Invitation to IERI Seminar: Broad-basing Rural Sanitation: Issues and Strategies for Inclusive Development in South Africa

Invitation to attend the Institute for Economic Research on Innovation

[1]

(IERI) Seminar by Lindile L. Ndabeni, Keshab Das

[2]

, Eugene Mashapa, Mlungisi Professor Lukhele, and Tsholofelo Modise

This seminar is part of the research project undertaken by the Institute for Economic Research on Innovation in Pretoria and the Gujarat Institute of Development Research in Ahmedabad. The research is funded by the National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Republic of South Africa and the Indian Council of Social Science Research. The programme seeks to foster collaborations between South African academics and their colleagues in India. 

Seminar Topic: Broad-basing Rural Sanitation: Issues and Strategies for Inclusive Development in South Africa

It is estimated that about 37% of the world population (about 2.5 billion) do not have access to improved sanitation (Lansing et al, 2016; Letema et al, 2014; Gutierrez, 2007). About 4% of South Africans practice open defecation (Statistics South Africa, 2016). Globally, 1.1 billion people practice open defecation. Open defecation symbolizes an embedded form of marginalization especially in remote rural villages where latrines are often restricted to village elites. Similarly, rural systems of sanitations are interlinked with fragile rural livelihoods. That is, rural sanitation is closely linked to global inequalities in which rural poor sanitation reflects multiple levels of inequality. The seminar utilizes social exclusion to frame and highlight critical issues in rural systems of sanitation. The seminar draws insights from empirical observations of fieldwork that ieri undertook at O. R. Tambo District Municipality in the Eastern Cape Province. Typically, the objective in this seminar is to unpack the specific conditions that impact on sanitation exclusion and highlight implications for systemic policy interventions that can sustain improvements in rural sanitation systems particularly in the developing world especially in Asia and Africa. The seminar (1) contextualizes rural sanitation to its socio-economic contexts of remoteness, lack of infrastructure, poverty, marginalization, unemployment, and agricultural livelihoods, (2) enhances the contribution of critical sanitation scholarship to policy development and sustained rural sanitation improvements, (3), contends that sanitation improvements should be viewed as part of wider processes of social and political change, (4) and, encourages new ways of thinking about sustained rural sanitation improvements.

Venue: IERI, 159 Nana Sita Street, Pretoria, 0001

Date: 28 February 2017

Time: 13h30-15h00

Kindly RSVP to Ms. Bongiwe Khoza at Khozaba@tut.ac.za or MadiaIL@tut.ac.za by Monday 27 February 2017