The Scaling City Institutions for India (SCI-FI) project, Centre for Policy Research is pleased to invite you to a CORP webinar supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and UNICEF India on ‘Informal Settlements and COVID-19: Water and Sanitation as a Frontline Response’
Speakers: Ananda Jayaweera, Hasin Jahan, Lajana Manandhar, Marije Broekhuijsen, Roshan Sreshtha, Shipra Saxena, Anindita Mukherjee, Neha Agarwal
Moderator: Shubhagato Dasgupta, Senior Fellow, CPR
Friday, 24 July 2020, 9.30-11.30 AM IST
The session will be online via Zoom. To register, kindly fill this form.
In case of any issues and for any queries, please email at sci-fi@cprindia.org.
Urban informal settlements are ubiquitous across the Global South – housing from 24% of the urban population in India to more than 50% in Nepal, Bangladesh, and several African countries. Residents of urban informal settlements perennially contend with insecurities in water and sanitation, housing, and livelihoods. Relying on underprovided and shared infrastructure for water and sanitation and cramped to the hilt within living accommodations, social distancing is an untenable proposition for those in these settlements during the ongoing pandemic. Moreover, the disproportionately lower density of water and sanitation infrastructure, compared to the population density, also constrains the ability of the residents to exercise proper and frequent handwashing. Yet, the epidemiological vulnerabilities of urban informal settlements are not endemic only to the ongoing crisis but have manifested time and time again during epidemics, like the Ebola outbreak.
With the continuing upward trajectory of urbanisation and globalisation facilitating the spread of infectious diseases, governments, planners, practitioners, and researchers must respond with not only emergency measures for immediate relief in informal settlements but also strategies for creating more resilient cities that can effectively prevent and arrest emerging and remerging diseases in the future. Through a new series of webinars, Informal Settlements and COVID-19: New Urban WASH Priorities for South Asian Governments, the Scaling City Institutions for India (SCI-FI) programme at the Centre for Policy Research will bring together researchers and practitioners from across South Asia to deliberate upon the urban Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) sector needs to achieve these dual goals.
The first webinar of the series, Informal Settlements and COVID-19: Water and Sanitation as a Frontline Response, will seek to better the understanding of the current impacts of COVID-19 on WASH in informal settlements in South Asian countries.
AGENDA
| Time |
Details |
| 9.30-9.45 |
Introduction and Setting the Context |
| 9.45-10.05 |
Supporting Community Responses to COVID-19 |
Speakers: Hasin Jahan, Country Director, WaterAid Bangladesh (10 mins)
Lajana Manandhar, Executive Director, Lumanti Support Group for Shelter, Nepal (10 mins) |
| 10.05-10.40 |
National/Sub-National Interventions in Informal Settlements |
| Speakers: Ananda Jayaweera, Regional Sanitation Centre, SACOSAN (10 mins)
Marije Broekhuijsen and Shipra Saxena, WASH Specialists, UNICEF India (15 mins)
Anindita Mukherjee, Senior Researcher and Neha Agarwal, Research Associate, SCI-FI, Centre for Policy Research (10 mins)
Roshan Sreshtha, Deputy Director, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (10 mins) |
| 10.40-11.25 |
Moderated Q&A |
| 11.25-11.30 |
Closing Remarks |
CORP Seminar Series
This is the 22nd in a series of the Community of Research and Practice (CORP) seminar hosted by the Scaling City Institution for India (SCI-FI) initiative, in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and UNICEF India. The seminar series seeks to provide a platform for discussing the experiences of the researchers and practitioners on urban sanitation.
