Cadena De Suministro Para Un Sistema Sanitario Sustentable En Ghana

Design of a supply chain for a sustainable sanitation system on the example of Accra and Kade, Ghana

Ivan Francisco Martinez Neri Matriculation number: 33934 Email: ivan.martinez.neri@gmail.com

Supervised by: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Heike Flämig Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ralf Otterpohl

November, 2009

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Science in InternationalProduction Management at Hamburg University of Technology.

To my beloved wife, our wonderful family and God

Declaration

I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. Furthermore, I swear that this document is my own original work and that no part of it has been submitted to any other institute in this or any deviated manner. All literal content and quotations from othersources are clearly pointed out and no other sources than those declared have been used.

Ivan Francisco Martinez Neri Hamburg, Germany, 2nd of November, 2009.

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Acknowledgements

My deepest gratitude goes to Prof. Dr.-Ing. Heike Flämig and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ralf Otterpohl for giving me the opportunity to develop this work, which has left a profound impact in my life and also opened in my mind anew vision of hope for Africa. I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Olufunke Cofie for sharing openly her knowledge and professional experience and also for providing me with the support and tools to develop this work during my stay in Accra. My special thanks to Dr. Godfred K. Ofosu-Budu who believed in this project since the first time I shared it with him. It was an honour for me towork with him during most of my stay in Ghana. I sincerely hope that all his ideas and aspirations come true for a better future of his country. I am very much thankful to Aleksandra Drewko, M.Sc. MBA, whose guidance, advice and support from the beginning until the end enabled me to develop this work successfully. I owe my deepest gratitude and love to my wife Gabriela, who inspired and supported meall through the course of this endeavour. Lastly, I offer my regards and blessings to all of those who supported me in any respect during the completion of this project.

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Abstract
The lack of improved sanitation facilities in Ghana has led to pollution of its water bodies and open spaces due to improper disposal of human waste. At the same time, urine and faeces contain the nutrientsthat were taken away from the soils when food was grown. As these excreta is disposed in a different place other that the origin of its nutrients, the soils are in a serious state of depletion. Studies have been carried out to implement the Ecological Sanitation (ecosan) concept in the city of Accra and various models have been suggested. However, their implementation is constrained by the rejectionthat the society may have regarding the use of excreta as a fertilizer in agriculture and also by the huge logistics costs that the transport of urine implies. This thesis studies the feasibility of implementing a large-scale ecosan based sanitation system, by exploring different configurations of the supply chain intended to collect, transport and use sanitized human excreta as a fertilizer. Theanalysis is executed in the city of Accra and in the semi-urban settlement of Kade. The resulting model consists of a supply chain where the cargo capacity of the vehicles used to transport human excreta along the supply chain is efficiently used, thus decreasing or even eliminating the costs of transportation. In addition, the risk of social rejection to this sanitation approach is reduced byusing the treated excreta for producing a sort of widely demanded biomass-based fuels, such as biodiesel, charcoal and fuel wood. Finally, the analysis of groups and individuals that are likely to be affected by the implementation of the project is carried out. The results show that there is enough interest and commitment to start implementing the project in the short term.

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