Towards improved and sustainable sanitation for rural community

Ecosan toilets have been revolutionizing the rural sanitation sector in Moldova the past 10 years. In many rural areas sewerage is simply not feasible due to lack of reliable water supply or because investment and operation costs are not affordable.

The good experiences with these simple and low cost technologies at the local level have informed national policy-making: in the frame of the 2nd UNECE-SDC funded project titled “Implementation of targets to implement the Protocol on Water and Health in the Republic of Moldova” revising the regulation was envisaged as a priority task to promote most reliable, simple and low-cost solutions in rural areas.

WECF’s water and sanitation specialist Claudia Wendland was assigned and together with a local expert group, she initiated the work on these two new technical standards. Lead authors were Sergiu Andreev (Wisdom) for the ecosan standard and Dumitru Ungureanu and Olga Covaleva (both from national universities) for the constructed wetland standard. The expert group comprised experts from the Public Health Institute, Ion Shalaru, and the Ministry of Environment, Serafima Tronza, from the Apasan programme as well as local consultants. The national Ministry of Regional Development and Construction in Moldova approved the new technical standards (codes of practice).