Introducing and scaling up sustainable water and sanitation technologies

On December 11th IRC organised a webinar called ‘Introducing and scaling up sustainable water and sanitation technologies’. It focused on the current status of two tools developed by the WASHTech project, and introduced webinar participants to the new website providing access to these tools and many other resources. Access the webinar recording here

Webinar outline

The webinar was structured as follows:

• Welcome and introduction, by Jo Smet, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre
• ‘From WASH technologies to innovation and lasting services’ by André Olschewski, Skat Foundation
• ‘The development of TAF in Ghana’ by Benedict Tuffuor, TREND, Ghana
• ‘Uganda Technology Introduction Process- TIP‘ by Paul Kimera, ATC Uganda
• Application in Nicaragua and Tanzania and beyond, by Vincent Casey, Wateraid UK (no presentation).
• Q&A
• ‘An introduction to the online resource base http://washtechnologies.net by Sean Furey, Skat Foundation
• How can you use these tools and resources, followed by Q&A
• Closing

Presentations

The presentation by André Olschewski of Skat Foundation gave a brief introduction to the Technology Applicability Framework (TAF) and the the Technology Introduction Process (TIP).

Benedict Tuffuor of TREND Ghana described the process of TAF testing on 7 technologies already in use, feedback from sector stakeholders on the TAF and steps ahead in further institutionalising the tool in the country.

Paul Kimera of the Appropriate Technology Centre for Water and Sanitation (ATC) in Uganda, detailed how the Technology Introduction Process has been formulated in Uganda.

Vincent Casey explained that Water Aid has already supported use of the TAF in Tanzania and Nicaragua and is planning to apply it in three other countries after the project ends. Wateraid has translated the TAF Manual into Spanish so that it could be easily applied in Nicaragua.

Tools sparked a lot of interest and many questions

110 people registered for the webinar, of which 55 people actually participated. The majority of the webinar participants were from Europe and Africa. Webinar participamnts were encouraged to join the online community, apply the TAF and TIP and share their experiences. Already, 19 case studies of technologies tested with TAF are available on the new website. We hope many more will follow!

Follow up

Given time constraints, the presenters were not able to answer all the questions asked during the webinar. Download a full report of questions and answers here: WASHTech webinar Q&A 11 dec 2013.

To allow more people to learn about the tools, another webinar will be hosted by Engineering for Change on January 21st 2014.