ISLAMABAD, Sep 03 (APP):WaterAid Pakistan Country Director Mian Muhammad Junaid has called for a holistic, behaviour-centred approach to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), stressing that merely providing services or conducting conventional awareness campaigns is not enough to improve health and nutrition outcomes. Speaking on the concluding day of DawnMedia’s two-day international conference, “Act For Nutrition: The Emergency We Can No Longer Ignore,” held at a local hotel in Islamabad on …
WaterAid calls for behavior-centered approach to improve WASH, nutrition outcomes
ISLAMABAD, Sep 03 (APP):WaterAid Pakistan Country Director Mian Muhammad Junaid has called for a holistic, behaviour-centred approach to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), stressing that merely providing services or conducting conventional awareness campaigns is not enough to improve health and nutrition outcomes.
Speaking on the concluding day of DawnMedia’s two-day international conference, “Act For Nutrition: The Emergency We Can No Longer Ignore,” held at a local hotel in Islamabad on Thursday, he said WASH interventions should focus on strengthening the entire system, including the capacity of service providers, long-term operation and maintenance, sustainability and climate resilience.
Participating in a panel discussion titled “The Invisible Driver: Dirty Water and Poor Sanitation Underpinning Child Stunting in Pakistan,” Junaid said WaterAid did not believe in providing isolated models or conducting sporadic hygiene-promotion activities. Instead, it adopted a holistic approach to addressing barriers and bottlenecks affecting WASH services.
He said conventional awareness-raising through television, social media or occasional community outreach often failed to bring about lasting behavioural change.
“We adopt the behaviour-centred design approach,” he said, explaining that it involved research into ground realities, behaviours, barriers and bottlenecks before designing interventions.
The panel discussion was moderated by Sanaa Causer, Director External Relations, Hisaar Foundation. Senior Water Specialist at the World Bank Basharat Saeed and WASH Policy Specialist at the Ministry of Climate Change and Environmental Coordination (MoCC&EC) Dr Saima Khan also spoke on the occasion, while Oliver Cumming, Environmental Health Lead at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, participated in the discussion online.
