Exploring the capacity building ladder

Prompted by several visits providing support to universities in Africa, the author explores the challenges in delivering appropriate training to WASH professionals that is both accessible locally and sustainable in terms of time, finance, and human resources and physical facilities. The paper explores the two extreme scenarios of short-term local training courses and longer-term educational programmes in training centre or universities. As educational theory (pedagogy) has a jargon that may not be understood by the WASH sector, analogies are used to compare course design with the use of the "ladder" model, in particular the design of household and centralised water treatment systems and the challenge of moving from one model to another.