Sanitation for Refugees and Internally Displaced People (IDPs): East and Southern Africa Region

Hunter-gathering is a process of rapidly collecting and collating information, experiences and contributions. In a workshop setting, hunter-gatherers self-select a topic they are most interested in championing and work together in groups to produce a short report (2-6 pages) by the end of the workshop – groups and topics are decided upon on the first day. Many countries in East and Southern Africa have refugees from neighbouring countries or internally displaced populations (IDPs) – gathered together either in camps or integrated into host communities at varying levels. These communities are often overlooked in terms of national strategies for sanitation or are covered by humanitarian or “emergency” policies, which are often short term, although many refugee/IDP settings may be more long term in nature. The Sphere standards cite 1:50 as the basic minimum level of sanitation coverage, however in many countries the situation is much worse. For example, in Ethiopia for the recent 1.2 million conflict IDPs, there is an average of 294 people per toilet which masks a large range as over 300 IDP sites are not registered to have any latrines at all.