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THE ROLE OF LEGISLATION AND POLICIES INPROMOTING ECOLOGICAL SANITATION: CASEZAMBIAO’Neill, MiaTampere University of Technology, Tampere, Finlandmia.oneill@tut.fiABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to analyse how ecological sanitation (ecosan) is considered inZambian legislation and policies and the prospects of ecosan in the current political environment. Theterm ecosan means sanitary methods which facilitate the recycling of human excreta back into the soilpreferably in the form of fertiliser.Zambian legislation does not mention ecosan specifically in any way. The sanitation legislation iswritten rather generally, and the legislation on fertilisers does not specifically disallow utilisation ofhuman waste. On the policy level, sanitation is often seen as a housing and health issue, whileenvironmental and sustainability perspectives are left out entirely. Overall, the ministries havevarying interests, which leads to uncoordinated and conflicting policies.In practice ecosan is used by communities, though the method is not widely accepted. Theoretically,ecosan is supported by authorities but because the decision making process is widely decentralised, theresponsibilities have become unclear. Ultimately, the result is a continuous cycle of policy and practiceaffecting each other without change and with little regard to the multidisciplinary nature ofgovernance. To break the cycle, the policies ought to conform to the practices in order to promote andensure safe and sustainable sanitation.Keywords: Ecological sanitation; legislation; Zambia1. IntroductionThis paper aims to demonstrate the status of ecological sanitation (ecosan) in Zambian legislation andits effects in practice. In order to understand the sanitary aspects of Zambian legislation, one has tounderstand first a) the current situation in Zambia regarding sanitation, and b) how and by whom thelegislative system operates. Eventually, effective implementation of legislation culminates to thesuccessful enforcement of law in practice. This paper aims to determine the relationship between theZambian policies and the actual practices involving ecosan, examining both sanitation and irrigation147