Dear Jasmin,

I appreciate your efforts. Seems like the organizers are slow in uploading the presentations.

Please keep pursuing - Thank you

Regards,

F H Mughal

Dear Mughal,

Just to give you an update: I am still waiting for a reply from the SACOSAN organisers. I suppose they’re busy putting it together and will upload it on their website here:
www.sacosanvi.gov.bd/MEDIA-CENTER
This could take some months.

Your other suggestion about contacting the organisations that had sent presenters is a good one but you can imagine that it would be very time consuming to chase each presenter one by one. Maybe in the meantime, the videos of the conference (that they have already uploaded) help you:
www.sacosanvi.gov.bd/Video

I think in future, more and more conference organisers will put up presentations and videos as a matter of course – but we’re not there yet.

If there are some particular presentations from the program that you’re interested in, perhaps you could contact the respective authors? Or tell me which ones they are, and I could try to contact them?


Best,
Jasmin

Dear Jasmin,

Please try another way around - like contacting WaterAid, Bangladesh/India, SWA, UNC, and other similar organizations.

Regards,
F H Mughal

Dear Mughal,

I'm still waiting for reply from part of the organizers.


Kind Regards
Jasmin

Reminder:

Dear Jasmin,

Please get the Bangladesh Sacosan VI papers and presentations.

Regards,
F H Mughal

Dear community,

I asked the organizers of the conference for the material. I'll keep you updated.


Kind Regards
Jasmin

Could I request the moderators that all the presentations and papers, presented on all 3 days, be made available on this forum.

F H Mughal

Tshering from SNV Bhutan sends us the following greetings and very informative summary about day 3 of the conference


***Day 3***



Dear All,
I would like to share a brief summary on the happenings from Day Three here in Dhaka. It had been a very exciting last day with several plenary sessions in the morning and the conference declaration in the afternoon.
The first plenary session “Voices” brought together elderly, women, adolescent, transgender, differently abled adults/children and sanitation workers from 7 countries to share their stories so that they do not get left behind. The session stressed on the need to change the way, sanitation stakeholders see realities of all different vulnerable and marginalised groups for us to move towards improved sanitation and hygiene for all. The session also touched upon the need to change and do away with the barriers in our own minds and to keep in mind the basic respect for humanity when working on improving sanitation and hygiene in the SACOSAN countries.
The second session was on The SACOSAN Journey: 2003-2015 (Achievement & Lessons to Move Forward). In terms of achievement and lessons, the session highlighted that the SACOSANs had raised the profile and importance of sanitation in the region; the setting up of the Inter Country Working Group (ICWG) was seen as a decisive step in this regard, and that there is evidence to indicate that the SACOSANs have increasingly become more inclusive with wider representation by non-governmental actors, although more could be done to encourage dissemination and participation at sub-national levels and connect grass roots voices and initiatives to national endeavours. These findings clearly point out that both structural and non-structural issues need attention to enhance the effectiveness of the SACOSANs. The session also stressed that although the political declarations underline the importance of political commitment to sanitation at the core of structural aspect, the Lack of follow up at the country level reduces the value of the declarations. Better accountability was highly recommended for the SACOSAN declarations in line with achieving the SDGs and the dedicated goals on water and sanitation. It was also recommended to make representation at the SACOSANs more broad based.
The third session was on the Sustainable Goals: Opportunities for Sanitation & Hygiene in South Asia which briefed the participants on the SDG goals related to sanitation and hygiene and the respective indicators.
The forth session was on Role of Media to Improved Sanitation and Personal Hygiene Behavior. One of the speakers at the session talked about three interesting principles of behaviour change (BC) in the media world: Surprise, Revaluation and Performance. Under the element of surprise, it was about doing something different to take the audience by surprise when using media for BC; Revaluation was about adding value to the behaviour we want people to change by making people desire it, for example revaluing toilet as a purity aid which is expected to lead to more people desire to want to build a toilet; Performance touched upon making it easy and helping people get access to information for the behaviour we want them to change. Since simply getting people’s attention (surprise) and desire (revaluation) to build a toilet is not enough, it is also essential to give people the information on how to build the toilet, where to get the materials from ,etc (performance). Other speakers touched upon the need for striking headlines for media to get the audience’s attention especially on a subject as “dirty” as sanitation.
The last and the fifth session of the morning focused on Monitoring Sanitation & Hygiene Beyond MDG through JMP, GEMI and GLAAS. The session pointed out that despite all countries in the region making service improvements, there is a substantial need to further strengthen government actions to implement the national policies and plans for provision of safe and sustainable water and sanitation services, with particular focus on rural areas. The following challenges that needed to be addressed were also discussed:
- Geographic and economic inequalities in access to water and sanitation
- Building capacity for surveillance of water supplies
- Participation of users in planning processes
- A need to establish a comprehensive national system for planning and implementing WASH sector financing and
- Reducing open defecation in several South-East Asia countries where open defecation rates are high
In the afternoon, the different delegation heads of the eight participating countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) signed their country commitments for the SACOSAN VI declaration.
The Dhaka declaration
- Endorse the ambition and interdependence of the 17 SDGs and clearly outline the importance of sanitation and hygiene as crucial for achieving Goals 1,2,3,4,5,6,8 and 10 in South Asia;
- Appreciate the transition from the MDGs to the SDGs and recognise that this will require a new vision, strategies, stronger systems and more diverse participation;
- Understand that while the SACOSAN process has contributed immensely to the progress of sanitation in South Asia, highlighting hygiene, equity and sustainability aspects of sanitation, the region needs to accelerate sanitation coverage and hygiene behaviour to achieve SDG target 6.2;
- Recognize that urban sanitation, unreached people and areas, hygiene issues, sanitation in public places and resilience of sanitation to climate change need greater attention;
- Appreciate the contribution of different stakeholders towards increasing the diversity of participation and achieving the objectives of the SACOSAN process;
- Reaffirm past SACOSAN commitments made between 2003 and 2013.

Commitments:
1. The achievement of the SDG target 6.2. By 2030, to achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all, and end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations;
2. Strengthen the enabling environment including but not limited to revised national policies, strategies, well-resourced plans reflecting the new SDG target and indicator (s) leading to better sanitation and hygiene outcomes. Call on external financing agencies to increase their support, where required, to national sanitation and hygiene plans through financial and technical assistance;
3. Prioritise the poorest and most marginalised, bridging the gap in access to and use of appropriate sanitation and hygiene services for children, adolescent, women, differently-abled people, or those excluded due to age, caste, ethnicity, religion or gender, living in hard to reach areas or affected by disasters. Prioritise menstrual hygiene management for women and girls;
4. Encourage people driven approaches and emphasize credible country level mechanisms for monitoring key outcomes such as improvements in sanitation coverage, achievement of open-defecation free households and communities, equitable and sustainable delivery of services including solid and liquid waste management and hygiene behaviour change;
5. Emphasise urban sanitation and address and address sanitation and hygiene gaps especially in underserved or unserved settlements and poor urban neighbourhoods, solid and liquid waste management, faecal sludge management and the involvement of urban local bodies and communities;
6. Develop and implement standards and a regulatory framework, wherever required, to encourage the dignity, adequate remuneration, occupational health and safety of sanitation workers (involved in solid and liquid waste management), including those working in the informal sector;
7. Promote continual learning and sharing of experiences and innovations between and within countries by various mechanisms including i) A functional and dynamic SACOSAN Secretariat in Sri Lanka by 2018; ii) An ICWG with an expanded role to enhance knowledge exchange and learning between meetings; iii) Relevant research and development; iv) Appropriate use of information technology and traditional and new forms of media;
8. Promote sanitation and hygiene in relevant regional forums including the next SAARC summit and the implementation of the SAARC regional framework for sanitation;
9. Actively involve local bodies, young people, school children, marginalised groups, especially women and girls, differently abled persons, civil society,media, academia and the private sector in the SACOSAN process at all stages and levels, and in the acceleration of sanitation and hygiene outcomes in the region;
10. Progressively ensure adequate, inclusive and safe institutional sanitation and hygiene, including but not limited to educational and health facilities, transport hubs, market and work places;
11. Promote environmentally sound, climate resilient safe sanitation facilities.

The next SACOSAN would be hosted by Pakistan.

Nadira from SNV Nepal sends us the following greetings and very informative summary about day 2 of the conference


***Day 2***


Dear All,

I am happy to report on some key impressions from Day Two of SACOSAN here in Dhaka. It has been an eventful day focussing on a range of themes in sanitation and hygiene, and I apologise for only bring a few glimpses from selected sessions. The day had three parts to the programme starting with two plenary sessions, followed by eight technical sessions, and ending with six side events.

The first plenary session on community approaches was appropriately chaired by Dr Kamal Kar in the home of the Community Led Total Sanitation Approach (CLTS). Six countries presented their experiences. India shared the diversity of community responses within its different geographical areas and traced its journey in community approaches starting from the 1999 Total Sanitation programme to the current Clean India mission lead by the Prime Minister. Some elements of this mission include promoting sanitation heroes, exposing leaders to community approaches, defining mechanisms for verifying ODF status, and providing an incentive framework for states based on actual outcomes. India also shared its demand driven focus in 1999 supported by an initial subsidy of 500 Rs per toilet and current commitment of 12,000 Rs subsidy per toilet with flexibility to the states on its delivery mechanism.

Bhutan had a top down approach in the sector as recent as 2008. However, they then adopted a programme with 4 key components, which enabled them to focus on local government representatives and emphasise the involvement of communities. The national programme in sanitation and hygiene includes promoting good governance, creating demand, strengthening supply chains, and behaviour change communication. Demand creation revolves around implementing Community Development for Health workshops attended by all households where the commitment to construct toilets by all the households themselves, is made. The communities are supported in identifying appropriate sanitation technologies and linked with suppliers for construction. Bhutan has had good results from their programme and is currently in the process of scaling up in the whole country. A key challenge noted was mobilising the last remaining households in achieving ODF and it was questioned whether some subsidy may be required for this small percentage.

The presentation of Nepal well reflected the spirit of its sanitation movement that is wide-spread across the country. The motto of “Sanitation for All” was described as the dream of the country and “All for Sanitation” as the strategy of the country. A critical force has been the organisation of WASH coordination committees at the national, regional, district, and village levels which provides a platform to bring all stakeholders together in joint emphasis for sanitation and hygiene and implementation of a no-subsidy approach that largely relies on CLTS. The communities have been the backbone of the sanitation spirit and rapid increase in sanitation access.

In Afghanistan, open defecation (19%) was not seen as such a big challenge. Communities were in general not dependent on outside support for construction of toilets; rather they relied on a culture of making traditional dry latrines. The big challenge facing the country was improving these traditional dry latrines to make them hygienic and managing the excreta from the toilets. For this, an Afghanistan contextualised CLTS approach had been piloted starting in 2010 in about six provinces with promising results. This programme is going to be scaled up and is supported by a recently endorsed 10-year government plan for sanitation.

Pakistan focussed on its most populated province, the Punjab, which has 57% unimproved toilets. It has adopted a Pakistan Approach to Total Sanitation (PATS) and has seen a distinct transition from hardware focus to software focus. PATS encompasses four areas: open defecation free by 2018 using CLTS and SLTS, hygiene, liquid waste management and solid waste management. The public sector has fully adopted community approaches and also made a unit under the Public Health and Engineering Department that is responsible for supporting community programmes.

Mr. Christopher Williams from WSSCC joined some threads from the country experiences including: importance of government leadership to take initiatives to scale; role of external agencies in supporting government in these initiatives; innovations in various countries in using cultural events and dedicating periods of the year to sanitation; recognising the dynamism in behaviour change; addressing the challenges of sustaining ODF, moving up the sanitation ladder, and working on hygiene; not treating communities as homogeneous groups; and including needs of the disabled.

The second plenary session on innovations saw a variety of topics. Mr Ibrahim from DPHE Bangladesh provided an assessment of climate-resilient technologies for water logged areas and flooding scenarios. He recognised however that management of the faecal sludge was a challenge. Mr Nitya Jacob from Water Aid India presented an effective series of seven posters on “Breaking the Taboo” on menstruation that look at a number of myths associated with menstruation. WSSCC and FANSA powerfully presented the campaign of “Leave No One Behind” with women representatives from seven countries presenting placards and statements on the importance of sanitation and hygiene. Mr Arif Khan from Water Aid Bangladesh shared experiences from local planning processes for community-based climate change adaptation with the “one ward, one plan” initiative.

The eight technical sessions were each led by one respective participating country and addressed themes of hygiene promotion (Afghanistan); urban sanitation (Bangladesh); gender, equity and rights (Bhutan); research and development innovation (India); financing for sanitation and international cooperation (Maldives); WASH in institutions and public places (Nepal); climate change and sanitation (Pakistan); and sanitation for hard to reach areas (Sri Lanka).

Amongst the various presentations in the technical session on hygiene promotion by Afghanistan, UNICEF Afghanistan candidly shared the experiences of their joint efforts with the Ministry of Education in tackling Menstrual Hygiene Management in schools. A programme of constructing separate toilets with washing facilities for girls and incinerators for sanitary napkins had been implemented. An evaluation however found that usage of the toilets was low, the location of washing areas was at times found to be inconvenient, and incinerators were not being maintained (no burning). Therefore, a formative research was being planned to better understand the barriers to the use of menstrual hygiene facilities. The lessons learnt were that school staff and students must be involved in designing and implementing MHM programmes; simply making infrastructure and disseminating information was not sufficient.

Conclusions from the technical session on hygiene promotion included: capacity gaps in implementing hygiene programmes; behaviour change communication was more needed rather than IEC; creation of enabling environment; participation of community and target groups in programme design and implementation; and focussing on doable behaviours.

The technical session on WASH in institutions and public places led by Nepal saw much discussion. There was clear evidence from presentations of Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and the region as a whole that functioning WASH facilities in institutions and public places remained a challenge. The consensus was that standards had to be enforced for sanitation and hygiene facilities in institutions and public places, handwashing facilities were often ignored, existing facilities needed to be made accessible (e.g not locked) and functional, separate toilets for girls were needed, and menstrual hygiene facilities had to be incorporated. Furthermore, the respective ministries responsible for education and health had to be in the forefront for ensuring WASH in institutions.

Gender, equity and rights technical session chaired by Bhutan included presentations from Gender Water Alliance from Bangladesh, a paper on sanitation budget tracking also from Bangladesh and a study from India. Tshering Choden, SNV Bhutan also presented one on a recent study on a gender analysis conducted for the national Rural Sanitation and Hygiene Programme on the role of women in sanitation. It struck a chord with participants who commented “this study could be Bangladesh. It could be any of our countries in the region”.

The six side events at the end of the day also created much interest. The event hosted by WHO revealed their new global strategy for 2015 - 2020 which places WASH in the framework of Neglected Tropical Diseases. Furthermore the manual on Sanitation Safety Planning for use of wastewater, greywater and excreta was shared which reflects the multi-barrier approach for reuse promoted in the 2006 WHO guidelines but can also be applied for the sanitation value chain overall. WHO is looking to further strengthen the SSP guideline based on country experiences. The event on Faecal Sludge Management co-hosted by SNV saw a similar theme with a presentation on Health and Safety along the sanitation value chain.


[Posted by Jasmin]

Gabrielle from SNV Netherlands sends us the following greetings and very informative summary about day 1 of the conference


***DAY 1***

Greetings from Sacosan VI which is being hosted by Bangladesh this week under the theme of Better Sanitation Better Life. As a three day event it has once again brought together the eight governments of the region along with 100+ organisations and 500 participants to work towards an open defecation free South Asia by 2023.

Day 1 has set the scene starting with the opening and inauguration by HE Mr Md. Abdul Hamid, the Honourable President of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh which was followed in the afternoon by the country paper presentations. The country papers highlighted both the shared progress towards open defecation free and beyond but also the diversity of the experiences, as the chair reflected “from the context of Afghanistan, to the deltas of Bangladesh, to the mountains of Bhutan, the scale of India and the islands of the Maldives”.

The country papers are online at www.sacosanvi.gov.bd/Country-Paper but to give you a snapshot from some …

• Bangladesh on its journey to zero has reached a sanitation coverage of 99% (of which 61% is improved) and the focus has shifted from ending OD to sustainable sanitation, including fecal sludge management.
• Sri Lanka is also close with open defecation now reduced to 1.7% and access to improved sanitation has reached 89%.
• The government of Nepal announced the formation of the new Ministry of Water and Sanitation, that access to water and sanitation has been enshrined in its new constitution as a fundamental right and shared the progress of achieving 32 of 75 districts declaring ODF as it works towards its 2017 goal.
• India shared its story of scale, the move towards embracing behaviour change and the example of constructing separate girls and boys toilets in every government school in just one year, under the programme Swachh vidyalaya.
• Whilst the Maldives, as the only low lying island nation in the group talked of the challenge of climate change and as one not of OD and containment but of managing discharge and treatment.

The chair of the session reflected on the changes visible, where as the first Sacosan in Bangladesh in 2003 was a discussion on subsidy. Now it is not only one of zero subsidy but it is looking beyond ODF, to sustainable sanitation and ways to create the right institutions to deliver services, inclusively within the framework of the SDGs.

The evening involved the first of a series of parallel side events, these included the story of the Journey to Zero in Bangladesh, the use of evidence to influence decision makers and public-private partnership in fecal sludge management which shared experiences including from WSUP, Practical Action and SNV Nepal.

Looking forward to tomorrow with the start of the technical sessions and the continuation of many many interesting conversations.


[Posted by Jasmin]