Loughborough University

In the Humanitarian Innovation Fund Gap Analysis for water, sanitation, and hygiene issues, field staff identified environmental management of surface water as an area of concern, although this was not reflected at a head office level. This difference of perspectives could be an under-reporting of this aspect of environmental sanitation to the global humanitarian community or a failure of experts to communicate the required response to surface water management in camps for displaced people.

Pit latrine linings for emergency sanitation facilities require different performance criteria from those for pits used in longer-term development work. Various international initiatives are currently under way to develop new methods of supporting the pits used for latrines in emergencies, but before a solution can be found, the problem needs to be defined. Current field guidance lacks the level of detail required by humanitarian workers to construct durable pits in a timely manner.

Lighting should be provided for WASH facilities in Humanitarian contexts according to several standards. Evidence for this and the practical budget, operational and management responsibilities are less clear. A three-country research project looking at the impact of lighting on WASH use and Gender-Based Violence (GBV) required a multi-disciplinary approach, combining OXFAM's practical implementing expertise with WEDC's research-oriented approach. The research showed how much more is needed for safe sanitation than just building latrines.

In  2016,  the  Technical  Working  Group  (TWiG)  of  the  national  WaSH  Cluster  of  South  Sudan  focused  on  water  filter  technologies  in  order  to  assess  the  suitability  of  the  many  filter  products  available  for  application  in  WaSH  interventions  within  South  Sudan.  However,  the  TWiG  didn’t  analyse  past  disasters  and  water  borne  epidemics  together  with  endemic  diseases,  and  this  paper  wants  to  identify  if  there  are  and  which  are  the  criteria  and  information to  be  considered  to  choose  the  best  filter  (or  other  water  treatm