CEO of Practical Action, Paul Smith Lomas, joins Alberto Lidji to discuss market-based solutions for improved water sanitation and systemic change in Bangladesh

Practical Action is an innovative international development organisation; their Patron is Prince Charles, HRH The Prince of Wales, and they partner with diverse organisations including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the IKEA Foundation and DFID – the UK’s Department for International Development.

 

The organisation is comprised of various entities, which include a charity running projects internationally, a publishing company and a consulting company as well – together they work hard to find ingenious solutions, capture and share learnings, and to bring about big change.

 

Practical Action works in about 12 countries at any one time. In total they have 600 staff and partner with many organisations. Their operating budget for charitable actives is about £30m annually.

 

They’re a very practical organisation and focus on farming that works; energy that transforms people’s lives; helping to build resilience; and making urban centres safer places for people to live in – particularly looking at water sanitation.

 

The thrust of the conversation with Paul revolved around Practical Action’s work in Bangladesh (where they have a team of approximately 100 staff) as it pertains to water sanitation.   Paul is a water and sanitation engineer – so he gets very excited about this topic.  He’s not shy to say that in the case of their water sanitation project work in Bangladesh, essentially, “we’re talking about poo”.

 

They’ve been working with marginalised, urban communities in slum areas in towns and cities around Bangladesh and helping them to improve their living conditions.  Again, in his candid manner, Paul notes that a particular problem is “the problem of shit”.  Many people have access to a latrine, which people use as their toilet – but the challenge they found was that emptying the latrines was a huge problem.

 

Across the whole of Bangladesh, something along the lines of 80,000 tonnes of human waste is produced every day, and over 90% of it remains untreated.  What happens often is that emptying these latrines becomes the task of informal waste workers, literally emptying pits by hand and disposing of the sludge in open watercourses. We’re talking about something that fills the equivalent of 30 Olympic swimming pools every day.

 

This poses a terrible health threat to people living in these areas. The total population of Bangladesh is around 160 million people; of which perhaps 40% are living under the poverty level.  Safe sanitation is a matter for the whole population – not just those living in slums.

 

Practical Action focused on developing a market system for sludge, working across the board with diverse stakeholders, including micro finance outfits, government representatives and foundations.

 

They tried to answer the question of: How do you get these pits emptied in a safe and reliable way?

 

Practical Action’s solution turned this activity into a business, in a sustainable way – in partnership with a broad range of actors, developing a workforce and turning sludge into fertiliser.

 

They worked with municipalities to license operators; they developed an app so city dwellers could order this service and leave feedback for a job well done.  In turn, service providers got decent pay - and so the market works.

 

Their work started approximately 10 years ago, when they were working with WaterAid.  They could see that while latrine coverage in the country was going up, the problem of sludge was not actually being addressed.  So, they started piloting urban-based sewage treatment systems and things have progressed very well since then.

 

Paul also sheds light on his career trajectory.  He’s an engineer by background and at the start of his career was working in the construction industry in the UK. In his 20s he took a posting with VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) to work in Sudan and he found this experience highly stimulating and full of purpose. He learned much and shifted from a traditional career path, from what he classifies as a construction engineer, in order to become a development engineer.

 

Paul’s key takeaway: It’s all about the team. If you have a motivated team that is ready and willing to work together for a common purpose, then you’re powerful!

 

Visit The Do One Better! Podcast website for guest bios, episode notes and useful resources. Please click the subscribe button and share widely -- thank you!