Since mid-December 2013, South Sudan has experienced massive
displacement of its population due to the conflict. The communities now
living in Internally Displaced People’s (IDP) sites face a range of challenges.
One of the most serious and widespread challenges is poor sanitation at
the household and community/site level. The primary cause of this
challenge is waste and waste water disposal.
To help communities in crisis better manage and dispose of waste and
waste water, and thereby avoid the range of health issues that arise from
poor sanitation, we propose to focus on a new waste management
process for IDP camps. This process would empower affected populations to decide together how to keep their communities clean, and make them the leaders in the waste management process. A model for centralized
waste management and disposal would be introduced, including a recycling component to reuse and repurpose materials that would otherwise be
thrown away. This will help keep IDP sites clean and also help the
population make better use of the limited resources available to them.