trends and future of sustainable development - TransEco

Company (LWSC), who are in charge of emptying the septic tanks and treating the wastewater. However,in many bigger towns the sewage network does not cover the vast peri-urban areas and the existingnetwork is pushing the capacity of the current treatment plants. It is up to the local authorities toprovide the people with sanitary facilities.The Ministry of Government and Housing (MLGH) is in charge of sanitation in general: providingregulations and supervising sanitary conditions of communities. This is done in cooperation with districtcouncils, who in turn cooperate with village boards and chiefs. The Ministry of Energy and WaterDevelopment (MEWD) is mainly concerned with the water resources and the Ministry of Tourism,Environment and Natural Resources (MTENR) has the environment’s best interests at heart. TheMinistry of Agriculture and Cooperative (MACO) concentrates on irrigation and fertiliser issues, but haslittle to say about ecosan. The National Water and Sanitation Council (NWASCO) is mainly the body incharge of cooperation and putting together water and sanitation resources; however, the ecosan aspect isoften forgotten as sanitation is not seen directly as an issue of agriculture or environment. TheEnvironmental Council of Zambia (ECZ) and the Ministry of Health (MoH) are interested inenvironmental sanitation and its effects to environmental health, but the dialogue between theauthorities is up to resources and sometimes proves difficult.Concerning the amendment of the legislation, it appears that the authorities find it difficult to find aconsensus. Evidently all the parties involved seem to think that adding ecological sanitation clearly inthe legislation would make matters easier, especially in terms of definitions of which facilities count asadequate and improved sanitation. They also find that human waste as fertiliser should be allowed in thelegislation, even though some still require further evidence of its safety. Yet, no one seems to have theanswer to who is responsible of changing the legislation. The process is widely known, and it is knownthat cooperation between authorities is required to form a preliminary draft on the changes, the currentsituation and the public opinion. In fact, little changes are to be expected in the sanitation sector – onlythe Water Act is being scrutinised by the Parliament but no additional mentions of sanitation are to beexpected.7. Future challengesThere has been effort to increase the effect of sanitation policies but the same questions keep rising up:resources, definitions, political will and the unfinished process of decentralisation (O’Neill 2008).However, the latest policies involving sanitation and wastewater treatment are limited to only ventureafter the European standards: flush toilets and centralised water treatment. Still, with the currentinfrastructure this seems difficult to realise. The abundant water resources do not seem to encourage towater saving sanitation and irrigation methods, which is why the interest towards ecosan is weak.Several people seem to be fascinated by the idea but implementation lies upon NGOs and donor projects.It has been a target of the Environment and Natural Resources Management and MainstreamingProgramme (2008) to harmonise the legal regime by identifying and prioritising of the needed reformsin the environmental sector and developing an action plan to produce required policies as well as legaland regulatory instruments. It is especially the environmental policy which calls for cross-sectoral lawsand regional cooperation to provide a functioning framework to enforce the laws. (National Policy onEnvironment 2005.)155