Esther Shaylor explains why she’s cleaning up Wikipedia and how it relates to her work as a water and sanitation engineer. When I was at college I was sternly warned to stay away from Wikipedia. The reason; because it can’t be verified as a resource, anyone can edit it and put anything up there. But increasingly over the years I …
Tigers in the toilet
Could the Tiger Toilet be a long lasting sanitation solution for refugee camps? We think it could be. anitation is a huge priority for Oxfam as we seek cost effective, appropriate and durable solutions for the many different contexts we operate in – humanitarian camps, following natural disaster and conflict, rural and urban environments. For many people across the world, …
The forgotten nexus of sanitation, hygiene & water: Is this the inhibitor to progress?
In the lead-up to World Toilet Day, Oxfam’s Katie Whitehouse looks at how water, sanitation, hygiene and development are connected. n the 1800s, towns and cities across the world, including London, were battling cholera epidemics. Before John Snow published his theory in 1849 that cholera was a waterborne disease, efforts to manage poor sanitation and hygiene were minimal. The realisation …
Making standards practical is critical to sanitation innovation for rapidly expanding urban areas in developing countries
WASH solutions can only implemented when they work in context. Coming up to World Toilet Day, Katie Whitehouse explains why, in some cases, standards may not be achievable. ontainer based sanitation social enterprises are pushing the boundaries in decentralised sanitation management and yet continue to be classified as an unimproved form of sanitation. There are social enterprises – Sanivation, SOIL, …
The dilemma of managing toilets
Where there are no sewers to connect to, we need to find other ways to manage waste. Here Katie Whitehouse looks at some of the issues that come with having a functioning toilet. t is pretty terrible that in 2016 over 2.4 billion people still do not have access to a toilet (even a basic pit latrine). A toilet seems …
Toilet access is dominating programme delivery but what is the point of building more toilets if we cannot manage them?
Tomorrow is World Toilet Day and here, Katie Whitehouse looks at how building a toilet isn’t the end of the story and we need sustainable approaches to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH). Building a toilet and marking it as a metric achieved is relatively easy. Building a toilet and ensuring that it is continuously serviced and the waste collected transported …
Responding to our toilet duties: An important subject!
Sanitation in emergency contexts must consider a diverse range of social, environmental, cultural and economic parameters. Jenny Lamb explores what this means for Oxfam and for Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) practitioners more broadly. From the Haiti earthquake in Port-au-Prince to the refugee crisis in Ethiopia and the displacement of communities in South Sudan every new situation presents us with challenges. …
The impatient optimist: Urine-tricity to light humanitarian camps
In this blog we’re introduced to two sides of the ‘Urine-tricity’ story. Firstly, we hear from Oxfam’s Head of Water and Sanitation Andy Bastable, who shares his eager observations on the project, which produces electrical power from urine. To conclude, Ioannis Ieropoulos, Professor of Bioenergy and Self-sustainable Systems at University of the West of England, maps out the history of the research …
Accelerating Action: The need for next generation water targets
Originally posted by CEO Water Mandate, this blog calls for transformational change in water stewardship efforts. here is an opportunity for leading companies endorsing the CEO Water Mandate to rise to the challenge as water stewardship efforts have not kept pace with the scale of water scarcity and pollution problems. Agriculture drives roughly 70 percent of global water withdrawals and …
Overcoming social barriers: A journey by women WASH platform
In this latest blog Ashish Barua explains how the all female ‘Women WASH Platform’ has broken down social barriers to encourage better practice in Bangladesh. “We install latrines inside the heads of people” Rina Begum, member of Surjodoy Community Based Organisation (CBO) from Bakshigonj upazilla in the Jamalpur district, almost bombed into the discussion. “You install it inside peoples’ heads?” …