The Nakuru Accord: Building Bridges in the WASH Sector

With more than half of the world lacking access to a toilet, SOIL is driven not just to positive outcomes in Haiti, but to nurturing a global sanitation revolution. In 2018, a conference in Nakuru, Kenya inspired a call for all WASH professionals to publicly commit to “failing better in the WASH sector” so that everyone could learn from each other. Essentially, it’s a commitment to increased transparency, accountability, and collaboration to help ensure practitioners are investing in global replication and cooperation. Thus, the Nakuru Accord was born and SOIL became one of the organizations to sign the agreement!

Through a culture of sharing and adapting when things go wrong, we can all learn from each other’s experiences and improve our collective ability to achieve sustainable and positive impacts at every step of the sanitation service chain. The Nakuru Accord just celebrated its first birthday, and has acquired support from 180 individuals, organizations, and events over the past 12 months. To celebrate this great initiative, we’re sharing three takeaways from the agreement that we really love:

• Promote a culture of sharing and learning that allows people to talk openly when things go wrong

Along with providing regenerative sanitation service to under-resourced communities in Haiti, SOIL invests heavily into the research and development side of container-based sanitation. We partner with universities, researchers, and students in Haiti on research projects and publications to share lessons learned from Haiti with the global field of study.

• Design in sustainability by considering the whole life cycle.

SOIL’s work transforming waste into lush agricultural-grade compost is the perfect example of investing in holistic solutions to address the whole life cycle.

• Actively seek feedback from all stakeholders, particularly end-users.

Since 2006, SOIL has prioritized iterative, community-driven design processes and we are always looking for ways to improve our design and service. Over the past year this has allowed us to improve our routes for waste collection, optimize the carbon cover material for our dry toilets, and refine our organizational structure so that we are as efficient as possible! You can check out the full Nakuru Accord agreement here. Working on tackling the sanitation crisis in your community? Take a moment to sign on today! To learn more about SOIL’s dedication to open-source solutions and global replication, visit our Resources page.

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