Conservation - Reducing Water Usage

This discussion paper by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) examines the current state of sanitation services in India and offers recommendations that can help key stakeholders work toward universal sanitation coverage in India.

Providing environmentally-safe sanitation to millions of people is a significant challenge, especially in the world’s second most populated country. The task is doubly difficult in a country where the introduction of new technologies can challenge people’s traditions and beliefs.

This discussion paper examines the current state of sanitation services in India in relation to two goals—Goal 7 of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which calls on countries to halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without improved sanitation facilities (from 1990 levels); and India’s more ambitious goal of providing “Sanitation for All” by 2012, established under its Total Sanitation Campaign.

This hand book on Indian science and technology was produced at the end of a project entitled “Science, Ethics and Technological Responsibility in Developing and Emerging Countries” (SET DEV) by Knowledge in Civil Society (KICS). The project aimed at:

• Activating processes of building institutional capacities and skills on science,ethics and STR socialization
• Defining and understanding perspectives of socialization of science and technology that take into consideration local needs in a multilateral dialogue.

We all know the statistics: 2.6 billion people around the world are without access to a basic toilet. Diarrhoea – the vast majority of it due to poor sanitation and hygiene – is the second biggest killer of children worldwide.

Between us, we also have many of the answers. We have experiences of low-cost technologies that are acceptable and affordable for poor communities in rural areas. We have been involved in designing communications programmes that have contributed to sustained behaviour change.

We have seen governments and civil society working together to set up policies and programmes that ensure access to better sanitation in challenging settings, such as crowded informal settlements in fast-growing megacities. We have also seen businesses grow up around sanitation and hygiene, allowing individuals to make a dignified living and clients to buy the sorts of products and services they want and need.

Content courtesy: India WASH Forum

It does this in the context of the new decentralised  governance structures that are based on the assumption that domestic water supply is the legitimate domain of women and thus power and authority needs to be granted to women to manage water resources.

However, there is a very little understanding of how this has benefited women and what are the challenges experienced during the process of implementation or the outcomes gained from these processes, in the context of the Indian society that continues to propogate patriarchal values and is based on structures that are inherently hierarchical and inequitable.

Some of the papers dwell on and explore the inherent biases in the literature and make an attempt to understand their implications for women in managing water resources, while some of the papers share case studies on the outcomes of the implementation of the decentralised water management policies at the village level.