TESTING PREDICTIVE SANITATION MODEL

A U.S. contractor/university will be selected to implement the project. Over two years, contractor teams will conduct national/regional workshops in 18-20 countries where A.I.D. has development assistance programs. Topics will cover water treatment, wastewater treatment, excreta disposal, environmental engineering, alternative wastewater treatment methodologies, and the benefits of using sanitation models for selecting appropriate processes and equipment for wastewater treatment and excreta disposal using in-country resources. Some 40 national/regional decision-makers, planners, and consultants will take part in each workshop, which will be translated into one or two languages and will utilize materials developed in previous A.I.D.-supported workshops. Utilization of a predictive sanitation model developed under a previous A.I.D. project will be promoted in Indonesia and Panama. To this end, counterpart organizations in these countries will receive participant training in analyzing government water and wastewater infrastructures and collecting data on alternative technologies, their costs, and manpower requirements. From these data, potential wastewater projects will be proposed and sites selected. Next, specific data on these potential projects will be collected and entered into the sanitation model for processing by a U.S. or local computer. Based on the results, recommendations for appropriate sanitation technologies will be made. The government counterpart organizations will evaluate the model"s effectiveness to determine its future use. Workshop participants and government counterpart organizations participating in testing the sanitation model will be the project"s primary beneficiaries.