Damir Brdjanovic

Citywide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS) represents a paradigm shift in the provision of safely managed sanitation services with a framework of three outcomes—equity, safety and sustainability. There are several sanitation financial tools, but none of these fully address all CWIS outcomes. C ity w ide I nclusive S anitation Fi nancial T ool (CWIS‐FiT) is an innovative decision‐support tool designed to strengthen financial planning and integrate all CWIS outcomes. The tool captures both sewered and non‐sewered systems, as well as low‐income and non‐low‐income households, while accounting for non‐infrastructure costs such as workforce safety and gender equity for sustainable sanitation. Applications in Kenya and Nepal demonstrate the tool's ability to estimate financial analysis and planning, tariffs and fee analyses for cross‐subsidy simulations. By assessing CWIS indicators, CWIS‐FiT enables inclusive scenario planning aligned with SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation), SDG 10 (reduced inequalities), SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities) and SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production) and provides a scalable approach to planning equitable, safe and sustainable sanitation investments.

Providing safely managed sanitation/hygiene requires key competencies for education, training, service delivery, enterprise development and management, product and infrastructure design and development, construction and installation, governance, financing, research, etc. These strategic sanitation capacities will have to be built from higher education’s academic and professional programmes structured and designed to produce skilled and knowledgeable professionals and practitioners. This study aims to investigate the quality of the sanitation/hygiene management content of Environmental Health programmes; the adequacy of the existing central curricula; and the perception of environmental health sanitation/hygiene-trained professionals to determine the next phase for building knowledge and capacity of sanitation professionals in Nigeria through higher education institutions. A multi-level mixed method concurrent study was used for sampling and data collection with a multi-level perception analysis to examine the perceptions of students, lecturers and graduate alumni, as well as employers/supervisors and clients/service users of sanitation/hygiene-related graduates. The main findings of this paper show a limited understanding of the concepts of contemporary issues of sanitation/hygiene management like sustainable sanitation, citywide inclusive sanitation, regenerative sanitation, circular bioeconomy, etc.; the central/national teaching and curricula were found to be seriously out of date; and clients/service users were dissatisfied with the skills and knowledge levels of the graduates. The study concludes by recommending a national sanitation management higher education pathway to guide the provision of integrated sanitation/hygiene management education at higher education institutions (HEIs), to build an effective, efficient, competent and sufficient workforce for the country.

Providing safely-managed sanitation/hygiene requires key competencies for education, training, service delivery, enterprise development and management, product and infrastructure design and development, construction and installation, governance, financing, research, etc. These strategic sanitation capacities will have to be built from higher education’s academic and professional programmes structured and designed to produce skilled and knowledgeable professionals and practitioners. This study aims to investigate the quality of the sanitation/hygiene management content of Environmental Health programmes; the adequacy of the existing central curricula; and the perception of environmental health sanitation/hygiene-trained professionals to determine the next phase for building knowledge and capacity of sanitation professionals in Nigeria through higher education institutions. A multilevel mixed method concurrent study was used for sampling and data collection with a multilevel perception analysis to examine the perceptions of students, lecturers and graduate alumni as well as employers/supervisors and clients/service-users of sanitation/hygiene related graduates. The main findings of this paper show limited understanding of the concepts of contemporary issues of sanitation/hygiene management; the central/national teaching and curricula were found to be seriously out of date; and clients/service-users were dissatisfied with the skills and knowledge levels of the graduates. The study concludes by recommending a national sanitation management higher education pathway to guide the provision of integrated sanitation/hygiene management education at higher education institutions (HEIs), to build effective, efficient, competent, and sufficient workforce for the country.

Various business models for fecal sludge emptying and transport have been developed to address challenges and their advantages have been documented; however, their evaluation has not been investigated. This study developed an evaluation framework, which was tested in informal settlements in Kampala for sustainable business models of fecal sludge emptying and transport. Through key informant interviews and stakeholder consultations, service delivery challenges from informal settlements in Kampala were identified and included in the framework, which were: high cost of emptying services, spillages, access to facilities, high operational costs and social stigma. The evaluation framework adopted six service criteria: Financial, Institutional, Environmental, Technological, Social and Scalability; these were further defined by fifteen service sub-criteria. The criteria were tested separately on eight business models—for mechanized (cesspool) and semi-mechanized (gulper) technologies. The key output of the evaluation framework (business model scorecard) revealed that two models (scheduled desludging and call center) for cesspool technology and three models (mobile transfer stations, scheduled desludging and call center) for gulper technology have high potential for service improvement in informal settlements. Scheduled desludging and mobile transfer stations can effectively optimize emptying services and subsequently reduce emptying charges, whereas the call center is critical for bridging service delivery.

Although faecal sludge (FS) co-compost contains vital nutrients, there are several barriers limiting adoption and reuse of FS co-compost in agriculture. This study in Bhubaneswar found that health risk and bad odour were the two topmost negative perceptions of FS co-compost reuse. The main factors influencing farmers’ negative perceptions of FS co-compost were bad odour and fear of infection, whereas socio-cultural/religious beliefs and bad odour were the key factors influencing the negative perceptions of urban households practising kitchen gardening (UHPKG). Fear of infection and bad odour were the key factors influencing fertiliser retailers’ negative perceptions, while inadequate information, unavailability, and lack of government policy on FS co-compost reuse were the key factors influencing Farmer Producer Organisations’ negative perceptions. The majority of farmers (95%) and UHPKG (72%) were unwilling to consume food crops grown with FS co-compost, mainly because of feelings of disgust, fear of infection, and religious and socio-cultural beliefs.

This study evaluated the effects of sludge retention time (SRT) on the membrane filtration performance of an anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR) fed lipid-rich synthetic dairy wastewater. The membrane filtration performance was evaluated in two AnMBR systems operated at two different SRTs, i.e., 20 and 40 days. For the AnMBR operated at 40 days, SRT exhibited worse membrane filtration performance characterized by operational transmembrane pressures (TMP) exceeding the maximum allowed value and high total resistances to filtration (R_total). The sludge in the two reactors evaluated at the different SRTs showed similar sludge filterability properties. However, the sludge in the reactor operated at 40 days SRT was characterized by exhibiting the highest concentrations of: (i) total suspended solids (TSS), (ii) small-sized particles, (iii) extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), (iv) soluble microbial products (SMP), (v) fats, oils and grease (FOG), and (vi) long-chain fatty acids (LCFA). The cake layer resistance was the major contributor to the overall resistance to filtration. The high TSS concentration observed in the AnMBR systems apparently contributed to a less permeable cake layer introducing a negative effect on the membrane filtration performance.

In Khulna, Bangladesh, mechanical faecal sludge (FS) emptying and transport (E&T) service is provided by community development committees (CDCs) and the Khulna City Corporation (KCC). Without considering capital expenditure and depreciation, financial analysis for one year revealed that a CDC-1 m³ vacutug made a profit of Bangladeshi taka (BDT) 145,780 (USD $1746) whereas a KCC-2 m³ vacutug was in the loss of BDT 218,179 (USD $2613). There is a need to engage the private sector for sustainable service provision. Some of the key elements of enabling the environment for private sector engagement are policy/strategy, institutional and regulatory framework, implementation capacity, and financial viability. Existing policy/strategy/frameworks acknowledged the need and suggested plans for private sector engagement, and decentralised authority to city corporations. With increasing private-public partnership projects and collaboration in the sanitation sector, capacity of the KCC and the private sector are increasing. Financial viability of the FS E&T business is primarily dependent on the number of trips and the emptying fee. For the E&T business to be financially viable, a 2 m³ vacutug should make six trips/day (internal rate of return (IRR)—13%, discount rate—6.5%) with an emptying fee of BDT 750 (USD $9)/m³. Despite the lack of operative guidelines for faecal sludge management (FSM), enabling the environment for private sector engagement in FS E&T business in Khulna seems favourable.

Sanitation infrastructure are not able to cope with the increasing population in low-income countries, which leaves populations exposed to faecal contamination from multiple pathways. This study evaluated public health risk (using SaniPath) in a low-income community during the dry season, to identify the dominant exposure pathways, and compare this data to existing data for the rainy season, questioning the assumption that risk of faecal contamination is higher in the rainy season. SaniPath was used to collect and assess exposure and environmental data, and to generate risk profiles for each pathway. In the dry season the highest exposure frequency was for bathing and street food, exposure frequency generally increased, and seasonal variation was found in five pathways. The highest hazards in the dry season were through contact with drains, soil, and street food. Seasonal variation was found in the contamination of open drains and street food, with higher levels of Escherichia coli (E. coli) in the dry season. Open drains were identified as the most dominant risk pathway in both seasons, but risk was higher in the dry season. This highlights the complex nature of seasonal variation of faecal risk, and questions the assumption that risk is higher in the rainy season.