Ecological Sanitation (ECOSAN)

The India Urban Conference (IUC) was organised to encourage multi-level dialogue regarding India's urban transformation. It aimed to set the challenges faced by urban planners in the current economic, socio-political, and ecological landscape. This would enable informed and negotiated choices on urban development. The stated objectives of the conference are as follows:Read More

• To make urban, applied research relevant to an increased spectrum of stakeholders including academics, civil societies, policy think tanks, research institutes, media, private sector, and citizens.
• To leverage experience to generate useful evidence to promote applied research and responsive policy-making.
• To create new research initiatives and/ or collaborations with a potential for creating tangible changes/ reforms for the benefit of urban India and its context.
• To identify and explore research issues affecting urban India, by exploring through a perspective of eight selected themes.
• Publish research papers and evidence presented/ discussed in the form of case-books, web publications, and potentially a special issue of a journal.
  

This paper published by the Water for People describes Sanitation as a Business, an innovative approach to operation and maintainance challenges in household sanitation improvements, by describing the case of the implementation of the approach in the context of Malawi, by Water for People. The paper argues that programs that build latrines have consistently struggled to have impact or reach scale, and have often distorted the market environment in ways that have undermined future sanitation development.

The paper emphasises the relevance of this approach in the context of developing countries such as India by stating that the world would not be able to achieve even half of the Millennium Development Goals for sanitation at current rates of installation and consequently is projected to miss the sanitation MDG by more than 700 million people. Among the twenty two percent of those without access to improved sanitation, the greatest challenge remains in Asia and India in particular.

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This handbook by Water and Sanitation Program gives a very useful insight on the planning, construction, operation and maintenance of sanitary toilet complexes in a sustainable way. It is intended primarily for programme implementers to help them understand the critical need for Community Sanitary Complexes and inform them of the guiding principles to be adopted while planning for these.

India remains one of the countries wherein concerted efforts are still required to eliminate the practice of open defecation. The lack of priority given to safe confinement and disposal of human excreta poses significant health risks manifest in the sanitation challenge facing the nation today. 

The provision of sanitation facilities through public toilet complexes is the most suitable option for those who cannot afford individual toilets for monetary reasons or due to lack of space, and opt for open defecation. Such complexes are a useful and valuable option at public places, markets, taxi stands, etc., where a large congregation of people takes place. The Community Sanitary Complex (CSC) fosters the cognitive development of healthy sanitation practices in the community.

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These two reports discuss the dependency of agriculture on phosphorous and the ways to mitigate the problem.Read More

The first report looks at agricultural dependence of chemical nutrients on a global scale and even discusses the potential international political fallout of a reduction in phosphorous. The second report is focused on ways to tackle the dependency on this mineral, in the Indian context. However, both speak of the need for finding alternatives to the current methods of obtaining phosphorous, which is largely through mining.