Sustainable Sanitation Alliance: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 11:03, 27 September 2023

The Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA) is a loose network of organizations who are "working along the same lines towards achieving sustainable sanitation".^[1] It began its work in 2007, one year before the United Nations International Year of Sanitation in 2008. The intention of creating SuSanA was to have a joint label for the planned activities for 2008 and to align the various organizations for further initiatives.

SuSanA has over 360 partner organizations and over 13,000 individual members (as of March 2021).^[2]^[3] SuSanA's vision document contains a definition of sustainable sanitation which was developed by SuSanA partners in 2007.^[4] The discussion forum that is hosted by SuSanA performs like a Community of Practice (CoP).

SuSanA is not a non-governmental organization (NGO). It has no legal structure and takes no membership fees. It encourages other organizations to join the network and to become active members in the thematic working groups.

Overview[edit]

SuSanA is dedicated to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, and in particular SDG6 (Goal Number 6) which is "water and sanitation for all".^[1] This is done by promoting sustainable sanitation systems. These systems should be "economically viable, socially acceptable, technically and institutionally appropriate, and protect health, the environment and natural resources".^[5]

SuSanA is one of several knowledge management platform in the WASH sector such as the LinkedIn Discussion Group "Community of Practice on Sanitation and Hygiene in Developing Countries" by WSSCC (now defunct), Blue Planet, International Water Association (IWA), Akvopedia and others.^[6]

Activities[edit]

Since 2007, SuSanA has held 23 meetings in different locations around the world. Each year one meeting takes place before or after the World Water Week in Stockholm, and a further meeting usually takes place in the Global South, connected to another WASH event. SuSanA also organises side events, seminars and working group meetings in conjunction with other major WASH conferences.^{[citation needed]}

Funding sources[edit]

In 2020, the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council announced a stronger collaboration with SuSanA by merging their Community of Practice group into the SuSanA Discussion Forum, including financial support to the moderation of the SuSanA Discussion Forum.^[13]

Impacts[edit]

Other actors have picked up on the theme of innovative sanitation (often with reuse of excreta in some form), most notably the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Sustainable sanitation has become a topic in the nexus (water, energy, food) dialogue as well as in the WASH and nutrition theme.^[14]

SuSanA fulfills an "intermediary role" in a global innovation system. It was found to be a "prime mover" in the development of "safely managed non-grid sanitation".^[15]

Structure[edit]

Thematic working groups[edit]

SuSanA has 13 thematic working groups covering areas of sustainable sanitation where conceptual and knowledge management work is required:^[16]

Partner organizations[edit]

SuSanA has over 360 partner organizations (as of March 2021).^[2] The partners are of the following types: Local NGO, International NGO, private sector, research and education, governmental / state-owned organization, multi-lateral organizations, associations and networks and others.^[10] All prospective new SuSanA partner organizations have to agree to the vision document when they join.^{[citation needed]}

Anetwork analysis study conducted in 2014 assessed the SuSanA network by examining the communication channels used and the quality of relationships among partners.^[17] It found that "SuSanA partners have strong levels of trust, cooperation and information exchange with one another". However, partners seem to have low diversity of relationships with partners in different economic zones, such as developing countries versus developed countries.^[17] Many of the partners use their membership primarily to receive information from the discussion forum.^[17]

Individual members[edit]

Individuals can join as members. There are nearly 13,000 members (as of March 2021).^[3]

Challenges and difficulties[edit]

SuSanA has been criticized by some in the WASH (Water, Sanitation, Hygiene) sector for a perceived dominance of the ecosan theme in SuSanA. This is due to the strong focus of two of its founding organizations on ecosan: Stockholm Environment Institute and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. Others have criticised SuSanA for being too focussed on technologies and sanitation systems (rather than on non-technical issues); that it is too dominated by people from the Global North; too dominated by GIZ who leads the secretariat; and too theoretical and far removed from the realities on the ground.^{[citation needed]}

The activities of SuSanA so far have a tendency to take place and be driven by actors in the Global North, especially by European actors.^[15] To overcome this to some extent, SuSaA set-up local "chapters" in India in 2016, West Asia and North Africa (WANA) in 2017, and Latin America in 2018.^[15]

SuSanA has no regional nodes, offices or secretariats. It also has limited impact so far in the non-English speaking parts of the world, notably Russia or Central Asia.

The SuSanA core group has reacted to these criticisms by defining a mission statement in 2014, a roadmap for 2013 onwards and by hosting an open discussion forum where such issues can be discussed.^[10] Recommendations made in 2014 to the SuSanA network for its future development and to further develop relationships among partners include: Continue to hold meetings in different locations around the world, establish regional nodes, re-activate the working groups, and create more active members through engagement.^[17]

History[edit]

A research project in 2020 has split the development of SuSanA into the following phases:^[15]

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