Guidance for developing National Standards - WHO based for Sanitation, Water Supply and Wastewater treatment

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I am working as Standards Manager @ the Malawi Bureau of standards. I was thinking of facilitating the development of National Standards in the area of sanitation, water supply and networks and also wastewater treatment works. Any suggestions of approaches to take apart from adopting the drinking water standards?

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4 Answers

  1. Hi Gloria,

    There are obviously many ways to develop the standards, with different time and costs implications. My advise would be to adjust existing international standards to your local conditions. That would require some initial work but might lead to a better outcome. Whoever you engage to help you to develop the standards will need to establish the list of local stakeholders and conduct the stakeholders consultations on your behalf. A number of stakeholders consultation workshops willl be required. Potable water guidelines would most likely be different from recyled water gudelines and definately different to the waterwater treatment. All standards would need to be based on risks identification, assessmenent and multiple barriers mitigation approach. All these sound simple (and is simple in theory) but could be a bit more involved in practice. In any case my advise is - do not blindly copy the international standards - it can lead to more complications (costswise and compliance) down the track. No need to reinvent the wheel - but some adjustments to cater for local conditions would be required. Hope my advise is somewhat helpful. Kind Regards, Iouri

  2. The drinking water quality regulator in the UK supports the adoption of WHO recommendations for Water Safety Plans by the UK water utilities. We have national standards for water quality anyway which helps. The attached document may help

    Good luck

    Mick

  3. Drinking water statndards should be the same as of given by the WHO, Sanitation standards depends on your local system of exsiting sanitation practises. Like what are the defecation methods you are using these days and what can you adopt going forward.

  4. Hello Gloria.

    I think you can began with some ISO Standards, that you may find the reference here:

    http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_ics/catalogue_ics_browse.htm?ICS1=13&ICS2=060&ICS3=30

    But, you'll probably have to buy those standards. So, the correct alternative is to take a look on some of your (country) neighbors and see what they're doing for regulation, studie the current status of the sanitation reality of the country and chose the actions of control that will minimize the impact on the population, reducing diseases, for example.

    I don't think that could be a good Idea to adapt water standards for Wastewater discharge. some internationals standards for water can be found in the WHO guide: http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/fulltext.pdf
    Please, if I go wrong on any of my approachs, please, forgive me. If you need any other help from, me, feel free to ask. Cya.

    Léo.

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