World Water Week

As many of you probably know, the World Water Week conference is currently taking place in Stockholm.  This conference has a geographically diverse group of people from the water, sanitation, hygiene, and health fields.  If you are interested in following the conference from afar here are a few ways to do it:

(1) The World Water Week Website has the programme of talks/workshops and many of the presentations and abstracts available for download

(2) Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre and Akvo.org are broadcasting a series of interviews with people at the conference called WaterCube.tv.  Watercube.tv seems to be uploading new clips VERY frequently and has had interviews with some really interesting people from all over the world.

(3) Try following some tweets here or here

Closing schools for poor sanitation?

I have blogged about different approaches used to encourage improved sanitation, but Uganda has again stepped it up (at least in theory).  Today’s Daily Monitor reports that Kampala City Council is closing schools that don’t conform to city sanitation standards.  While this may be a crucial step to show the importance of sanitation I have a few questions as to the cost vs. benefits of this approach.

-I wonder if these schools have funding to improve their own sanitation conditions.  If not, as I suspect, how could they possibly deal with this?

-What happens to the children from these schools?  Do they stay at home where the sanitation situation is presumably just as poor?  Are they forced to go to another school farther away that probably has a dismal student to teacher ratio?

Apparently they have already closed three schools….What is next?

Ugandan Primary School Students Painting a Latrine with Health Messages