PLANNING REPLICABLE SMALL FLOW WASTE-WATER TREATMENT FACILITIES IN DEVELOPING-NATIONS

The implementation of urban village wastewater treatment plants in dev eloping countries has historically been primarily a function of approp riate technology choice and deciding which of the many needy communiti es should receive the available funding and priority attention. Usuall y this process is driven by an outside funding agency who views the pl anning, design, and construction steps as relatively insignificant mil estones in the overall effort required to quickly better a community's sanitary drainage problems. With the exception of very small scale ty pe sanitation projects which have relatively simple replication steps, the development emphasis tends to be on the final treatment plant pro duct with little or no attention specifically focused on community par ticipation and institutionalizing national and local policies and proc edures needed for future locally sponsored facilities replication. In contrast to this, the Government of Egypt (GOE) enacted a fresh approa ch through a Local Development Program with the United States AID prog ram. An overview is presented of the guiding principals of the program which produced the first 24 working wastewater systems including grav ity sewers, sewage pumping stations and wastewater treatment plants wh ich were designed and constructed by local entities in Egypt. The wast ewater projects cover five different treatment technologies implemente d in both delta and desert regions.