Environmental Sanitation Planning for the Urban Poor

Providing sanitation for the urban poor is supported by (at least) two Millennium Development Goals:

Goal 7, Target 10: Halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation (UN, 2000); and Goal 7 Target 11: aims to achieve... by 2020 a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers (UN, 2000). And though improving lives is a multifaced objective, sustainable access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation are key aspects.

In fact, the lack of improved water and sanitation facilities are two of the features that define urban slums(the other ones being durable housing, sufficient living area and secure tenure) (UNHabitat and UNESCAP, 2008). Therefore, the need for improved planning to provide water and sanitation services to the urban poor- to slums- is an overarching goal and deserves special attention. Content Table

Planning Environmental Sanitation The urban challenge The planning challenge Planning Tools References/Links Related Articles

Planning
The power of planning lies in the fact that it is where data are collected, opinions and ideas pooled, decisions are made, the course of action is plotted, and where responsibilities are delegated. The goal of a planning process then, is to frame the problem, conceptualize the steps, identify priorities and potential challenges, coordinate tasks, and frame the outputs within a timeline and budget: Where are we now? Where do we want to go? How do we get there?

Environmental Sanitation

Though the definition of sanitation is often limited to human excreta, environmental sanitation includes water supply, sanitation, stormwater drainage and solid waste management (Eawag, 2005) Therefore, Environmental Sanitation Planning calls for coordinated actions between these often (unfortunately) disparate sectors.

The urban challenge

For the first time in human history, the majority of the earths population lives in cities (UN, 2008). The urban challenges which result are distinctly different than the rural challenges. This huge demographic shift has put unprecedented pressure on already limited and aging infrastructure and has left the poor especially vulnerable. It is the urban poor i.e., those that are unaccounted for in official plans, who can no longer be ignored if the cities of the future are to thrive. If current trends continue the population in slums will reach 1.4 billion by 2020 (UNHabitat, 2006). Slums, sometimes referred to as squatter settlements, informal settlements, irregular subdivisions, favelas or barrio, are dynamic, complex environments and no two are alike, but they can be characterized by:

Rapid urbanization: the sheer quantity of people to provide for, impacted by the rate at which they arrive in the city leaves planners and service providers struggling to extend capacity at staggering rates. Over 70% of the urban population in sub-saharan African is living in slums and that number is growing by 4.5% a year (The Economist, 2007). High densities: the density in which the urban poor live makes planning and service delivery especially difficult. Access routes (i.e for sludge pumping vehicles) and land for constructing infrastructure (e.g. drainage canals) are especially limited in areas where density can reach 240,000 people per square kilometer as in Dharavi, the largest slum in Mumbai (Davis, 2006). More people on less space means that there is little available free space for building new (toilet) structures or disposing of/treating waste (e.g. blackwater, greywater, solid waste, etc.) Insecure tenure, i.e. the lack of formalized land ownership, means that authorities are unlikely to provide services to inhabitants that have no fixed, or registered address. With no sense of permanence, the residents themselves are less likely to invest in services and upgrades lest their home be repossessed, or worse, bulldozed. Extreme socio-economic heterogeneity means that not everyone living in a slum is necessarily poor or able to afford the same level of services. Co-existing pockets of industry, commerce, urban agriculture and residents all further complicates matters. Dynamic populations: urban communities are constantly in flux. High rates of migration into and out of urban centres (either permanently or temporarily) means that there is less familiarity, less social cohesion and consequently fewer opportunities for coordinated community action Environmental instability: the poorest arrivals to cities often live in the most marginal areas which are also most prone to disaster: flood plains, coastal zones, hills prone to mudslides commonly serve as illegal and informal.

Limited and expensive water: though always time consuming to fetch and carry (in both urban and rural settings), water in urban centres must often be purchased from a public kiosk or standpipe (compared to, for example, a public well). For families who purchase their daily water by the 20L jerry can, water-based sanitation is unthinkable.

The planning challenge

The challenges above are mostly physical, yet some of the greatest challenges relate to the mechanics of planning. Without considering the political, legal and beaurocratic factorssometimes difficult to foresee at the onset - even the most well-planned project may have difficulties in facing the following:

Red tape: it is not uncommon for several, if not a handful of ministries and/or agencies to be responsible for the provision of service provision. With no clear division of responsibility or budgetary administration, customers face beaurocratic hurdles or fall between the cracks, while civil servants grow dismayed with their lack of power. Brain drain: sanitation services are not often attractive politically and are not likely to be well funded. Local and national level staff- especially the best- are difficult to retain as they seek more prestigious and higher paying jobs. Brain drain and low moral means that staff turn-over is high and projects are rarely completed by the same person who started them (if at all) resulting in lack of ownership and poor results. Financial structure and priority: though the poor may pay 20 times more than the rich for water (Bate, 2008) the common belief is that they can not and will not pay for environmental sanitation when in fact, public services would lower the cost to the consumer and reduce local corruption. Furthermore, sanitation is rarely given priority or an independent budget line and must compete against other services (commonly water) for funding. More of the same. Despite high levels of training (or maybe because of) planners and engineers have difficulty breaking with tradition and rejecting outdated policies and designs that hinder real progress. For example, service provision to groups of homes (rather than individuals) and community managed units would increase access among the urban poor and usher in a new paradigm of realistic planning (Mara and Alabaster, 2008).

Planning Tools
A number of planning tools methods frameworks and programmes have been developed which seek to guide planners and offer structural and methodological solutions to assist with the planning process. Though the specifics of the tools differ (location, scope of project, duration, number of steps, etc.), the underlying frameworks are actually quite similar. One of the hallmarks of good planning is multi-actor participation; or simply, involving the people who affect, or are effected by, the plan. The need for community involvement has been universally recognized as a sustainable way to ensure ownership and encourage multiplication.

One summary of 9 different tools shows that shows that in fact no matter how many steps a planning approach has, there are 6 key (or generic) steps:

Problem identification; Definition of Objectives; Identification of Options; Selection Process; Action Plan for Implementation: Monitoring and Evaluation (Rosemarin et al, 2008).

The book Hygiene and Sanitation Software: An overview of Approaches (Peal et al., 2010) presents a comprehensive list of sanitation software which, in the words of the authors is ...widely used in the sector to encompass activities that focus on the hygiene and/or sanitation promotion activities (ibid). The comprehensive list of software is broken down into four different categories:

Participatory Planning Inducing Behaviour Change: Hygiene Promotion Creating Demand and Supply Chains: Sanitation Promotion Programming Frameworks

Although every environmental sanitation program should include elements of participation, hygiene promotion and demand creation, the chapter on Programming Frameworks includes an overview of what could be considered the most relevant planning tools for use in urban areas today. They are:

Strategic Sanitation Approach/Strategic Sanitation Planning (SSA/SSP) Sanitation 21 Household-Centred Environmental Sanitation (HCES) Hygiene Improvement Framework (HIF) FOAM and SaniFOAM

There are numerous other planning approaches which, though extremely successful, have been geared more towards rural settings. Community-Led Total Sanitation (Kar, 2005) is one example which has been implemented world-wide though mostly in close-knit communities where social pressure can have a strong effect. Planning tools can be useful, but they do not replace common sense, good communication and creativity. Planning takes time and it demands patience. Agencies, donors and indeed those

working on the ground must think (and be funded) long term, during which time, very few results may appear. Though planning must have a medium to long term vision, improvements must be incremental. Small, affordable improvements which increase confidence, trust and community cohesion are the best way to achieve lasting results.

References/Links
Bate, R (2008). Water Wars. Economic Affairs. 22 (4): 75. Davis, M (2006). Planet of Slums. Verso, London. Eawag/WSSCC (2005). Household-Centred Environmental Sanitation: Implementing the Bellagio Principles in Urban Environmental Sanitation. Provisional Guideline for DecisionMakers. Eawag: Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Dbendorf, Switzerland. http://www.eawag.ch/organisation/abteilungen/sandec/schwerpunkte/sesp/hces/index_EN Kar, K (2005). Practical Guide to Triggering Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS). Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK. Mara, D and Alabaster G (2008). A new paradigm for low-cost urban water supplies and sanitation in developing countries Water Policy 10: 119129 Rosemarin, A. et al. (2008). Pathways for Sustainable Sanitation: Achieving the Millennium Development Goals. IWA, London. The Economist (2007). The world goes to town: a special report on cities. The Economist, London. May 5, 2007. UN (2000). United Nations Millenium Development Goals. http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals UN-Habitat (2003). Water and Sanitation in the Worlds Cities: Local Action for Global Goals. Earthscan, London. UN-Habitat (2006). State of the Worlds Cities 2006/2007. Earthscan, London UN-Habitat (2008). State of the Worlds Cities 2008/2009. Earthscan, London UN-Habitat and UNESCAP (2008). Housing the Poor in Asian Cities, Quick Guide 2. UNHabitat and United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, Thailand. Wright, AM (2007). Toward a Strategic Sanitation Approach: Improving the Sustainability of Urban Sanitation in Developing Countries. The World Bank, Washington.