Practice Notes
These short, two page notes on key urban water and sanitation themes will use practical evidence from ongoing WSUP programmes to illustrate successful approaches and models being used and aims to challenge sector thinking on these themes.
Practice Note 1: Using water kiosk revenues to cross-finance environmental hygiene: Tana’s RF2 model
This Practice Note demonstrates an effective model for cross-financing environmental health improvements in Antananarivo, Madagascar. In the search for scalable models of urban sanitation and environmental hygiene, sustainable finance is key. In the Madagascan capital Antananarivo (Tana), community groups are using revenues from water kiosks and other local sources to finance a drainage canal cleaning programme, critical to public health.
Practice Note 2: Financing Communal Toilets: the Tchemulane Project in Maputo
This Practice Note examines the financing of communal toilets in Maputo, Mozambique and argues that in high density, low income communities, communal toilets serving small groups of families can be an effective sanitation solution. The big challenge is to achieve regular payment from users, and effective community management of this revenue.
(also available in French and Portuguese)
Practice Note 3: GIS & mapping tools for water and sanitation infrastructure
Recently developed tools that enable web-based geographical representation of data have exciting applications in the design and monitoring of WASH systems. This Practice Note introduces three tools of this type and briefly discusses the advantages and disadvantages of each.
Practice Note 4: Climate-proofing urban WASH: a rapid assessment method
Climate change is happening, and the urban poor are extremely vulnerable to its impacts. Demand for water and sanitation services in low-income urban areas is likely to increase, while flooding and water shortages may become more frequent. This Practice Note outlines a rapid assessment method for planning the climate-proofing of a city’s water and sanitation services.
Practice Note 5: Can NRW reduction programmes lead to improved services for the poor?
Reducing non-revenue water (NRW) is a common development goal for water utilities, but does it help the poor? In Antananarivo (Madagascar), reducing NRW losses is helping the utility JIRAMA to free up water resources that are being used to supply low-income communities.
Practice Note 6: Location is everything:
optimal placement of community water and sanitation services
When constructing shared facilities like water kiosks and communal toilets, it is critical to identify locations that maximise usage and thus ensure financial viability. This note describes a procedure, developed in Antananarivo, for identifying viable infrastructure locations.
Practice Note 7: Helping people connect to water networks: good for business, good for the poor?
Even in city districts served by a water network, there are various barriers to connection by the poorest households. Sometimes a major barrier is simply the paperwork. In Maputo (Mozambique), the Tchemulane project is working with community groups and the water utility to help poorer consumers access a household connection.
Practice Note 8: Clean Team, a human-centred approach to sanitation: initial trials in Ghana
Clean Team is a sanitation business currently being trialled by WSUP in Kumasi (Ghana). It springs from the use of human-centred design methods to approach urban sanitation from a radically new angle: asking people in low-income communities what sort of toilet they really want, and working from there to develop financially viable solutions that actively drive demand.
