Introduction to Count me in! Inclusive WASH in Ethiopia

Introduction to Count me in! Inclusive WASH in Ethiopia

In recent years, considerable progress has been made towards achieving the global goal of universal access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). In Ethiopia, although access ‘for all’ is an identified target, there are significant sections of society that have been left behind by developments toward this goal. But these excluded groups have the same rights as everyone else and deserve the same benefits of access to safe water, effective sanitation and hygiene facilities. Everyone should be included and no-one excluded from access to WASH.

One key principle of inclusion is that, although we are all different, we are all part of the same society. This is why we chose ‘Count me in’ as the Module title – ‘me’ could be you, your relative, friend, neighbour, or anyone. We all benefit from inclusive WASH.

This Module aims to raise awareness of the reasons why people are excluded and how this impacts their lives. It offers guidance on what changes and provisions are needed to promote and secure all people’s rights to water and sanitation. The Module consists of five study sessions. The first provides an introduction to inclusive WASH in Ethiopia. The second and third focus on people with disabilities and gender equality respectively. The next study session describes some practical aspects of accessibility. The Module concludes with a session about participation and collaboration in the development of sustainable inclusive WASH services.

Learning Outcomes for this Module

After you have studied this Module you should be able to:

• Identify people who are likely to be excluded from WASH services.
• Describe the barriers to inclusive WASH.
• Design and implement suitable technologies and service provision to ensure all members of society are served.
• Actively engage in methods and tools that promote inclusive WASH services.

How to use this Module

This Module is designed for independent study, although you may in fact be studying in a group with others. Either way, we recommend that you use a Study Notebook that you keep with you as you work through the Module to note down answers to questions and keep a note of any important points.

The Module is divided into five separate study sessions, each expected to take about two hours to study if you are learning on your own. You will see that the study sessions all have a similar structure. Following a brief introduction, each study session has a set of learning outcomes that are linked to self-assessment questions (SAQs) at the end of the session. Within the text, there are in-text questions (ITQs) with answers immediately following. When you come across one of these questions, try to answer it in your head or by noting down your answer in your notebook before you read the response that is given. This will help you to learn.

Each session ends with a summary, which lists the key points that have been made, and the SAQs. Each SAQ tests one or more of the learning outcomes that were stated at the beginning of the session. When you have finished reading, you should work through the SAQs, writing answers in your notebook. Writing your answers, rather than just thinking about them, will reinforce your learning and enable you and anyone else to check how well you have achieved the learning outcome.

Important terms are highlighted in bold and defined in the text. You will find that the first learning outcome for all study sessions is to be able to understand and use these key terms. All the key terms from this Module are also defined in the accompanying Glossary.

You will see that the sources of information used in the text are indicated by the name of the author or organisation followed by the date of publication in brackets, for example ‘(Gosling, 2010)’. Full details of these sources are listed alphabetically by author in the list of references.

Please note that we have used UK English spellings rather than US spellings and that all years are according to the Gregorian rather than Ethiopian calendar.