The Philippine Ecosan Network (PEN) will be holding the Philippine Symposium on Sustainable Sanitation concurrent with the celebration of Global Handwashing Day on 15-16 October 2009 in Makati City. The Symposium will showcase innovative and forward looking programs, projects, initiatives and good practices addressing the myriad problems of sanitation in the country. This is an activity of the PEN under the Stockholm Environmental Institute-EcoSanRes 2 Philippine Knowledge Node Project.

The objectives of the Symposium are:

• To promote Sustainable Sanitation and hygiene concepts, ideas and principles among major sanitation stakeholders and decision makers;
• To sustain the momentum of Sanitation initiatives created by the 2008 International Year of Sanitation and the National Sanitation Summits of 2006 and 2008;
• To gather and give recognition to leading institutions who have embarked on essential programs, innovative projects and good practices on sustainable sanitation and hygiene for everybody to learn from; and
• To share and inform the participants on major policy reforms and programmatic efforts by key stakeholders and support institutions.

The expected outputs are:

• Publication of all papers presented in Knowledge Nodes members’ and SEI websites;
• Strengthening of linkages and exchanges among PEN partners;
• Potential matching of demand and supply of resources for Sustainable Sanitation projects and programs;
• Policy and collaboration ideas for adoption by the DOH as inputs for the planning of the East Asia Ministerial Conference on Sanitation 2 (EASAN-2) in January 2010 to be hosted by the Government of the Philippines.

The target audience of the Symposium are the national and local decision-makers, support/donor institutions, academe, NGOs and regional actors who can make a serious difference in advancing sustainable sanitation in their respective areas of influence.

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

PEN is inviting abstracts for presentation during the symposium. Submission deadline is on 14 August 2009 (Friday).

Potential authors are invited to submit initial ideas on subjects for presentation. Three types of papers are being sought:

1. Program and/or policy papers: These are papers by government and support institutions on major initiatives that have substantial and long term impact on sanitation policy, regulatory and investment environment.
2. Research papers by academic and NGOs: These are papers on relevant studies on sanitation linked with health, hygiene, technology, environment, agriculture and possibly climate change.
3. Practice papers: These are papers documenting innovative projects and good practices.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Abstracts must follow the format suggested and must be submitted thru email at email address This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it with the subject PSSS abstract submission.

Abstracts may include any of the following themes:

1. Promoting sustainable sanitation to achieve MDG’s
2. Health, hygiene and safety aspects related to sustainable sanitation
3. Implementing sustainable sanitation in emergencies
4. Challenges in implementing sustainable sanitation
5. Capacity building for sustainable sanitation

The main text of the abstracts should be in MS Word 2003 or 2007 format, Arial 12 font and not more than 300 words. Included in the abstract are:

• Type of paper (program, research, practice or photo),
• Title of the paper
• Author(s) including organizational affiliation and contact information of the lead author

A Selection Committee composed of PEN members will screen the abstracts based on relevance, clarity and applicability/practicability/appropriateness of policy, program, research, project, message or findings.

The Organizers will shoulder the travel and accommodation expenses of selected authors from outside Metro Manila.

TIME FRAME

14 August 2009 - Deadline for submission of abstracts

19 August 2009 -  Notification of acceptance to authors

4 September2009 -  Deadline for submission of papers

15-16 October 2009 Philippine Symposium on Sustainable Sanitation

For further inquiries, please contact Ms. Majen Tong at telephone number +632 433-9042 or thru email at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .