I’m afraid, I don’t think, “thinking” icon looks that way. In thinking icon, you have, say (I’ll try to explain here), front face, connected upwards with increasing size zeros, showing up, cloud-like formation. That will give a feeling that a person is thinking.

I got a sketch from Google Images that resembles with what I want to say here. That will make it clearer:




As regards, governance and business, I think, you are looking at them from the develop countries’ point of view.

With sanitation business, I meant making sanitation more popular and acceptable in the rural areas, where sanitation is non-existent (obviously my angle here is the rural areas of developing countries). Make the hardware of latrines more affordable and easily accessible by creating demand through constant interaction. The “supply chain” of the latrine components has to be strengthened, so that rural people do not face any problem in procuring them. This will, in turn, give a boost to the sanitation business. More the sanitation business, more the use of latrines in rural areas.

With sanitation governance, I’m looking at the municipal government departments, located in the urban centres, who, under the governance aspects, develop sanitation policies, rules and regulations that impact the tariffs, relates sanitation with health, climate change (resiliency and adaptation), facilitates use of microfinance and mobile phones, provides for centralized or decentralized sanitation systems, sets health criteria for wastewater reuse, and so on.

To me, these 2 terms are poles apart. But, since, you are managing the forum matters, it is up to you to decide.

Regards,
F H Mughal

Dear Mughal,

You had said:

The attitudes and behaviours icon is not in order. The brain of the guy shown in the icon reminds me of Alzheimer's disease. A more positive-looking icon is required.

When I see the icon of a brain I think of someone "thinking", not a sick person... But of couse, that can be different for different people. So I urge everyone to a) tell us if they don't think these the chosen icons are good and b) (more importantly) to make concrete suggestions for alternatives (perhaps even with a sketch)?

Secondly you said:

Business and governance are world apart. Please split them as: Sanitation business and Good governance

I have listed the reasons why I would currently not really favour a split in my post above on 9 December. Having equal-sized categories, and not too many of them, is still important in my view. Both of the topics (business and governance) have not (yet) had so many threads on the forum that it would be justified to split it in two, at the present time, in my opinion. (OK, the opposite side of the coin could be to say if we had two distinc categories, this would attract more posts for them?)

Also, I actually think it would be a sad state of affair if business and governance were indeed a world apart (is this the case in Pakistan?). This is so important that perhaps we should start a new thead about it in the sub-category on sanitation policies:
forum.susana.org/forum/categories/142-up...-sanitation-policies

In my opinion, if government and business does not work together hand in hand - particularly for a public good like sanitation - then you are doomed. It is the government who should set the laws, by-laws, regulations, fine system, fee structure and so forth within which the sanitation businesses should legally operate.

If there is no governmental structure in place, then the businesses would operate in a void. They could charge whatever they want, dump faecal sludge whereever they want, serve whomever they want (i.e. not provide a service to populations at the fringes who might be more expensive to serve) and so forth. - So how can they be "worlds apart"? Is this perhaps a symptom of a dysfunctional system? I would say at least in a country like Germany, governance and business are not a world apart, they work nicely hand in hand in the area of sanitation - one complementing the other.

Regards,
Elisabeth

Hi Mughal,

I agree with you that Business and governance are world appart and yes it would be better to split them. However, if space is limited I do not find it incoherent to see them in the same category. It is like having public and private sector in one category.
The way I see it is : sanitation system = the technical aspects, attitudes and behaviors = the people, the community and business and governance = the other two important groups of stakeholders which we should rely on to make a project sustainable.
Kind regards,

Cecile

Dear Elisabeth,

The attitudes and behaviours icon is not in order. The brain of the guy shown in the icon reminds me of Alzheimer's disease. A more positive-looking icon is required.

Business and governance are world apart. Please split them as:

Sanitation business

Good governance

Smiles,

F H Mughal