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Culture in rural water and sanitation projects: a case study

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conference contribution
posted on 2018-02-12, 15:09 authored by Alison M. Furber, Martin Crapper
A case study of a water and sanitation project under construction in Emem, Ghana is used as a basis for consideration of how culture impacts on the engineering design and implementation of projects in rural communities in less developed countries. The hypothesis is that local culture is an important consideration if long term sustainability is to be achieved. It was found that, contrary to expectations, cultural issues such as religious belief had no direct bearing on the design parameters of the project. However, an understanding of local culture was vital in establishing lines of communication during the construction phase. Different attitudes to problem solving between foreign engineers and local people created some problems, but in other cases were complementary. It is concluded that engineers working on such projects need a clear understanding of their own world view in order to relate properly to their clients.

History

School

  • Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering

Research Unit

  • Water, Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC)

Published in

WEDC Conference

Citation

FURBER, A.M. and CRAPPER, M., 2011. Culture in rural water and sanitation projects: a case study. IN: Shaw, R.J. (ed). The future of water, sanitation and hygiene in low-income countries - Innovation, adaptation and engagement in a changing world: Proceedings of the 35th WEDC International Conference, Loughborough, UK, 6-8 July 2011, 8p.p.

Publisher

© WEDC, Loughborough University

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

2011

Notes

This is a conference paper.

Other identifier

WEDC_ID:13041

Language

  • en

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    WEDC 35th International Conference

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