These reflections have been provoked by two occasions.  The first was in late September/early October last year in India – the Mahatma Gandhi International Convention on Sanitation.  The second was AfricaSan5, the fifth biennial African Conference on Sanitation in Cape Town in February this year.  The contributions to global warming of these two occasions will have been enormous.  For myself, I feel guilt, having been to both.  Let me fondly hope this blog leads to good actions which a

Prime Minister Modi has set the 2nd October 2019 as the target date for rural India to be Open Defecation Free (ODF). Remarkable progress has been achieved, but there is a very long way still to go.  One major problem is partial usage of toilets.  Jamie Myers and I reviewed studies and surveys and their methodologies and concluded that in rural North India at least half the toilets that are functioning are not used by all members of the household all the time.

On the 11th and 12th November 2015, the German WASH-Network, an alliance of 19 German NGOs, is hosting an international conference on the nexus between WASH and nutrition security in Bonn.

I have just had two remarkable weeks in India with the National Rural Livelihoods Mission.  This is a national movement of, so far, 2.4 million women’s self-help groups (SHGs).  Each has about 10 members.  Then there are Village Organisations of SHGs and Federations above them.  I was there to help explore whether these SHGs and their organisations could take a lead in the drive for rural sanitation.  This involved field visits in Telangana (formerly part of Andhra Pradesh) and Bihar, and three brainstorming workshops, the last one at national level in Delhi, convened by the World Bank whic