Water Supply and Sanitation Policy in Developing Countries (Coursera)

Water Supply and Sanitation Policy in Developing Countries (Coursera)
Free Course
Categories
Effort
Certification
Languages
This course is recommended to students with a wide background, including engineering, public health, business, geography, economics, planning, sociology, anthropology, and political science.
Misc
Water Supply and Sanitation Policy in Developing Countries (Coursera)
This course will examine current conditions and trends in water and sanitation services in the Global South. Within it we will take a critical look at the underlying political, economic, social, and technical reasons why almost a billion people lack access to improved water supplies and almost 2 billion still do not have improved sanitation services.


A newer version of this course is available here:
Water Supply and Sanitation Policy in Developing Countries Part 1: Understanding Complex Problems


This first module in the two module course sequence critically examines the consequences of current water and sanitation conditions, including over 2 million deaths annually due to water-related diseases, millions of dollars in avoidable health care expenditures, and billions of hours spent carrying water from sources outside the home. Reducing such costs associated with poor water and sanitation services is one of the major challenges for States in the Global South in the 21st century. The technologies to provide networked water and sanitation services are well-known, as are many low-cost, non-network solutions that would appear affordable to many poor households in developing countries. For decades the international community and national governments have struggled to find institutional and financial arrangements to provide these technologies to households and businesses in developing countries, with mixed success. Although progress is being made in many parts of the world, millions of households in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia still face a lifetime without the improved water and sanitation services that citizens in industrialized countries take for granted.

The second module will focus on what can be done to solve global water and sanitation problems. We will examine the main strategies that donors and national governments have tried to change status quo water and sanitation conditions, and the lessons learned from these experiences.



Free Course
This course is recommended to students with a wide background, including engineering, public health, business, geography, economics, planning, sociology, anthropology, and political science.