This case study covers a full scale rural school sanitation project in Yemen. The project included 80 schools; 30 of them got UDDTs (urine diversion dehydration toilets). Each of the schools had between 3 and 20 classrooms. Overall project budget for 80 schools was about 10 million Euro, financed through KfW (German Bank for Development) on behalf of the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by the Yemeni Ministry of Education. The overall objective of this project is the sustainable improvement of access to basic education in the governorates Hajja and Marib through construction, extension or rehabilitation of schools, with special focus on girls’ schools. The surrounding settlements have no sanitation infrastructure at all and people practice open defecation. The first phase of the project started in 2006 and was completed in 2008. During the first project phase standard water closets were installed. During the evaluation of this phase, it was observed, that the installed water closets were malfunctioning or not functioning at all after a short period of time. The main reason was the lack of sufficient water resources. In agreement with the Ministry of Education and KfW it was decided that all schools without existing water supply line, shall be supplied with UDDTs. In fact; it took a long time to convince the responsible engineers as well as the communities of the advantages of sustainable sanitation measures like UDDTs for the schools in these rural locations. The toilets are built in a way that there is always access to the faeces chambers from the back. Each toilet consists of an elevated concrete floor including a urine diversion ceramic squatting pan. From there, faeces fall into the faeces dehydration chamber. Urine and anal cleansing water is led to a nearby soak pit. The school administrations are also responsible for cleaning and emptying of the toilet vaults when necessary. So far there are no experiences available. Since the projects were only recently finished, it is difficult to reflect on discrepancies, missing installations or mistakes. However, the under-five child mortality rate in Yemen is currently 69 children per 1000, which is a remarkable achievement given that in 1970 the value was still as high as 324 per 1000!

Bibliographic information

Wolf, H., Zoch, B. (2010). Urine diversion dehydration toilets in rural schools, Yemen Draft. Case study of sustainable sanitation projects Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA)

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