Menstrual Health and Hygiene: Developing and Deploying Gender Transformative Technologies

EDGARD NGABOYAMAHINA, PHD, MBA
Research Scientist, Center for WaSH-AID

About the lecture
Menstruation can place significant obstacles in women's and girls' access to health, education and future prospects if they are not equipped for effective Menstrual Health and Hygiene (MHH). However, MHH has not received adequate attention in the reproductive health, water, sanitation and hygiene sectors, and its impact on achieving many Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is rarely acknowledged. While there is evidence from research studies that many women and girls in emerging countries struggle to access adequate information, products and disposal systems, menstrual waste collection and disposal remain an under-prioritized area in most user-centered sanitation programming. The Center for WaSH-AID and its partner Biomass Controls have developed the S.H.E. (Safe Hygiene for Everyone), an affordable, fully automated sanitary pad sterile disposal unit engineered to provide dignity and privacy, waste reduction, and safe hygiene. Once deployed, the technology could have a global impact on education and gender empowerment, health and environmental sustainability. The lecture will first give the status quo on current options available for MHH products disposal, then elaborate on the technical aspects of the innovation before introducing the recent approaches undertaken to position the technology to market.

This event is part of Think Global, a weekly lecture series at the Duke Global Health Institute.

About the speaker
At the Center for WaSH-AID, Edgard Ngaboyamahina leads R&D activities that encompass waste treatment and malodor control under the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-supported Reinvent the Toilet Challenge. The Center for WaSH-AID is an intensely collaborative translational research team, working closely with academic, non-profit, and private industry partners to facilitate the development and sustainable deployment of novel technology-based health solutions around the world. The Center leverages partnerships to fill critical technology gaps and to increase the likelihood that user-centered sanitation innovations will advance from concept to market, creating lasting, large-scale impact. WaSH-AID also oversees the Sanitation Technology Cluster (STC) – a global network of 24 partners striving to accelerate the commercialization of sanitation technologies in emerging economies.

Ngaboyamahina is also the founder and managing director of Simbuka Technological Innovation, Ltd., a social enterprise that positions environmental technologies and solutions for private sector investment and scale in Rwanda and neighboring countries. Prior to joining the Pratt School of Engineering and the Center for WaSH-AID, Ngaboyamahina worked with established French companies. With the Commercial Strategic Directorate of Eléctricité de France (EDF), the main French electric utility, he analyzed the Energy Efficiency Obligation (EEO) schemes, also known as “white certificates”, from an economic perspective and in collaboration with the French Agency for the Environment and Energy Management (ADEME). At the Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies Commission (CEA) – whose missions are equivalent to those of the US DoE- he developed innovative materials for electric vehicles’ batteries and supported technology transfer to industry partners. Ngaboyamahina completed his Ph.D. in Process Engineering and Advanced Technologies from Pierre and Marie Curie University (Sorbonne University) in 2014. He received in parallel an MBA from the Collège des Ingénieurs in Paris (France).

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