The impact of school sanitation on CWIS (Ghana)

Citywide inclusive sanitation (CWIS) has become a sanitation approach currently being implemented in more than 40 cities globally. To conduct sanitation situational analysis and monitor the progress in some of the sanitation projects like CWIS, various urban sanitation tools have been developed. One of those tools is the Shit Flow Diagram (SFD). Developed in over 200 cities globally, the SFD uses the sanitation service chain (SSC) to investigate excreta flow from the point of generation to the point of end-use or disposal. It is a vital tool for urban sanitation, helping to visualize the problems with sanitation that cities currently face. However, none of the SFDs developed in different cities recognized the significance of excreta flow from schools within cities. Considering that the population of school-aged students accounts for a third of the city’s population, it was important to conduct research by splitting the city excreta flow between households and schools. The study showed through the splitting of the excreta flow on the SFD graphic, that school sanitation has an impact on the citywide sanitation of Accra. Due to the poor status of school sanitation, the combined excreta flow on the SFD revealed that, with just half of the students’ excreta that was assumed to end up in school sanitation systems, the amount of excreta that is unsafely managed at the city level increased by 2%. It was concluded that if a city has a large student population with inadequate and poorly managed school sanitation facilities, the adverse effect would be larger citywide. With that said, school sanitation is equally significant in the planning of citywide sanitation and should be given attention while advocating for CWIS interventions.