Ensuring sustained beneficial outcomes for water and sanitation (WATSAN) programmes in the developing world
General Material Designation
[Thesis]
First Statement of Responsibility
Mathew, Brian
Subsequent Statement of Responsibility
Carter, Richard C.
.PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, ETC
Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.
Cranfield University
Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.
2004
DISSERTATION (THESIS) NOTE
Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree
Ph.D.
Body granting the degree
Cranfield University
Text preceding or following the note
2004
SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
The two objectives of this thesis are firstly to suggest approaches to achieve sustained beneficial outcomes from WATSAN, and secondly how to 'scale up' application of these approaches, so that they impact positively on the lives of the millions of people who live without safe water or adequate sanitation. To discover what these approaches are the literature is examined and practical lessons are drawn from two WATSAN programmes in East and Central Africa. The conclusions are presented in the form of a charter for the sustainable development of WATSAN, with nine clauses suggested to guide project and programme managers around the issues that need to be taken into account in this most important of development sectors. The charter's clauses walk the reader through various stages of WATSAN development, through participatory project identification, need and demand response, sustainable environmental approaches, structured health education, staffing issues, decentralisation, and the practicalities of policy, allowing work to progress at the speed that communities need to acquire ownership whilst at the same time scaling up programme implementation to make a meaningful impact on the MDGs. The global issues of financing the MDGs are also assessed, and the conclusion is that meeting the MDGs is possible in sustainable manner, but only if there is a massive shift in the resources allocated towards those really in need, and a change in the attitudes of the political power brokers to allow this, promoting quality work, to be implemented by integrated teams, in a process orientated, ethos driven way, with WATSAN set as a keystone of wider human development.