing kit options to replace the Tippy Tap. The Tippy Tap requires lots of promotion for sustained use, and as a device it is not …
If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it: Quality in WASH responses
As we launch our WASH Impact Series, Oxfam’s Quality Assurance Project Manager, James Brown introduces a new global initiative to help organisations focus on achieving quality in humanitarian WASH responses. What would a quality assurance system for humanitarian WASH programming look like? That’s the question being explored by the Quality Assurance and Accountability Project, a Global WASH Cluster initiative led …
Can selling water and sanitation services to people living in poverty be inclusive and equitable?
Tom Wildman, Oxfam GB’s Senior Advisor on WASH Market Development, outlines the debate that took place at this year’s Water & Health Conference, and summarises the key areas where differing perspectives came together. Market-based approaches to water and sanitation have grown in their scale and scope within the past decade, reflecting two glaring realities: those providing water and sanitation services …
Handwashing innovation
Joel Trotter describes how it feels to see Oxfam’s brand-new handwashing kit tested, refined, and ready to go into action. Oxfam’s Promotion and Practice Handwashing Kit is a robust, user-friendly handwashing station that is easily assembled in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. It allows for improved, timely handwashing and reduces people’s health risks in emergency displacement camps. It was …
Reinventing the toilet
Brian McSorley on Oxfam’s contribution to ensuring the poorest people on the planet have access to a loo. Earlier this month, Bill Gates stood up to address an international conference holding a jar full of human faeces. In a sector that has been underfunded and overlooked for decades, The Gates Foundation has been a disruptive and positive force in raising …
Our key takeaways from Stockholm World Water Week
This year at World Water Week has always given lots of food for thought on how to manage water for productive and domestic use, as well as finding a balance with protecting the environment and managing a finite and dwindling source. Oxfam GB’s Jola Miziniak and Tom Wildman reflect on their key takeaways from the week’s events. Jola Miziniak on accountability …
The future of humanitarian water provision is solar
For World Water Week, Oxfam Engineering Adviser Brian McSorley reflects on the achievements of the Global Solar Water Initiative and the potential of solar water pumps to transform lives and ways of working. Solar power offers so many possibilities for development and humanitarian aid, from lighting, to internet connectivity and water provision. If you are involved in helping communities access …
No one should be too poor to drink clean water
For World Water Week Louise Medland reflects on the stark global inequalities in access to water and sanitation, and outlines some of the Oxfam programmes which are improving services for the poorest. ‘Equal access to sufficient safe and affordable water, and adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene, can mean the difference between prosperity and poverty, well-being and ill-health, and even …