UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education

This paper aims to understand the value of collaboration in a ‘state of emergency’ situation, featuring the case of the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector in Zimbabwe over the period 2008–2012. During this period, a group of stakeholders engaged in a structured collaboration, called the WASH cluster. This initiative was taken to respond to severe and frequent cholera outbreaks.

This paper describes the potential of ecological sanitation (ecosan), and in particular of urine-diversion dehydrating (UDD) toilets, to provide sustainable excreta disposal in emergency situations in low-income countries. Three case studies of emergency sanitation were analysed: El Salvador (hurricane), Afghanistan (civil war) and Pakistan (earthquake). The analysis of these case studies has shown that the systems implemented in the long-term phase of the emergency were sometimes more sustainable than what was in place before the emergency occurred.

After emergency situations, aid agencies tend to implement sanitation systems that exhibit good principles for managing human excreta, but can result in groundwater pollution, inconvenience for women and children, or problems with not having sufficient space available to build or rebuild when full. Ecosan is an alternative approach to conventional sanitation systems that promotes ecological and economical wastewater and waste management. Ecosan is based on the principles of containment, sanitation, and reuse.