Developing Human Resources (WS)

The world is changing, and so is how we should approach sanitation and water resource management. The new paradigm is far more concerned with the impact or “footprint” of our human activities on the natural environment both in terms of the consequences of over exaction of water from aquatic ecosystems and subsurface aquifers, as well as the pollution of downstream systems with our untreated “waste”. This paradigm shift also involves a search for smaller decentralised sustainable systems which are generally more energy and resource efficient and environmentally friendly by closing water and nutrient loops. This approach also has important implications in terms of human resource development.

Community Empowerment

In order to assure that the sanitation and water systems are contextually appropriate and will be adequately managed and maintained over time, it is essential to respect and support the central role of the end users and communities, and to involve them in all of the essential stages of the process – i.e. needs identification, selection of technical options, system design, and operation and maintenance (O&M). In other words, communities can no longer be viewed as passive beneficiaries, but rather as central actors whose capacities and knowledge need to be developed from the outset.

In this process, it is important to recognise the innate knowledge and skills of local people as the foundation upon which new capacities can be developed. Community people - and adults in general - learn best from experience (see adult learning) and, from this standpoint, often will have evolved certain attitudes and cultural norms that will make them more or less resistant – or open - (to considering and ultimately accepting new approaches and technologies that could be of personal and collective benefit. For his reason, it is critical that the external “change agents” have the necessary understanding, together with the educational and communication tools, in order to facilitate the sharing of diverse perspectives and “world views” to arrive at the appropriate solution for the specific situation (see also awareness raising (see PPT)).

Ultimately, the development of local capacity must include the facilitation of a positive self-image (self-esteem and self-confidence), good communication and organisational skills, as well as technical capacity to assure the necessary ongoing monitoring and maintenance of the systems. In order to adequately develop this range of capacities – attitudinal, information and skills – the best training process should be highly participatory and inclusive from the beginning, well before actual system infrastructure installation takes place; subsequently focusing more on the more directive delivery of technical information and skills; and finally a more internally driven approach where the users begin to assume their roles in the longer term operation, monitoring and sustainability of the systems.

It is important to recognise and appreciate that the additional cost and effort in the development of community human resources are an investment. It does not only benefit the long term sustainability of the particular systems that are being considered, but it also recognises the fact that community people are the primary building blocks of sustainable communities. Hence, the confidence, knowledge and skills generated in a particular project will be replicated and magnified over time in multiple community-based initiatives that will impact on the livelihoods and quality of life of all involved. Indeed, sustainable productive sanitation by definition must be a multi-sectoral, interdisciplinary effort involving most aspects of a healthy community – e.g. water, solid waste, agriculture, health, education, employment generation, architecture, environment, watershed management, etc. (see also planning and process tools section, which provides an overview of participatory approaches).

Professional Education and Training

As distinct from a normal adult experiential learning process, most water and sanitation sector professionals – e.g. sanitation engineers and practitioners, policymakers, managers, and operators – have acquired much of their information and ideas in a formal, top-down academic educational process, and tend to try to pass it on in the same vertical manner. But perhaps even more serious is the fact that “curricula of Universities, continuing education programs, technical schools, research institutes and training centres mostly continue to present conventional (centralised, waterborne) sanitation as the only legitimate approach.” (UNESCO-IHP & GTZ 2006). The urgent challenge then is to simultaneously transform not only WHAT the formal system teaches, but also HOW they teach. To a significant degree, formal academic institutions tend to continue to be “ivory towers”, with limited relevance to the real needs of the majority of the words underserved and attributing insufficient value to experiential learning and thus offering too few practical learning opportunities too late in a student’s career.

Educational institutions should:

• Fully integrate the discourse and criteria for sustainability into their curricula;
• View the primary stakeholders (users and local communities) not as objects, but as partners for jointly developing sustainable sanitation solutions.
• Prepare students to think about wastewater – urine and faeces and grey/black water – as resources;
• Make clear that health and a healthy environment is a prerequisite for human productivity, and productivity determines economic well being (UNESCO-IHP & GTZ 2006).

Finally, training centres and universities need to revise their curricula to provide much greater time in the field so that their student trainees can learn from the communities – or, at least, acquire the humility to recognise that their school learning is only half –if that– of the whole picture. Indeed, in many cases the university degrees are less important than the experiential/field learning itself. It is encouraging that many universities are being restructured to include extended practical internships with sector organisations and others, while the more progressive are actually giving greater emphasis to the experiential with the academic and research programs driven by field realities and demands (ESW 2011).

Institutional Staff HRD

It is also important that the development institutions themselves get their priorities straight. They should recognise that identifying the right people to do the jobs has to do not only with their formal preparation, but as well with their experience and commitment. Often, organisations make the mistake of being top-heavy, looking for people that are overly qualified and have a career path that is excessively upward mobile in institutional terms, thus minimising the value on field experience and commitment. In order to overcome this understandable and fairly natural tendency, there need to be incentive structures to keep qualified people in the field –and also the other way around, to get the “managers and technicians” out into the field. Another useful strategy is to develop a more pro-poor institutional staffing structure, which is more equitable and “flatter” in terms of salary scales and compensations. There should also be recognition of highly qualified people who have opted to work and keep themselves closer to the field. Moving to the "urban" head office should not be seen as the only way of being rewarded and remunerated for good performance.

Resource Centres

Resource centres – or nodes –, whether public or private, can play an important role in providing relevant and accessible HRD and support services, such as information management and dissemination, integrated training, applied research and consultancies. In addition to facilitating short courses in both technical and social themes for both the general public as well as tailor made for specific institutional and program contexts, resource centres, in partnership with universities and other more formal training institutes, can provide longer term training programs (e.g. diploma courses) with formal accreditation. Given their flexibility and closer proximity and contact with field programs and realities, resource centres can frequently play a strategic role in interpreting and translating field needs and demands, in order for the more formal academic institutions to adapt and respond with more relevant educational programs and information resources (EAWAG 2005).