Study Session 3 Rapid Assessment of Urban Sanitation and Waste Management

Introduction

In Study Session 2 you learned about the effects of poor sanitation and waste management. In this study session you will learn how to make a rapid assessment of the state of sanitation and waste management in an urban community. This assessment can then be used to identify the needs for improvements in sanitation and hygiene, and decide which improvements are the most important. Therefore, making these assessments is a key part of the urban WASH practitioner’s work. Reliable data is needed to ensure that interventions properly target populations (especially in slum areas and among disadvantaged groups), and bring about the desired changes.

Learning Outcomes for Study Session 3

When you have studied this session, you should be able to:

3.1  Define and use correctly each of the terms printed in bold. (SAQ 3.1)

3.2  Explain the purpose of urban sanitation and waste management assessment. (SAQ 3.2)

3.3  Describe the methods that may be used for assessment. (SAQs 3.1 and 3.3)

3.4  Explain the uses of an assessment report. (SAQ 3.4)

3.1  What is rapid assessment?

Rapid assessment of urban sanitation and waste management is the process of collecting information from households and institutions to get a quick overview of the situation in an urban community. The results can then be used to identify the areas that need to be improved and suggestions of possible solutions. The assessment involves observations of the community and discussions and meetings with target households and other community members. Some examples of the type of question that could be asked are:

• How many households and schools have sanitary facilities (including handwashing provision) and how are these facilities being used?
• How convenient are the facilities? Do they provide the necessary access and privacy and preserve dignity?
• What is the current level of sanitation and waste management knowledge among the community?

3.2  Why do an assessment?

There are a number of reasons why a WASH team may need to carry out an assessment. Usually this relates to the need to get information on the state ofsanitation and waste management in a particular town or part of a city and have the ‘facts on hand’ to inform others (particularly political leaders and community members) as they make action plans for improvements.

The assessment can also be used as a monitoring exercise to provide a quick overview of how an urban community has been using its sanitation facilities and waste management system. This could be used to identify the individuals or groups of people who are at the greatest risk of harm from poor WASH practices.

Assessments are also used to help plan WASH facilities in an emergency situation: after a mass movement of people to a refugee camp, for example, or while recovering from a natural disaster. You will learn more about emergency WASH in Study Session 14.

Note that the assessments discussed in this study session are classed as ‘rapid’. This is because they are intended to provide a quick view of the situation and to identify the key areas for immediate action. In the longer term, it is important to assess the effectiveness of any WASH programme. An initial assessment might be done before the start of the programme to find out the baseline position (the situation before any improvement programmes are implemented). This would be followed by further assessments during and at the end of the programme to determine its progress. Finally, an assessment carried out some time after the end of the active phase of the programme would help to determine any long-term benefits achieved. This type of longer-term assessment is part of the more rigorous process of ‘monitoring and evaluation’, which you will learn about in Study Session 15.

3.3  The assessment team

These assessments are most effectively carried out by a mixed team of people, rather than an individual, to make sure that all the necessary skills and experiences are present (Visscher et al., 2014). This could be the Woreda WASH Team and may also involve environmental health workers, Health Extension Workers, urban health supervisors and others. In any event, at least some of the team members should have basic public health training, experience of rapid assessment surveys and familiarity with best practices in sanitation and waste management. Teams should include both men and women because people may not want to discuss sensitive subjects such as latrine use with a member of the opposite sex.

3.4  The assessment process

The first part of any assessment is to agree on why the assessment is being carried out and to identify any specific aspects of WASH that need to be looked at. An assessment that is carried out as part of a project to determine the need for latrines, for example, would need very different information than one looking at the possibility of setting up a waste composting scheme. This first part will normally be done by the team leaders working with the organisation that requested the survey or provided the funding for the work. It is important that representatives of the community being assessed should be part of this process so that they can influence the decisions and remain informed. The output from this initial stage of the process will be an overall aim, together with a series of objectives (you can think of objectives as the aims for each smaller piece of the work).

All assessments should end with the production of a report, and it is important at the start to consider who this report is for. This will determine what data needs to be collected and what sort of data analysis is done. This in turn will determine some of the skills required of the project team and may identify where specialised computer data processing software is required.

Based on the aim and objectives, the team should prepare a checklist of the information that needs to be collected. The advantages of using a checklist are that it:

• provides a standardised approach to what is reviewed during assessment
• helps supervisors to cover all issues without forgetting anything
• provides a means of documenting assessment findings in a simple manner that can be referred to in the future
• provides a record for tracking performance changes over time
• provides a basis for identifying needs for follow-up actions.

The information gathered during the assessment will come from both primary and secondary sources. Primary sources are the information obtained by the survey team through observations, questionnaires and other methods, which are discussed in the next section. Secondary sources consist of the results of work that has already been done, such as previous surveys in the same area or in other locations that are similar to the survey area. Reviewing existing documents and reports can also provide valuable background information for the planned assessment. For example, demographic data such as the total population of the study area, the number of people of different age groups and the proportion of men and women will be useful.

Having prepared the plan and agreed the process with community representatives, at the start of the survey the team should arrive at the community or kebele as scheduled and on time. The visit should start with introductions to the community (usually done through a small group of community representatives), including descriptions of each person’s position and responsibility in the project. The team leader should explain the objective of the assessment and agree with the community representatives how the assessment will proceed. The time required for interviews, reviews, discussion and action planning should be set at this stage.

It is important to make sure that the community is aware that it is not being ‘judged’ in any way, but that the work is to find the best way of improving WASH in the community. At this point, the community should be reassured that all discussions with individuals and questionnaire responses will be treated in the strictest confidence.

3.5  Assessment methods

Assessing the key sanitation and hygiene aspects of a community requires the use of a number of investigation methods. The main methods (Asefa and Tessema, 2000; Feleke et al., 2003) are listed below:

• Interviews are conversations between the investigator and members of the community, usually on a one-to-one basis. Depending on the information required, different types of interviews and questions can be used, as described in Box 3.1. The interviewer takes notes of the interview or uses a voice recorder. When conducting interviews it is important to gain the interviewee’s consent before starting and to make it clear how the information will be used. Generally, interviewee’s comments should not be used in reports in a way that allows the person to be identified.
• Observation is often combined with interviews. Observation simply means recording what you see or are aware of. For example, while visiting households, interviewers observe the availability and quality of the sanitation and waste facilities, such as the household latrine, solid waste storage and disposal, and handwashing provision. In addition, the interviewer will try and gain a picture of the use of these facilities through observation and discussions. At the same time, the general condition of the housing, water management and food handling can also be observed. There is a risk that the observer will assess the position against their own personal views (a subjective view), so it is important to have a set of standards to be used by all observers to make the assessment as objective (based on things that can be measured or counted and not influenced by personal opinion) as possible. General observations can be made simply by walking around the area and noting the condition of the town. A typical observation sheet to be completed while observing a household is shown in Table 3.1.
• Discussions with the community can provide valuable information about the concerns and health situation of community members that can help to confirm the findings of the interviews and observation (Figure 3.1). For example, one would expect a high incidence of diarrhoea to be reported if an absence of latrines and handwashing facilities had been identified.

Figure 3.1 Community discussions can be useful as part of an assessment process.

• Focus groups can also be useful to find out what people think about a specific issue. A focus group consists of a group of about ten people who represent the community as a whole in terms of age, gender, employment etc. The group is coordinated by one of the team whose role is to introduce the subject and pose a few initial questions. The group then discusses the issue in question while the observer makes notes so that they can produce a summary of the group’s views and ideas. The coordinator should take as little part in the discussions as possible and only intervene if arguments develop or if the discussion strays far from the subject under discussion. An example of an informal all-male ‘focus group’ is shown in Figure 3.2.

Figure 3.2  Focus groups discuss specific issues.

• Questionnaires are another possible assessment method. A questionnaire consists of a set of written questions that is given to a group of people for them to complete. Questionnaires require less input from the investigators than interviews, so it is possible to get the views of a larger number of people. However, there is no opportunity for a ‘conversation’ to develop, so some useful information may be missed. A typical sample questionnaire for use by householders is shown in Table 3.2. The number of questionnaires used is always a compromise. A very large sample means that the results will be more likely to represent the entire community, but a smaller sample size will reduce the costs and the time necessary to deliver, collect and process the questionnaires. As a rule of thumb, at least 15–20 households should be surveyed in each kebele. If householders are not able to complete the questionnaire themselves, it can be used as the basis for structured interviews (see Box 3.1).

3.6  After the assessment

It is important to keep proper records during the assessment process. Notes of interviews and observations should be made in a notebook and not on scraps of loose paper. These notes should be transcribed onto a computer as soon as possible after taking them. After the assessment work has been completed, the notes and data can be analysed and the results prepared and presented in a report.

3.6.1  Analysing the findings

Using more than one method for the assessment will produce more complete information but it will also generate a lot of data that needs to be summarised. The standard method is to gather the information together and incorporate it into a set of tables. This should be done as soon as possible after the end of the survey. Table 3.3 shows an example of a blank table that would be completed for each kebele in a survey area.

The data can then be analysed and interpreted, and used to make decisions and recommendations for improvement. For example, suppose the analysis of a survey andobservational results in a kebele showed that latrine use is lower than it should be; the questionnaire survey indicated that many of the local people were unaware of the benefits of good sanitation; observations showed that many of the latrines were of poor construction and, after discussions with community leaders, the survey team learned that the Health Extension Worker (HEW) had been away from the kebele for an extended period for training. Table 3.4 shows how the survey team summarised the problem and identified a number of possible solutions.

3.6.2  Reporting

The findings of the investigation and analysis need to be summarised and incorporated into a report. The report should always refer explicitly to the aims of the assessment that were agreed at the beginning and say how well these have been achieved. Depending on what the aims were, the report may identify the areas where action is necessary and make recommendations for a programme to implement the action plan (like the example shown in Table 3.4). The report will often make suggestions about any additional survey work that may be needed.

It is also useful to produce a brief factsheet that summarises the findings of the survey and to hold a meeting with the kebele administration at the end of the project and share the report’s findings with them.

The report will be distributed to the organisation that commissioned the work. They may ask that the report is also sent to other interested organisations. In any event, the report should only be sent to other organisations with the specific permission of the funding organisation.

Case Study 3.1 describes an assessment that was made of a town in Tigray region as part of a large WASH improvement project. Read the case study and then answer the question that follows.

Summary of Study Session 3

In Study Session 3, you have learned that:

1. Rapid assessment of sanitation and waste management provides information that will identify improvements needed and indicate possible solutions. It is also used in emergency situations where rapid response is needed.
2. Assessment is normally carried out by a survey team of people with a range of skills and experience.
3. The process begins with agreeing the scope of the assessment and setting the aims and objectives. This should involve all interested parties, including the community.
4. Assessment methods include interviews, observation, community discussions, focus groups, and questionnaires. These should be supported by a review of existing documents and reports.
5. The data obtained should be summarised in the form of tables and text as soon as the survey is completed. The data should then be analysed to determine any problems, the cause of the problems and possible solutions. This analysis should then be incorporated into a written report.

Self-Assessment Questions (SAQs) for Study Session 3

Now that you have completed this study session, you can assess how well you have achieved its Learning Outcomes by answering these questions.