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The
Sida-funded SanRes Programme has been managed by WKAB (Uno Winblad) from
1993 to 2001. The aims of the SanRes programme were:
1. to promote the development of affordable and replicable sanitation
systems for urban and rural households in the third world,
2. to establish, in selected countries, a local capacity for R&D on
sanitation, and
3. to facilitate South-South collaboration in the field of applied
sanitation research.
Over the past 9 years the SanRes Programme has supported ecological
sanitation projects in El Salvador, Mexico, Bolivia, South Africa, Uganda,
Vietnam and China. (Ecological sanitation is defined as 'sanitation
systems based on preventing pollution, destroying pathogenic organisms and
recycling human excreta'.) A number of international seminars/conferences
plus a number of national/local workshops and training courses have been
arranged, culminating in the First International Conference on Ecological
Sanitation, Nanning, November 2001.
The Programme has so far been involved in relatively small-scale projects
in rural areas. The great success in China, particularly in Guangxi Province,
indicates that the ecosan concept is ready for urban applications. It is
first of all in urban areas that we badly need alternatives to
conventional sanitation. All around the world there are fast growing small
and medium-sized towns where most households have no access to a hygienic
sanitation system. (In China there are 47,000 such towns with a total
population more than 200 million.) The municipal economy does not allow
heavy investments in pipe networks, pumping stations and treatment plants
and many towns are criticallyshort of water. For such towns ecological
sanitation systems based upon decentralized management of human excreta
and household refuse could be a solution.
SanRes
Final Report (PDF 776 kB) |
