Application of existing knowledge: the only way to meet the MDG sanitation target in developing countries

The MDG sanitation target is, at current progress, unlikely to be met. The most important reasons for this are (1) that at local level, and in some countries at national level, engineers and planners simply do not know what sanitation systems are available, nor how to design them; and (2) a lack of political commitment, commonly at local level but again in some countries at national level. Local lobbying by the media and demonstrations (in urban areas) by the poor might change political attitudes, but without the appropriate knowledge local engineers and planners will remain unable to design sanitation systems for the urban and rural poor. The ‘sanitation challenge’ from today to 2015 is how to get this knowledge to local professionals in their own language.