Training Programme on Citywide Inclusive Sanitation

Date: December 10-12, 2019

Venue: Anil Agarwal Environment Training Institute (AAETI), Nimli, Rajasthan

Recognising the need for an innovative and holistic approach for sanitation that considers the engineering aspects, as well as the incorporation of social, economic, institutional, cultural and environmental factors in urban sanitation planning. The School of Water and Waste, AAETI, Centre for Science & Environment (CSE) organized a 3 day training programme on Citywide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS) from December 10-12, 2019 at AAETI, Nimli, Rajasthan. The training programme intended to develop an in-depth understanding of key concepts and principles of Citywide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS), which involves collaboration among many actors to ensure that everyone benefits from adequate sanitation service delivery outcomes. The main objective of the training was to sensitize and build the capacity in CWIS and help identify and acknowledge the various elements involved for ensuring safe, sustainable, inclusive and equitable sanitation service benefit for everyone in a city. 

There were total 20 participants from diverse background and regions including municipal officials and sanitation practitioners from India and Bangladesh. A powerful platform were experts of CWIS shared the principles & implementation of inclusivity in the sanitation sector today. A knowledge exchange tailor-made training where implementers of CWIS in Indian cities of Trichy, Warangal, Wai shared the experience along with implementers of CWIS in South Asia and Africa

Day 1 started with AAETI green campus tour facilitated by Mr. Jyoti Parsad, Participants explored various low-cost sustainable treatment technologies to treat wastewater. Later Dr. Mahreen Matto took the session explaining the role of CSE in the area of sanitation at national and global level with the focus of how our work feeds into the CSP and CWIS approaches. In addition Mr. Bhitush Luthra gave insights on sanitation service chain including Shit Flow Diagram (SFD). Post lunch Ms. Upneet Singh of World Bank introduced the concept and principles of Citywide Inclusive Sanitation to the participants by sharing case studies of Manila and Patna. In continuation Mr. Krishna Rao exposed the participants to the diverse technical solutions required to provide inclusive sanitation as there is no fit solution to tackle the problem for a city. He emphasized on the need for an integrated approach for a sustainable solution.

At the end of the day, Mr. Niladri Chakraborti and Ms. Sugantha Priscilla from IIHS shared experiences from one of the CWIS cities i.e. Trichy. The session showcased the challenges and opportunities with regard to implementing the concept while providing WASH facilities at school and community level. The session showcased the role of all the stakeholders especially sanitation workers to achieve safe and effective inclusive sanitation. In addition, participants were exposed to perform some brainstorming exercises to learn about CWIS implementation.

The second day of the training started with a reflection session to recapitulate the participant’s knowledge of previous day learnings. Later Mr. Rajamohan Reddy from ASCI shared experiences of all the steps of CWIS implementation from another CWIS city i.e. Warangal. The main focus of the session was on the gender inclusiveness. Later participants were exposed to WAI city’s CWIS implementation by Ms. Arwa Bharmal of CEPT University. In continuation Mr. Krishna Rao delivered a session on resource recovery in sanitation by showcasing Global and National examples, followed by a brainstorming group exercise to make the participants understand all the aspects of citywide inclusive sanitation with regard to a city. The day ended with an interesting session on the measurement framework for monitoring of CWIS by Mr. Ramkrishna Paul at Athena Infonomics.

On the last day of the training the participants visited Sulabh Museum at Dwarka, to understand and explore the interventions opted by Sulabh International towards achieving safe sanitation.

The training highlighted the importance of inclusivity in sanitation to achieve SDG6.