The Incredible Peepoo

Recently the Peepoo has been getting a lot of attention in the news media and blogosphere for its potential to be a cost-effective solution to the global sanitaion problem. The New York Times recently published an article on the Peepoo, Popular Science wrote a piece on it, development blogger Elizabeth Royte has also commented on the Peepoo,  and other websites have also written about this product.

Basically it's a cheap plastic bag, in which one can use the toilet.  However, the Peepoo is different from a regular plastic bag because it is lined with a chemical that is able to break down the faecal waste and transform it into fertiliser that can be used for growing crops.  Users are meant to relieve themselves in the bag, tie it up, and then bury it in the ground to use as fertiliser.  I have actually seen one of these bags at World Water Week 2009 in Stockholm and I am unsure why this has gained so much attention.  It is an innovative product, but there are some key issues that I have with advocating that people in developing countries poo in plastic bags. 

First, there is the issue of dignity in using this product.  In sanitation projects maintaining dignity is massively important because you are dealing with issues that many people are sensitive about already.  Dealing with toilets, faecal matter, and hygiene issues often involve dealing with the social element of shame, thus sanitation projects need to be developed cafefully as to not marginalise communities as a result.   In order to maintain the dignity of people in developing countries, sanitation projects particularly should not promote policies, behaviours, or ideas that people in the West would not also do themselves.  It is demeaning and dehumanising to have a lower standard for people living in developing countries. 

Could you actually see the Swedish inventor using his own product?  Could you imagine him doing his business in a plastic bag, carrying it around with the large words "Peepoo" on it, then using it as fertiliser for growing his everyday fruit and veg?

Second, the Peepoo has been praised for its low cost of only 2-3 cents per bag.  This seems like a small amount of money, but think about how many times you use the bathroom each day, multiply that cost per Peepoo, and then multiply that by number of people in a family to get the daily cost of using the Peepoo per household.  For a family of four, which each person using 5 Peepoos a day, that would cost 40-60 cents a day.  Again, this does not seem like a lot of money to some people, but for people living on $1-$2 dollars a day this is a large added expense.

Lastly, I would like to discuss is the implications of the marketing of the Peepoo.  The Peepoo website advertises the product as requiring "no infrastructure" and "no investment costs" as selling point for the product, which implies that development projects should cost nothing and provide nothing long-term.  This sends the completely wrong message about the goals of international development.  Development is not and should not be focused on providing solutions that require no investment of money or resources.  Development is about improving livelihoods, establishing equity, creating sustainable solutions, and it should be people-centered.  Development is actually about commitment, it is about long-term viability of systems, it is about changing and improving over time, and by advertising this way the Peepoo is short selling development and the people it is trying to help.

Although the PeePoo has gotten some major media coverage I am unsure how successful it will be in the longer run.  I mean.....what is wrong with actually giving people working toilets and sinks?  What is wrong with providing infrastructure and basic services? Would Westerners expect any less?  Then why should we expect others to accept less?

Does 40 days make an impact?

A while ago Water for Africa Twitter feed came in with a campaign from a charity called blood : water, which is trying to work against the HIV/AIDS epidemic and water scarcity problems in Sub-Saharan Africa.  The 40 Days of Water campaign encourages people to only drink water for 40 days, which I guess was to try to link its campaign with Lent which is soon ending.   After 40 days of only water, the participants are encouraged to donate all the money they save from abstaining from juice, coffee, tea, alcohol, etc, to the charity to support water projects in Ugandan communities.

I'm not going to criticise this campaign, despite having recently expressed my cynicism towards some development projects.  Rather the 40 Days of Water campaign made me think of how people can be everyday activists with regards to water and the environment.  The Water Footprint Network homepage states that a cup of coffee requires 140 litres of water.  (I personally feel this is a little exaggerated, but I also do not know enough about coffee production to back up that statement.)  However the my point is that we can all think about how much water could be saved by making small changes in our lives.  The 40 Days of Water campaign seems to be to encourage that sort of everyday activism and also combine it with a fundraising effort for blood : water. 

This has made me think, what are some choices I can make in order to ease the strain on the environment?  Does changing small things in our lives really make an impact?  With regards to the work of charities, do campaigns like this produce a sustained flow of donations, enough to translate to sustainable projects in local communities?  Does 40 days really make an impact?

Quick links

Here are a few interesting links related to water and sanitation:

1.  One toilet per five households is now the new sanitation standard in South Africa. 
2.  On decentralisation and its failures from a gendered perspective. 
3.  We can all look forward to a hotter and smellier world thanks to climate change. 
4.  People living near rivers are massively affected by dams: example from Vietnam.
5.  Surviving children in Haiti face health threats; good water and sanitation is needed in the coming rainy season.
6.  Spider webs catch water, and what we can learn from this.
7.  There are a ton of water clichés out there, WaterWired is now calling everyone out on their usage.  There is even a part 2 to expand on the original post!!

Cynicism/Criticism not Misplaced

Since I've started working in development and academia, I feel that I've become a little cynical or overly critical of NGO and charity work. This is something I have struggled with and I imagine others in development and/or academia might feel similar. This critical perspective often leads to negativity towards projects of development, and then spawns a sort of guilt for criticising the hard work of individuals who are sincerely trying make a difference. I have often felt like my criticism and cynicism is misplaced because rather than criticising development workers, I should be critical of people who have done nothing for development or those who engage in activities which are counter productive to broader development goal. It's better to do something good rather than nothing, right? It's better that to have a project will minimal positive impacts than no project and no improvements, right?

WRONG!

After reading a recent post on the Blood and Milk blog, I feel guilt no more! The entry entitled, "Three bad ideas for helping Haiti" critiques bad projects in a way that brings to light how development goes wrong and why. One of the main things I took away from this critique is the impact of the "culture of nice", on which Blood and Milk has previously posted, on development. I can empathise with this because of the guilt I feel about critiques I make of water and development projects; I feel like I should not be so negative because people involved are just trying to do something "nice". However I think it is key to remember that without the critique, there cannot be improvement and progress. If we cannot develop more effective ways to promote progress, then people, countries, regions will not benefit and development might more commonly be viewed as a sort of neo-colonial project of the West.

While I do not agree with all the critiques Blood and Milk launches at these three projects, humanitarian aid and development projects need to be thought through prior to implementation, especially if they are high-profile projects.  Projects need to be focused on needs of local people, even if it might not make logical sense to the development community.  I also believe that not all development projects are created equal and there is such a thing as doing development poorly; there are a lot of projects which are designed to help, but somehow end up leaving people worse off than before.  So my cynicism and criticisms are not misplaced, they are where there should be: on projects that can be improved to have a meaningful and lasting impact. If people do not critique bad projects, or bad parts of good projects, then there would be no progress.  The way I see development is that there is always a way to make things better; critiquing the way projects are currently done pushes our standards higher and we should accept nothing less.

A Development Christmas

Happy New Year to all!  The holiday times have just recently passed and the team at SOAS has been re-gearing for the New Year.  The SOAS buildings were closed for a short time, giving the academic and support staff time away from the office and hopefully more time at home with family and friends.  While I was wandering London’s streets over the holidays I saw parents rushing to get last minute gifts, families searching the aisles for large amounts of food, children buying small gifts and wrapping paper; London exuded the normal holiday joy, excitement and energy.

It was a nice…..until the cynic in me came out.  The more I wandered London, the more I began to see the excessiveness of this time of year.  In relation to water, I was thinking about how much extra water is used during the holiday season.  When one thinks about the additional production of gifts like toys and clothing, greeting cards, food and beverages, wrapping papers and ribbons and decorations, Christmas trees, it becomes apparent how much water (and other resources) must be used to support this cultural celebration. Also a lot of the water (and other materials) used in production have been “virtually” outsourced to the countries which are producing the range of goods the West consumes during this time of year.

In addition, thanks to modern technologies of telecommunications, it is easy for people in developing countries to see the excess of the West and their relative lack, which reproduces global socio-economic hierarchies.  In that sense, the season can be seen as reproducing inequity and relative poverty, and also arguably promoting the modern, western culture of “want”.

So after my holiday break, I still have questions about water and development.  Since the holiday season is a global phenomenon with global effects, should holiday celebrations be scaled down for the betterment of the world?  Here I have theorised some of the effects of the holidays, but what are some of the “real” effects of this season on developing countries where our food is grown and our toys are made?  Are developing countries affected, or am I just being a post-modern, development Scrooge?

Music and Water

"Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and cannot remain silent" - Victor Hugo

For the last couple of weeks I have been thinking a lot about the links between music and water.  One of our project interns, Niko, studied music for his first degree at SOAS and is now pursuing a master's in development studies.  Dr Frances Cleaver, the project director, thought it would be a useful that Niko examine the link between cosmologies and water, given his interests.  Quickly this evolved into a mini-project on the links between water and music, which has prompted me to think about many different cultural references to water in musi and how music acts as a medium to reproduce cultural and/or cosmological beliefs

After doing a little bit of internet research I learned about some references to water in African American slaves' struggles for liberation.  For example the song "Wade in the Water" is a quite well known song and this website gives a brief description about what the song means.  It is interesting how water is conveyed as a protective resource, one that would allow for successful escape.  And it is similar with the song "Follow the Drinking Gourd", which folklore suggests was used to lead slaves to freedom up north.  In this song though it is the big dipper (drinking gourd) constellation which will lead slaves to freedom, there is still a link made between water and freedom.  Although these two examples are not referring to water for drinking, hygiene, or development more broadly, songs like these still frame the way water is conceptualised on the whole. 

A couple of days ago Niko and I met with Dr Angela Impey in SOAS's music department, to try to pursue this link in a more academic fashion.  We discussed a range musicological aspects which can be linked to water, and I became fascinated with the ways that water has been linked to music in different societies and within academic settings.  This makes me wonder:  What do water-related songs mean to the people who have created them and continue to pass them on?  What can music tell us about the way environments and ecosystems are conceptualised by different people?  What are the implications of the link between water and music for development scholars and practitioners?

Institutionalised

Our team recently met with our new interns for the year, which was exciting.  It was exciting to start our second year at SOAS and to have our second round of interns from the Department for Development Studies.  We went through the usual induction procedures and told them about our project, then spoke a little about our individual interests and how we all got into water and development.

When our interns were telling us about their interests, I realised that I was unable to escape my own framework for conceptualising development problems.  One intern was interested in the erosion of state sovereignty as a result of globalisation and another was interested in structural violence in natural resources management and issues of (in)equity within systems.  I immediately realised that both interns were interested in the roles of different institutions in international development, and they are lucky that Dr Cleaver, the project Director, specialises in institutions.  Then, I suddenly remembered that a few weeks back I was thinking of the dissertation of our former scholarship student, who wrote on the role of institutions in response to the 2008 cholera outbreaks in Zimbabwe.  Then it became evident that I was consumed by institutions and their role in water governance and governance more widely; that it is one of the main lenses through which I see development problems.

When I discuss the role of institutions, I am using a broader sense of the word, which encompasses both formal and informal institutions.  Having studied gender at a post-graduate degree, and having focused on gender and land rights in my master's dissertation, I have a foundation for beginning to explore debates on the interface between formal institutions (eg water committees) and social institutions (eg gender, class, race, sexuality).  Participation in local, national, and international water events, as well as discussions with the Water for Africa Research project team has also influenced my perspective on institutions for water and development.  Dr Cleaver also has some great publications on social institutions and natural resource management (eg 2002 "Reinventing Insitutions: Bricolage and Social Embeddedness of Natural Resource Management"; 1998 "Moral Ecological Rationality"), which have helped me to understand how a range of social factors play a role in water governance.

In development there is also a really big emphasis on "getting institutions right" which is more along the lines of Ostrom's work.  This body of work focuses on formal institutions, standardisation of systems, issues of rights, and other related things.  For example it has become a part of standard, mainstream policy to decentralise water supply systems, as well as systems for good water governance.  These decentralised institutions are thought to promote community management, local participation in decision making, and help to empower marginalised communities by giving them access to a space to have a voice.  Although there are some major limits to a focus primarily on formalised institutions, I can also see why they are important.

So between all the recent and ongoing debates I have with myself on the role of institutions, I realised that I have been "institutionalised" into institutional approaches to development.  I find it difficult to escape many times.  It is hard to ignore the role that institutions play in governance and governmentality.  They are so pervasive, so powerful.  I wonder,  is everything is about institutions?  How can I be more inclusive in my analysis of water and development?  Within the scope of development certainly there is a large interest in institutions, but how can we enable them to work together?  How are people able, or unable, to challenge the range of institutions that exist?  How can we improve these institutions to foster the equity of livelihoods?