SOUTH ASIAN CONFERENCE ON SANITATION (SACOSAN)
21^st – 23^rd October 2003
 

Guidelines for Country Papers

• Each country will present a paper on the current status of its approach to sanitation. The Agency responsible for sanitation
  in that country will nominate a speaker (most probably the Head of that Agency) to present the major themes of its ‘Country
  Paper’. Papers should be a maximum of 15 pages and their presentation should last no longer than 15 minutes.
• Country Papers should have a policy-focus. However, they should begin by touching upon the extent of the problem of inadequate sanitation coverage and then gauging some of its key health and socio-economic implications. Papers will therefore need to look at sanitation within the overall context of people’s attitudes to hygiene.
• To address the issue of changing people’s attitudes, Country Papers will need to outline some of the key steps that have been taken to ensure that sanitation has been given an appropriate degree of (legislative and financial) attention as a public health policy priority.
• Papers will need to look at what is being done to counter the problems arising from inadequate coverage, both in terms of the approaches (people-centered, awareness-raising, subsidy-free), and the processes (facilitative, demand-responsive, participatory, etc) by which Government has arrived at these approaches.
• Finally, Governments are asked to outline a future Plan of Action. These should represent a series of stretching, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound (SMART) commitments to formulating to implementing policy. 
• The formulation of a national plan of action requires consensus and participation of all concerned agencies. Governments should therefore attempt to work as closely as possible with the Support Group of development partners in each country, to ensure that their Paper represents the views and activities of all actors working to raise the profile of sanitation and hygiene in that country. It is recommended that a consultation workshop be organised by the Support Group at the earliest possible date, to assist the Government in gleaning this information.
• Country Papers will be published and distributed to participants in advance of the Conference. It is therefore necessary that these should be available to print with the Conference Secretariat in Dhaka by 1st October. Papers are to be sent directly to the Chairman of the Technical Sub-Committee, Prof. M. Feroze Ahmed (itn@agni.com), with a copy to the Conference Coordinator, Ryan Knox (ryan.knox@verulamassociates.org) and the Conference Secretariat, Shariful Alam, Coordinator for SACOSAN Secretariat (msalam@unicef.org).
• The Conference Coordinator will be visiting participating countries throughout September. Should you have any urgent queries, please feel free to contact him on the above email address.