Sustainable urban environment
Practical Action Nepal
Urban population in Nepal has increased dramatically during the ten year long insurgency and is continuing with the increasing influx of rural poor migrants into towns and cities. Urban environment is greatly affected by the increased urban population putting enormous pressure on limited resources and infrastructure of the urban area.
Therefore, Practical Action focuses on addressing some of these environmental challenges which have the most devastating impacts on the poorest sections of the urban population. This inclusion in urban development process enhances livelihoods of the urban poor ultimately contributing to the national development.
The Sustainable Urban Environment programme aims to improve urban environment and the livelihoods of the urban poor through promotion of sustainable waste management and, water and sanitation. The interventions focus on demonstrating innovative models of waste management, technologies and approaches, by building effective partnerships with local governments, CBOs, NGOs and the private sector.
Activities under this area link with programmes promoting livelihood options for the urban poor, through building their capacities in developing business opportunities from waste. The approach taken provides opportunities for additional income-generation and socio-economic development to take place, through the adoption of a community-managed, decentralised approach.
SWASHTHA Lessons Learnt
The SWASTHA project (Strengthening Water, Air, Sanitation and Hygiene Treasuring Health) developed and promoted integrated approaches by addressing major environmental health risks in Nepal, such as indoor air quality, water quality, sanitation facilities, and hygiene behaviours. This report documents the lessons learnt, and recommends strategies, approaches and activities for an ideal water and sanitation project for poor, vulnerable and excluded communities.
Best Practice in Solid Waste Management
This manual demonstrates successful waste management in Nepal. Practical Action Nepal
Benefits of biogas plant
Madan Nagar, home to Bhumisara Sunwar is amongst the eight unmanaged settlement selected by the project. One of the major issues of the project settlement is the lack of proper sanitation. Bhumisara had registered her name with the project to help her build a toilet with an adjoining biogas plant. Recently, she has built a biogas plant and a toilet with the help of the project. She provided raw materials (sand, gravel and a door for the toilet) and to save cost she and her family members laboured day and night to build their toilet.
Bhumisara did not have a toilet and they defecated in the open space despite knowing the various risks of open defecation. Now Bhumisara has a toilet which provides inputs to the biogas plant from her toilet. Bhumisara is now happy about the biogas and says “I know what a biogas plant can do for my family. I can save the time which was previously used for collecting woods and the plant helps reduce indoor smoke while recycling human and kitchen wastes.”
With the biogas plant attached to a toilet, Bhumisara’s life style has changed for the better. She spends less time cooking, saves 25 Bhari of fuel wood and her home is free of indoor smoke. “Before installing the biogas plant, I had to walk hours in the heat to collect firewood which made me tired and weak. Now, I have free time with which I can tend to other chores and am more active too,” she says.
SWASHTHA - Strengthening Water, Air, Sanitation and Hygiene Treasuring Health
Implementation dates: 1 Jan 2009 for 48 months
Total project budget: € 690,500.00
Co-funding: UN-HABITAT
Practical Action began the SWASHTHA project in January 2009 for 48 months in urban and peri-urban areas of Bharatpur, Butwal, Gularia and Tikapur municipalities. The target beneficiaries of the project are mainly women and children from the socially excluded communities in all four municipalities and marginalised ethnic and other caste groups. The project is implemented through its local partners – Environment and Public Health Organisation (ENPHO) and Municipal Association of Nepal (MuAN).
Objective: The overall objective is to contribute to sustainable improvement in health and well being of vulnerable population especially, women and children residing in urban and per-urban settlements of Bharatpur, Butwal, Gularia and Tikapur Municipalities.
Contact person: Binaya Shrestha
Completed projects
- Integrated approaches to improve the urban environment in Asia (IUD)
- Strengthening local capacities in Integrated Sustainable Waste Management (ISWM) in small and medium municipalities of Nepal
These projects were implemented in selected wards of Butwal, Bharatpur, Birendranagar, Nepalgunj and Vyas Municipalities and focused on issues raised by the residents of unmanaged settlements particularly on environmental services. These projects were focused on livelihood enhancement of the residents through accessing or delivering such environmental services, and aimed to accomplish the goals by establishing and strengthening relationships with local authorities and building capacity of CBOs to work with other stakeholders. This ensured the present and future planning of the neighbourhood in favour of slum dwellers improving their health and environmental conditions. Both the IUD and ISWM projects were supported by the European Union under its EC Asia Pro Eco II programme.
Related projects
One of the major activities of the Strengthening local capacities in Integrated Sustainable Waste Management (ISWM) project was to disseminate best practices on sustainable waste management technologies, processes and approaches, from which it can develop and adapt the processes that are suitable in the context of urban centres of developing countries. In this context, review of national and international best practices on solid waste management was performed in January 2008:
Best practices on solid waste management of Nepalese cities
This book contains a range of best practices on solid waste management from various municipalities of Nepal. It also contains the admirable initiatives of national and local NGOs/CBOs. It is hoped that this book will be highly instrumental regarding solid waste management to urban centres as well as emerging towns of developing countries.