The main objective of sanitation interventions is to protect and enhance public health. Currently, several measures are being undertaken to improve the sanitation status of developing countries; however, most of these initiatives exclude public health. Rather, the focus is on the “hardware” aspect of sanitation which primarily includes the provision of services and infrastructure.The planning processes to improve sanitation in most countries fail to integrate “public health” across all spheres. Present interventions call for a convergence of regulatory and institutional aspects to approach sanitation from a holistic perspective which integrates service provision and infrastructure with public health.

Understanding the need to build the capacity of stakeholders for creating a sustainable and livable society, the School of Water and Waste, AAETI, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) is organizing a 04-day training on “Sanitation Safety Planning”. This training would highlight the importance of managing and investing in improvement on sanitation systems based on adequate understanding of the actual health risks. Sanitation Safety Planning (SSP) is a risk-based management tool for sanitation systems. This tool provides a structure to bring together actors and stakeholders from various sectors to identify health risks in the sanitation systems and agree on improvements and regular monitoring. The approach ensures that control measures target the greatest health risks and emphasize on incremental improvement over time. SSP highlights the integration of the health sector while reusing wastewater, excreta and greywater, and helps to bring a human health perspective to traditional non-health sectors like sanitation engineering and agriculture sector.