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Community-based approaches for addressing the urban sanitation challenges

Community-based approaches for addressing the urban sanitation challenges International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development Vol. 1, Nos. 1–2, May–November 2009, 49–63 TJUE International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development a b b Christoph Lüthi *, Jennifer McConville and Elisabeth Kvarnström Department for Water and Sanitation in Developing Countries, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Eawag, PO Box 611, Dübendorf, Switzerland; EcoSanRes Programme, Stockholm Environment Institute, Kräftriket 2B, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden (Received 4 November 2009; final version received 25 January 2010) Urban sanitation presents one of the most significant service delivery challenges related to poverty alleviation and sustainable development in the developing world. The past decade has witnessed inno- vations in service delivery approaches for unserved rural and urban settlements with a clear policy shift to community-based approaches that attempt to overcome the supply-led, over-engineered sani- tation solutions of the past decades. This article presents two examples of new developments: the urban-focussed household-centred environmental sanitation (HCES) and the rural-focussed com- munity-led total sanitation (CLTS) approaches. The internationally renowned CLTS approach has achieved considerable success since its introduction, by harnessing community and small private sector capacity to solve sanitation problems locally. Experience with validation of the HCES approach in a variety of urban sites in Africa, Asia and Latin America is presented in the second part of the article highlighting some of the lessons learned. The article closes by arguing that a combination of HCES and CLTS, two field-tested methodologies, has the potential to improve the sustainability of sanitation service interventions. Keywords: urban basic services; infrastructure planning; environmental sanitation; household-centred approach; community-led total sanitation 1. Introduction will take place in the developing world over the next two decades, and 80% of the world’s urban Rising tensions and recent riots in South Africa’s population will be located there by 2030 (UNFPA townships in July 2009 (BBC News Africa 2009) 2007). Although the majority of the poor will still have demonstrated that service delivery backlogs be living in rural areas, empirical results show that in urban areas will continue to present significant the poor urbanise faster than the population as a political impacts for many developing countries in whole (Ravaillon et al. 2007). However, the the years to come. Many of the world’s cities urbanisation of poverty must be understood in the experience population growth that far exceeds context in which it occurs. The accelerated eco- their absorptive capacity in terms of conventional nomic growth in China and India in the past two shelter, water, sanitation infrastructure, public decades, although leading to rising income ine- health services, employment, education, food sup- quality (especially in urban areas), has lifted over plies and environmental protection. Urban areas in half a billion people out of $1-a-day poverty developing countries are especially at risk as it is between 1981 and 2004 (UN-Habitat 2008). In predicted that 95% of the urban population growth *Corresponding author. Email: christoph.luthi@eawag.ch ISSN 1946-3138 print/ISSN 1946-3146 online © 2009 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/19463131003654764 http://www.informaworld.com 50 C. Lüthi et al. Sub-Saharan Africa, though the urbanisation pro- not invest in new infrastructure because they lack cess has not been associated with falling poverty, formal tenure and are seen as ‘illegal’. The result is in many countries rural and urban poverty prevalence an increasing gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have- is almost the same (UN-Habitat 2008). nots’ in basic services and municipalities that are The challenges of sanitation service delivery are locked into expensive systems without the possibili- exacerbated by the fact that many poor urban resi- ties to extend coverage to those that need it. dents live in the unplanned and underserved infor- Despite this trend, there have been a number of mal settlements commonly known as slums or in recent innovative initiatives for extending the cover- expanding peri-urban areas. Urban administrations age of sanitation services in both rural and urban do not have the capacity and often are not planning contexts. These approaches are based on demand- for service provision in these marginalised areas. driven and participatory approaches that both This is reflected in the most recent United Nations motivate community involvement and encourage Joint Monitoring Programme reports that predict appropriate technology which better fits the realities that the number of the world’s urban population in the field. They promote participatory processes without access to a safe source of drinking water where solutions result from the inputs of local stake- will increase from 137 million (2006) to 296 mil- holders and not solely from ‘conventional wisdom’ lion (2015) and those without access to improved or ‘prescriptive’ planning (Atkinson 2007). This art- sanitation will increase from 661 million to 898 icle examines two of these approaches, one from a million, respectively (UN JMP 2008). rural perspective and the other more urban, to extract In these expansive urban and peri-urban settle- key lessons for improving service delivery in the ments, irregular water supply and ‘on-site sanita- growing complexities of the urban environment. tion’ are the norms. Yet, despite on-site low-cost sanitation being the reality for the vast majority of 2. The heterogeneous city the developing world’s urban population, much of the focus for policy-makers is still on network The rapid rates of urbanisation mean that conven- sewerage and centralised systems designed and tional city planning can no longer keep pace with implemented without consultation or participation population growth and urban sprawl. The result is of stakeholders and beneficiaries (Eawag 2005, that cities are a patchwork of formal and informal Rosemarin et al. 2008). Many governments and settlements, new and old infrastructure, and a wide international donors continue to propagate over- variety of cultures and classes. Especially in the engineered and heavily subsidised solutions informal areas, the slums and peri-urban fringe, assuming that ‘one size fits all’ will improve the modern city can often be described as a fusion access to all persons living in developing cities. between rural and urban environments. One of the Hardware subsidies in the form of infrastructure key challenges to urban service delivery is recog- and connection subsidies can be found in countries nising this complexity and providing adaptive as diverse as India, Senegal or Ecuador, but all solutions that meet people’s needs. have faced similar problems; they tend to be Rural and urban settlements offer different expensive programmes with limited reach that challenges regarding planning and the implemen- encourage subsidy dependency and discourage tation of improved urban services. Rural areas ownership. These national or regional pro- tend to have significantly lower service coverage grammes tend to favour high-cost designs and be rates than the world over. The largest disparity poorly targeted so that they hardly ever reach the between urban and rural sanitation coverage can be poorest segments of urban society and stifle mar- found in Latin America and the Caribbean (86–52%) ket provision and innovation in the sanitation sec- and Southern Asia (57–23%). Sub-Saharan Africa tor (WSSCC 2009). Furthermore, local authorities is worst off, as both rural and urban sanitation and utilities by-pass informal settlements and will coverage are both off track to meet the MDG International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development 51 target coverage (42% vs. 24%) in 2015 (UN JMP and service provision approaches that are tradition- 2008). Thus, the focus in the rural sanitation sector ally adapted to the rural environment. is often simply on hygiene and behaviour change On the contrary, urban areas, especially the and encouraging communities to move towards fast-growing non-tenured informal settlements, open-defecation-free (ODF) environments, i.e. the differ significantly from poor rural areas. This first step towards participation in sanitation serv- has important implications for implementation ices that ensure hygienic separation of human and ratcheting-up service coverage in the urban excreta from human contact. In the heterogeneous context. Issues that come into play such as the city, many of the rural attitudes and norms are political economy, institutional complexity/frag- still present in pockets of the city population, so mentation and urban socio-cultural diversity all that it is still relevant to consider planning tools make for a daunting policy environment to achieve Figure 1. The diverse city: different urban contexts demand context-specific solutions for improved urban services. Map of Nouakchott, capital city of Mauritania. 52 C. Lüthi et al. progress (SuSanA 2008b). Some of the key chal- WSSCC 2005) propose a 10-step process initiated lenges that make the urban area more challenging with a direct request from a community or com- than the rural environment are given below: munity leader and culminating with the implemen- tation of plans developed during the planning • Heterogeneous populations: people from process. Figure 2 shows the 10 steps involved. different origins, ethnic backgrounds, social The HCES approach belongs to the family of norms make for heterogeneous nature of communicative planning frameworks that focus urban settlements (Figure 1); on participatory, bottom-up methodologies where • Land tenureship: a key issue that needs to planners solicit the participation of a variety of be addressed as it is much more difficult to stakeholders in a democratic planning process achieve sustainable infrastructure solutions (Hamdi and Goethert 1997). with tenants or absentee landlords in a Successful implementation of the HCES commoditised urban land market; approach requires the dissemination of informa- • Sanitation chain: Urban sanitation presents tion on affordable and sustainable sanitation great challenges in the development of options to those responsible for improving envi- integrated solutions for managing a variety ronmental services, such as municipal officials, of waste streams that go beyond achieving urban planners and community representatives or defecation-free environments (e.g. proper chiefs. To fulfil their new roles, process stakehold- disposal of household wastewater; faecal ers need to be provided with information and sludge management) (Tilley et al. 2008); assistance so that their capacity to make decisions, • Technology choice: dense urban settle- implement and manage services grows. Widening ments limit the feasible technology options the scope of possible adapted and affordable solu- available (Mara and Alabaster 2008); tions from storage to transport to treatment and dis- • Institutional fragmentation: rural institutional posal/re-use (see Figure 3) is a cornerstone of the responsibilities are mostly straightforward household-centred approach (Lüthi et al. 2007). while in the urban sphere a multitude of differ- A further feature of HCES is the environmental ent stakeholders have a claim: local authorities, sustainability concept based on circular resource health departments, utilities, communities, etc. management systems, addressing environmental sanitation problems as close as possible to their The rest of this article focusses on two approaches source, and emphasis is placed on resource conser- to sanitation service delivery and how they have vation and waste reduction. This underlines recent overcome some of these challenges by integrated sectoral developments that have targeted alternative processes for achieving environmental sanitation approaches and solutions to the increasing environ- systems with the creation of local demand and mental sanitation problem. Innovations follow the acceptance, especially by the urban poor. paradigm to develop a set of technologies that facil- itate and allow best re-use of human waste products. Some examples are urine and faeces separation and 3. The household-centred environmental their re-use in agriculture (Pronk et al. 2007, Tilley sanitation approach et al. 2008), greywater separation and re-use (Morel HCES is a multi-sector planning approach geared and Diener 2006) or faecal sludge collection and towards service delivery in poor urban areas: it inte- treatment for re-use (Koné et al. 2007). grates water supply, storm-water and sewage man- agement; facilitates the incorporation of input from 3.1. HCES validation in Africa and Asia diverse actors and utilises the concept of urban zones for enhancing the implementation of decen- From 2006 to 2009, the HCES approach was tralised options. The HCES guidelines (Eawag/ tested in seven different urban and peri-urban sites d International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development 53 The 10-step process 1. Request for assistance 2. Launch of the planning and consultative process 3. Assessment of current status of UESS 4. Assessment of user priorities 5. Identification of options 6. Evaluation of feasible service combinations 7. Consolidated UESS plans for the study area 8. Finalising of consolidated plans 9. Monitoring, (internal) evaluation and feedback (MEF) 10. Implementation Figure 2. Defining elements of the HCES approach: an enabling environment framework and the 10-step planning process. Figure 3. HCES consider the entire sanitation system and a variety of technical options that are available from the toi- let to the final treatment. Example of a sanitation system configuration involving storage (septic tank), transport (motorised emptying) and treatment (constructed wetland). across Africa, Asia and Latin America. The two sites were all situated in either unplanned informal cases from Laos and Tanzania presented below or recently formalised low-income settlements, validate the methodology and highlight some peri-urban city fringe settlements (peri-urban key lessons about using HCES. The selected pilot interface). rr G 54 C. Lüthi et al. 3.1.1. Lao PDR (Hatsady Tai Village, Vientiane) component) with limited coordination and informa- tion exchange meant that (i) community consultation Hatsady Tai is a small community of about 100 was not well organised and thus partly inconsist- households in the central part of Vientiane with a ent or repetitive; (ii) one planning team could not lack of basic environmental sanitation services. benefit from the interactions of the other team with This densely populated neighbourhood is well the community and (iii) operation and management organised and community members took an active procedures were defined separately, generating a role in the HCES process. Through the HCES pro- feeling of confusion among the community. cess Hatsady Tai village has succeeded in imple- menting new sanitary facilities plus small-bore 3.1.1.3. Involvement and capacity of key stake- sewers and improved drainage lines to prevent holders. The importance and the decision-making future flooding. No households were relocated and power of the district authorities were under- around 80 m of private land was provided volun- estimated. This key stakeholder was not involved tarily for new infrastructure by two private land- early and actively enough in the planning process, owners. Beneficiaries and local enterprise which compromised full political commitment and contributed about 10% of the total project budget thus the smooth management and execution of the (US$ 72,000), the rest was funded by a small project. This was especially felt during Step 8 project fund from the Swiss research programme (finalisation of environmental sanitation service National Centre of Competence in Research plans) and Step 10 (implementation), when top- (NCCR) North–South. The success of this case down decisions were taken by the district authorit- shows the importance of involving all key stake- ies, which put into question the outcomes of the holders, including the community and private sec- participatory planning process. Project implemen- tor from the very start of the planning process. tation (i.e. construction) was complicated by the fact that the local contractor (selected based on the 3.1.1.1. Contextual challenges in Hatsady Tai lowest tender) was not involved in the planning Village, Vientiane. The following section summa- process and thus did not understand the participa- rises the main challenges faced during planning and tory solution-finding process that had taken place implementation of the approach and highlights in the past 12 months. This resulted in ineffective strengths of the planning process. Some of the chal- community mobilisation (community contracting) lenges were external to the project (e.g. ongoing and communication difficulties with the community. institutional reforms at the national level) and there- The project did not put sufficient emphasis on fore, could not be addressed by the project coordina- training and human resource development prior to tion team. The following section focusses on the the planning and implementation of the project. internal challenges and lessons learned during the Some training was carried out, but it was not ori- 18-month planning and implementation process. ented specifically enough towards the core stake- holders of the project. Lack of planning capacity 3.1.1.2. Institutional challenges. The institutional of local authorities and community-based organi- separation of the planning and implementation of sations is clearly one of the main bottlenecks in the solid waste component and the liquid waste urban areas characterised by weak institutional components (drainage, sanitation) compromised settings. This needs to be addressed early on by the effectiveness of the project elements. The community-based approaches such as HCES. share of responsibilities between Water Resources & Environment Administration (coordination of 3.1.1.4. Differing expectations within the beneficiary– the solid waste management component) and the implementer–backstopper relationship. There Public Works and Transportation Institute (PTI) were different interests and expectations among the (coordination of the liquid waste management community (i.e. the beneficiaries), the implementing International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development 55 agency (PTI) and the backstopping agency (Eawag). has led to a strengthening of community capacity and The community expected the implementing agency self-organisation and has managed to raise awareness to provide services as quick as possible. Eawag, as about the water – sanitation – health nexus. The a research institution, was mainly interested in the municipality, in collaboration with a local NGO, is planning process and requested well-defined now in the process of setting up a microcredit facility working plans and progress documentation. PTI, for funding improved sanitation at household level in as the main implementing agency, found itself in Changombe. the centre of this conflict. Despite contractual agreements and agreed ToR for each party of the 3.1.2.1. Contextual challenges in Chang’ombe project coordination committee, the roles and settlement, Dodoma. In the following, we summa- responsibilities were interpreted in as many ways rise some of the context-related challenges faced as there were parties. Clear project monitoring, during the validation process in Dodoma. feedback and accountability procedures were missing. 3.1.2.2. Institutional challenges. The main institu- tional challenges were in dealing with the two 3.1.1.5. Limited willingness/ability to pay. During most powerful institutions in Dodoma: the implementation, it was found that the residents Dodoma Urban Water Supply and Sewerage were not able to pay the planned household sanita- Authority (DUWASA) and the Capital Develop- tion improvements and were reluctant to take out ment Authority (CDA). Both institutions found it loans despite the microcredit scheme established difficult to ‘buy-in’ to a new participatory process at the neighbourhood level. This reluctance was that diverges from the status quo and fosters not recognised early enough and not well addressed experimentation outside of the norms within in community consultation and awareness cam- which they are deeply embedded. DUWASA car- paigns. This eventually led to friction between res- ries the term ‘sewerage’ in its name and is above idents and the project coordination committee all, interested in expanding its sewerage network during implementation. Issues such as the finan- to all planned areas of town, even if almost 90% of cial contribution by households or the cost sharing Dodoma’s citizens will continue to rely on on-site for the retrofitting of buildings had to be settled by systems like septic tanks and simple latrines. the negotiation committee. DUWASA currently does not operate any exhauster trucks (although it is planning to purchase one in 2010) but does allow faecal sludge to be disposed 3.1.2. Tanzania (Changombe, Dodoma) of in the waste stabilisation ponds and believes An unplanned but formalised settlement north of the that centralised sewerage is still the most efficient town centre, Changombe, offers some of the worst and safest way for excreta removal. sanitation-related problems in Tanzania’s capital city Inflexibility on the part of the utility has at with regular outbreaks of cholera. There are only times caused uneasy relations between the HCES four public water standpipes, serving a population of project unit and DUWASA representatives; 35,000, and many households continue to rely on DUWASA did not attend the workshops and contaminated high-level groundwater. Innovations in showed general disinterest in the planning process. the HCES planning approach included the construc- However, following the options workshop (July tion of three demonstration facilities at schools and 2008), the DUWASA Sanitary Engineer did start public buildings based on community priorities iden- to show interest and contributed to the experts tified in an options workshop. These pilot facilities meetings. The willingness to invest in the purchase allowed community members to test and better of a new exhauster truck shows that DUWASA understand novel sanitation facilities adapted to dry, began to see a potential money-earning market in water-scarce environments. The planning process emptying the thousands of on-site facilities in 56 C. Lüthi et al. Dodoma. Overcoming ‘institutional inertia’ takes and community representatives shared their views time and comes in gradual steps, but it appears as and discussed viable options for improving envi- if DUWASA is making steps in the right direction. ronmental conditions. A good degree of agreement The CDA is a powerful institution that holds was achieved during the workshops and group all public land in Dodoma and wields overall plan- work sessions. Initial resistance from the water ning authority. This means that unlike other local and sewerage utility could be partially overcome. authorities in Tanzania, Dodoma Municipality has Because of the many workshops, focus group dis- no major assets and no real planning authority. cussions and social events (e.g. official opening of CDA managed to regularise the entire unplanned the school toilets at Chang’ombe Primary), there is settlement of Chang’ombe in 2007 and ensured now a great willingness to improve urban environ- that the inhabitants secured tenure. The promised mental conditions in the neighbourhood. This is upgrading of roads and drainage systems has been crucial for raising demand for funds from the delayed because of the lack of funds. It also cre- microfinance project to be used for sanitation. ated some project delays by initially refusing to Key project features of the HCES validation grant construction permits to the three planned include the following: pilot facilities in Chang’ombe. As in Laos, a further challenge was the limited • efficient planning and implementation costs management capacity at all levels; capacity that is (planning costs below US$ 2 per inhabitant needed to carry out this kind of comprehensive and implementation costs of between US$ 30 planning approach in a secondary city in Africa. and 60 per beneficiary); There are too few professionals who understand • reasonable planning timeframe of 15–20 sanitation options at household and community months – depending on context and size of levels, a lack of expertise to carry out statistically settlement and sound sample surveys and a lack of skilled moder- • ability to attain real participation in project ators/communicators who combine communica- selection, project design to operation and tion skills with knowledge about community maintenance of works (this is currently dynamics. Professional capacity development being studied in more detail through an ex- requires considerable attention in the future. Given post cross-country evaluation). the low capacity in terms of time and human resources, the HCES approach in its current format is 4. Community-led total sanitation still too demanding for the reality of small- and medium-sized African towns. Community-led total sanitation was initiated in An important learning is that planning and Bangladesh in 1999, as an innovative methodology programming for safe sanitation is not only about for eliminating open defecation (Kar 2005). It has logistical and financial issues but about another attracted much attention for its simplicity of obstacle to improving hygiene and sanitation: get- approach and the rapid results that follow. Success ting people to change their behaviour – especially stories of the CLTS approach in rural areas show that in the expanding peri-urban settlement areas. This after a single-day triggering event in which commu- is where the CLTS participatory approach to nities are led to experience disgust at the present san- empower local communities may add value to the itation situation, villages achieve ODF status within structured HCES planning approach. a month (Kar and Chambers 2008). CLTS uses a participatory approach to empower local communi- 3.1.2.3. Strengths. The 14-month planning process ties to stop open defecation and promote the building in Dodoma brought together a great many stake- and use of latrines through community-led action holders from public, private and civil society (local instead of subsidies. Although there are many varia- and international NGOs). During the process, officials tions in the specifics of the approach, all apply the International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development 57 core elements of (a) working with the whole com- inspired authorities in the urban municipality of munity rather than individuals and (b) focussing on Kalyani near Kolkata, India, to introduce CLTS in stopping open defecation rather than construction of its informal settlements. The Kolkata Metropolis a particular type of latrine, hence no subsidies for has over 12 million inhabitants, of which about hardware. The approach has shown positive results one third are estimated to live in slums. Before the and proved to be a strong triggering mechanism for CLTS intervention, the area was characterised by community hygiene behaviour change, especially in a high rate of open defecation. Since 2003, the rural South and Southeast Asian, as well as in several Department for International Development (DFID) African countries. supported Kolkata Urban Services for the Poor Where it has been implemented in rural areas of (KUSP) Programme, which has been active in pro- Asia and Africa, CLTS has resulted in a very large viding sanitation solutions to the Kalyani urban uptake in latrine construction and latrine use. In poor. Originally, almost one third of its budget Bangladesh, where CLTS started, more than 16,000 (US$ 17.7 million in 2003–2004) was spent on rural villages have been declared ODF and the infrastructure, with the highest priority given to approach is now recognised in national policy household toilet construction (SEI 2008). The (MoLG 2005). In the Southern Region of Ethiopia, KUSP provided slum households with free toilets with a population of 14 million, a locally adapted (cost of US$ 236). However, it was noted that the version of CLTS has been developed and used within subsidised facilities often had low usage rates, were an existing institutional setting, the Bureau of Health, poorly maintained or were used for other purposes using its own funding sources to run the process and than defecation. In addition, the programme real- this has led to a pit latrine ownership increase from ised that the subsidy approach would not be able to 13% in 2003 to 88% in 2008 (WSP 2007). In a study reach 100% of the population at the same time as it of the WaterAid-supported CLTS interventions in was creating a dependence on external subsidies. rural Bangladesh (Evans et al. 2009), the general out- In 2005, the concept of an urban CLTS was come showed continued up-grading and repairing of conceived under the KUSP and with the support of latrines, sustained behaviour change and highly cost- the Chairman of Kalyani Municipality who effective programme implementation. showed the political will to make Kalyani an ODF As noted earlier, many of today’s rapidly urban- City (SEI 2008). A pilot CLTS exercise was con- ising cities contain a heterogeneous mix of people, ducted in the Kalyani slums with the objective to infrastructure and service provision which are rep- test the approach of ‘self-mobilisation’ in an urban resentative of both urban and rural attitudes and slum and to empower the local community through standards. The great strength of the CLTS approach community participation. The CLTS programme is in triggering behaviour change and mobilising was coordinated and facilitated by the chief health community action to reinforce this change. Poor officer of Kalyani Municipality who was keenly hygiene practices and open defecation are not prob- interested in the approach. The CLTS process sen- lems restricted to rural areas and therefore hygiene sitised all levels of stakeholders about the method, promotion campaigns are frequently included in including elected municipal councillors and urban sanitation programmes. The CLTS success departmental heads of the municipality, local with mobilising behaviour change and increasing NGOs and Community-based organisations (CBOs), community involvement makes the adaptation of health workers and community people including this tool to urban setting an attractive possibility. local community leaders. It was made clear that the goal was behaviour change and not the model of toilet. However, the first piloting failed, prima- 4.1. CLTS validation rily because of high expectations for subsidies. Although most of the experience with CLTS comes In the other four pilot areas, however, the CLTS from the rural context, the success of the method approach ‘clicked’. There were natural community 58 C. Lüthi et al. leaders who emerged to take on the process of pro- The results from the urban experience in moting ODF and eventually other community Kalyani support the lessons learned from rural projects. All five slum settlements were declared work with CLTS. Key lessons learned from these ODF within six months although it took longer in rural CLTS experiences are the importance of (i) the first slum. The approach was spread to the rest leadership that is well-informed, well-respected of the municipality and 44 out of the 52 slums in and well-connected, (ii) an affordable product, Kalyani were declared 100% ODF by 2007. The (iii) latent demand by a critical mass of early municipality established a monitoring system in adopters, (iv) the right context and (v) the tipping which ward representative publicly kept track of point (WSP 2007). However, the WaterAid study the number of ODF slums under their supervision. of CLTS (Evans et al. 2009) also supported the Several thousand slum dwellers have built their need to institutionalise the results of CLTS inter- own toilets and some slums have also started ventions. It emphasised that triggering is only one projects to repair tube wells and clean drainage point along a trajectory towards improved sanitary ways, showing how CLTS can act as a spring- conditions and that closer involvement of local board to other community development initiatives. politicians and service-providers could led to The lessons learned from this urban CLTS improvements in the sustainability of ODF status experience highlight the influence of subsidies, nat- and sanitation infrastructure. This conclusion is ural leaders and political will. It was found that sub- also highlighted from the Southern region experi- sidies and the associated politics are hurdles for ence in Ethiopia where the Bureau of Health defi- community self-mobilisation. At the same time, it nitely sees the need to build on the existing was found that the CLTS approach was less expens- momentum achieved by CLTS and take further ive than scaling up a large subsidised programme, steps towards a more sustained sanitation situation and investment in software approaches proved (WSP 2007). There appears to be room for the more cost-effective than infrastructure investment institutionalisation and formalisation of CLTS, (SEI 2008). In the first five months of CLTS, 10 which could fit it better to the urban context. slums covering more than 800 households were Given the results achieved through CLTS in the engaged, constructing their own toilets, mobilising Kalyani slum there seems to be a potential for more money than what KUSP could offer as sub- CLTS to be a tool for urban authorities for achiev- sidy. The natural leaders who were so instrumental ing behavioural change and genuine community in motivating the change were encouraged for their participation. work, but at a small cost to the municipality. The role of the natural leaders in the process 5. Experiences in applying people-centred was also emphasised. After the triggering process, approaches these leaders took over the role of motivating change in the other slums. However, it was also Creating a demand-driven approach means work- noted that there was initially more resistance in the ing in a participatory way with a wide range of slums with stronger tribal connections and, as stakeholders. Multi-disciplinary participation would be expected, less social cohesion in those throughout the planning, decision-making and slums with more migrant populations. The lack of implementation processes is seen by many plan- legal status in some slums was also a challenge, ning scholars as a critical means of achieving which underlined how important the support and more equitable and thoughtfully designed cities involvement of the local authorities was to the (Friedmann 1992, Allen et al. 2008). Participatory success of the programme. However, local leaders planning frameworks allow actors from different could also act as gate-keepers and the Kalyani spheres and sectors (public, private, parastatal) to experience showed how crucial political will is in work together, thereby changing individual and insti- implementation of a CLTS approach. tutional perceptions. Working together and trying to International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development 59 find common ground and workable solutions adds Critical analysis of the HCES experiences has also value in many ways. shown that user participation can take on many Experiences with CLTS in rural and peri-urban forms and degrees of empowerment, from weak settings show the power of collective action and the ‘participation by consultation’ to more empower- need to involve the entire community in change. ing ‘interactive participation’, where stakeholders Achieving an ODF community is not the work of are fully involved in the analysis and action plan- one individual but requires the full participation of ning, right-down to project implementation and all inhabitants. However, it also underlines the role infrastructure improvements. The choice of which of natural leaders and local politicians and the influ- approach to use depends on the complexity of the ence that they can have on motivating or hindering issues and the purpose of the engagement. There is successful action. A core element of the CLTS phi- no ‘one size fits all’ formula but a number of tools losophy is therefore the need to sensitise all stake- and techniques that can be applied. Ideally, a good holders and keep them informed (Kar 2006). The participatory process features three elements: strength of CLTS is in its ability to trigger com- munity action and develop a sense of community • participatory methods and tools (e.g. pocket pride and empowerment through joint action. How- voting or problem mapping exercises); ever, in the urban setting, the approach has stumbled • a flexible process for the planning and at hurdles related to local politics and technology sequencing of events; subsidies. CLTS is a powerful behaviour change • a set of guiding principles (as is the case tool, but by itself lacks institutional weight. It has with the HCES or CLTS Guidelines). also been criticised for motivating a desire for sanita- tion without providing the capacity and knowledge To achieve genuine participation, it is important for developing appropriate sanitation systems. to empower local people by raising their skill-level Experiences in testing the HCES process in the and capacity for action. A key issue is information- urban context also stress the importance of devel- sharing from the outset of any project or programme. oping people’s capacity, skills and local know- Individual and collective capacity development ledge, in a way which is parallel to CLTS. It also deserves special attention for the household- shows the importance of an open-ended and flexi- centred approach as this is the main sphere of ble planning framework, which makes the plan- decision making. Although capacity development ning more relevant to local conditions, increases is not explicitly mentioned in the existing guide- people’s control over their livelihoods and helps lines, experience in the different pilot sites has promote community-based action (Eawag 2005). shown that while training and awareness-raising Validation of the household-centred approach workshops were carried out in several of the case highlighted the following lessons, which are in studies (e.g. Laos and Tanzania), this aspect line with participatory planning principles: deserves more attention and resources. In the future, planning efforts must address the capacity • Participation should be relevant and time- deficiency at community and municipal levels in a efficient to the project end-users. more structured way (Lüthi et al. 2009). • Methods and tools used respect the knowledge This recognised need for capacity develop- and experience of all stakeholders. ment, awareness-raising and triggering for behav- • There is an emphasis on learning and know- ioural change within HCES is perhaps the first ledge for action. step in bridging the divide between urban and • The process must acknowledge and address rural approaches to sanitation service delivery. In inequalities of power among participants. the past, urban sanitation planning tools and • The process must remain flexible, even within guidelines, such as HCES, have been designed to a set of guiding principles such as HCES. work mainly within a formalised administrative 60 C. Lüthi et al. network with defined roles and procedures that reality of the contemporary cities of the South, it is give structure to subsequent actions. Although also clear that these approaches can complement they might challenge decision makers to find inno- each other. vative solutions, the tools still worked within the framework of urban government and policies, with 6. Financing community-scale infrastructure minimal impact on the actions of households or projects individuals. In contrast, rural sanitation tools such as CLTS are often designed to work directly at the Experiences with communicative planning processes household level. The origin of many of these tools in the past decades have shown that multi-stake- is often based on participatory rural appraisal and holder approaches with community involvement Self-esteem, Associated strengths, Resourceful- can lead to cost-effective solutions. In many cases, ness, Action planning and Responsibility they have been shown to be less expensive than (SARAR) techniques, which seek to stimulate hardware, supply-driven solutions that fail to meet individuals to identify and solve their own prob- people’s needs and desires. For example, rural- lems. Tools like participatory hygiene and sanita- based CLTS implementation delivers direct benefits tion transformation aim to overcome community for poor households thanks to its self-help, zero- resistance to change by creating a space for dia- subsidy approach. logue and raising awareness of the consequences In dense urban environments, however, capital of poor sanitation. Although the hygiene message costs for infrastructure services are beyond the in these tools often targets individual behaviour means of the poor and various forms of government change, they have also been effectively used for or donor-funded subsidies for capital investments community mobilisation. In the absence of strong are needed, as is the case for drinking water supply. administrative units, rural tools focus on individu- In the HCES cases presented earlier, this was pro- als and community action as the drivers of sanita- vided in the form of a microcredit for sanitation that tion improvements. A comparison of CLTS and provides households credit for household infra- HCES clearly shows the differing perspectives structure improvements below Tanzanian market from which they were developed (Table 1). How- rates or through external donor funds matched by ever, when considering the heterogeneous urban private local funds in the case of Vientiane in Laos. Table 1. Overview of the two presented planning approaches. HCES (2005) CLTS (1999) Context Urban and peri-urban Rural and peri-urban Main aim Improve service delivery for Motivate behavioural change to stop environmental sanitation open defecation Countries tested Applied since 2007 in urban areas of First applied in Bangladesh, since Costa Rica, Burkina Faso, Kenya, then in over 20 countries in Asia Tanzania, Laos, Nepal and Mongolia and Africa Stakeholder involvement - Multi-stakeholder format, focus on - Participatory rural appraisal and methods used primary stakeholders techniques - Include community in all planning steps - Mobilise entire community into collective action Technology choice - Technology neutrality - Mainly simple pit latrines (first - Waste seen as a resource rung of the sanitation ladder) Infrastructure funding - Link to existing municipal and national - 0% subsidy approach funding vehicles; full cost recovery Note: Adapted from SuSanA 2008a. International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development 61 To move to scale and beyond one-off, small- the sanitation service delivery down the line. scale projects, approaches must be able to tap into Technology neutrality forces the stakeholders to decentralised urban infrastructure finance. Targeted think actively on their demands they have on the funding vehicles include poverty-oriented grant fin- sanitation system and what functions the systems ancing of International Finance Institutions (e.g. the should supply. The CLTS process stops at the World Bank’s Social Funds) or national Municipal choice of toilet/latrine, because CLTS in its pure Development Funds. In a further example from an form is only aspiring excreta containment, whereas ongoing HCES site in Kathmandu Valley in Nepal, the technology neutrality of HCES goes all the way follow-up grant funding for implementation has through from collection to treatment and reuse/dis- been secured from UN-Habitat’s Water for Asian posal by explaining the variety of options available Cities (WAC) programme. for each step. An open approach to technologies, in combination with an understanding of the capacity of the service delivery entity on their capacities to 7. Conclusion: creatively combining the best deliver the desired functions, will improve chances of both worlds of a technology choice that meets the demands of This article argues that the two approaches the users and the management capacity of the ser- reviewed here, HCES and CLTS, have complemen- vice delivery entity. tary features making a combination of both Urban and peri-urban areas are complex with approaches ideal for tackling sanitation service regard to meeting infrastructure needs and the prob- delivery in a sustainable manner in challenging lems facing them are heterogeneous and are inter- urban and peri-urban contexts. The CLTS approach linked, but this does not mean that they are with the triggering and stimulating positive behav- impossible to solve. Solutions will require a plan- ioural change has its strengths in creating genuinely ning approach to environmental sanitation that is meaningful action through a community-led and more inclusive, participatory, comprehensive and community-owned process. However, CLTS can- multi-disciplinary. Service provision in such a not maintain a more complex sanitation system as mixed environment will require an integrated plan- exemplified in Figure 3 as this involves stakehold- ning process and a variety of technologies that meet ers at higher levels than the community. HCES on the needs of the poor, rich and middle income the contrary, with its forte as a structured planning groups. Planning will need to recognise the mixture methodology with multi-stakeholder involvement of rural and urban characteristics within the peri- does ensure sustainable basic urban services, espe- urban interface and draw on established strengths cially for disenfranchised urban areas, but is less within these respective fields. Sanitation plans strong in triggering behavioural change which may should utilise behaviour change and community be necessary in many urban and peri-urban settings. mobilisation techniques at the same time as estab- The spotlight in this article on novel, but field- lishing an institutional framework that supports the tested approaches to service delivery in urban and Bellagio principles. For this to work, a specific rural contexts has sought to focus much needed enabling environment needs to be put in place – attention on the process of bringing about effect- government support, political will and support at all ive and sustained access to sanitation. An import- levels, legal framework, institutional arrangements, ant feature of both planning tools is that they take required skills, credit and other financial arrange- a position of technology neutrality; they attempt to ments, information and knowledge management. broaden the set of technology solutions that get Here some of the experiences with HCES can pro- implemented, such that choices are better matched to vide insights and inspiration for the way forward. the economic constraints and management capacity Each sanitation context is unique from a phys- of a given area (Murray 2009). This technology ical, social, economical, environmental and institu- neutrality improves chances for sustainability of tional point of view, which needs to be reflected in 62 C. Lüthi et al. the planning of the sanitation service delivery. This Jennifer McConville is a research fellow at the Stockholm Environmental Institute and specialises in sanitation demands a creative approach where a combination planning. of different existing sanitation planning tools can Elisabeth Kvarnström is a senior research fellow at the improve the likelihood of sustainable sanitation ser- Stockholm Environmental Institute, working with capa- vice delivery through catering for the specific city development in sustainability issues of sanitation. demands in the context at hand. Several organisa- tions and consulting services have already started to move in this direction. For example, to achieve a References higher level of adaptation to the West African peri- Allen, A., Hofmann, P., and Griffiths, H., 2008. Moving urban context, the EU project Netssaf proposed a down the ladder: governance and sanitation that works for the urban poor. In: Background paper planning model combining HCES with participa- produced for the IRC symposium: sanitation for the tory hygiene and sanitation transformation and urban poor, partnerships and governance, Novem- other awareness raising tools (Netssaf 2008). A ber 2008, Delft. combination of the IWA planning tool Sanitation Atkinson, A., 2007. Analysis of urban trends, culture, 21, participatory tools and social marketing has also theory, policy, action. City, 9 (3), 277–295. BBC News Africa, 2009. South Africa vows to stop been proposed for sanitation planning and imple- riots. BBC [online]. Available from: http://news. mentation in Northern Ghana (Kvarnström and bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8164956.stm [Accessed 2 McConville 2007). This article therefore suggests February 2010]. that a combination of several methodologies and Eawag, 2005. Household-centred environmental sanita- structured planning approaches have the potential tion: provisional guideline for decision makers. Dübendorf, Switzerland: Swiss Federal Institute of to improve the sustainability of sanitation service Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag). interventions in underserved urban areas. Evans, B., et al., 2009. Sustainability and equity aspects of total sanitation programmes: a study of recent wateraid-supported programmes in three countries. Acknowledgements Global synthesis report. Preprint prepared for the The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial sup- 34th WEDC Conference, May 2009. port provided by the Swiss Agency for Development Friedmann, J., 1992. Empowerment – the politics of and Cooperation (SDC) and the Swiss National Science alternative development. Cambridge: Blackwell. Foundation (SNSF) through the NCCR North–South Hamdi, N. and Goethert, R., 1997. Action planning for programme. The NCCR North–South is a consortium of cities – a guide to community practice. New York: Swiss institutions and their partners in developing and Wiley & Sons. transition countries. Kar, K., 2005. Practical guide to triggering community- led total sanitation (CLTS). Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. Note Kar, K., 2006. Community led total sanitation in slums 1. The Bellagio Principles were formulated in the year of Kalyani municipality under Kolkata urban 2000 by urban sanitation experts and place the prin- services for the poor (KUSP). Lessons learnt and ciples of human dignity, good governance and outcomes of the sharing workshop on CLTS held on resource recovery in the focus of future urban sani- the 26th May 2006 at Kalyani. tation delivery. See WSSCC 2000 for full text. Kar, K. and Chambers, R., 2008. Handbook on com- munity-led total sanitation. UK: Institute of Devel- opment Studies at the University of Sussex and Notes on contributors Plan. Koné, D., et al., 2007. Helminth eggs inactivation effi- Christoph Lüthi is an urban development planner and ciency by faecal sludge dewatering and co- senior scientist with the Department of Water and Sani- composting in tropical climates. Water research, 41 tation in Developing Countries (Sandec) at the Swiss (19), 4397–4402. Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology Kvarnström, E. and McConville, J., 2007. Sanitation (Eawag) in Switzerland. Current research focusses on planning – a tool to achieve sustainable sanitation? urban strategic sanitation planning and servicing In: Proceedings of the International Symposium on unplanned urban and peri-urban areas. International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development 63 Water Supply and Sanitation For All, 27–28 Sep- [SEI] Stockholm Environment Institute, 2008. Proceed- tember 2007, Berching, Germany. ings from SEI/EcoSanRes2 workshop: planning and Lüthi, C., et al., 2009. People’s choice first – a 4-coun- implementation of sustainable sanitation in peri/ try comparative validation of the HCES planning semi-urban settings – a need for development of approach for environmental sanitation. Bern: existing tools? 25–26 August 2008, Stockholm. NCCR dialogue, Nr. 22. SuSanA, 2008a. Planning for sustainable sanitation in cities Lüthi, C., Schertenleib, R., and Tilley, E., 2007. HCES: [online]. Factsheet Sustainable Sanitation Alliance. a new approach to environmental sanitation plan- Available from: http://www.susana.org/lang-en/work- ning. Waterlines, 12, 2–4. ing-groups/wg06 [Accessed 2 February 2010]. Mara, D. and Alabaster, G., 2008. A new paradigm SuSanA, 2008b. Sustainable sanitation for cities, the- for low-cost urban water supplies and sanitation matic paper version 1.2 [online]. Sustainable Sani- in developing countries. Water policy, 10 (2), tation Alliance. Available from: http://www.susana. 119–129. org/lang-en/working-groups/wg06 [Accessed 2 MoLG, 2005. National sanitation strategy Bangladesh. February 2010]. Bangladesh: Ministry of Local Government. Tilley, E., Atwater, J., and Mavinic, D., 2008a. Recov- Morel, A. and Diener, S., 2006. Greywater management in ery of struvite from stored human urine. Environ- low and middle-income countries, review of different mental technology, 29 (7), 807–816. treatment systems for households or neighbourhoods. Tilley, E., et al., 2008b. Compendium of sanitation sys- Dübendorf, Switzerland: Swiss Federal Institute of tems and technologies. Switzerland: Water Supply Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag). & Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) and Murray, A., 2009. Don’t think of wastewater: evalua- Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and tion and planning tools for reuse-oriented sanita- Technology (Eawag). tion infrastructure. Thesis (PhD). University of UNFPA, 2007. State of the world population 2007. New California, Berkeley, USA. York, USA: United Nations Population Fund. Netssaf, 2008. Netssaf – participatory planning UN-Habitat, 2008. State of the world’s cities 2008/ approach. A guideline for sustainable sanitation 2009. London, UK: Earthscan. planning [online]. Available from: http://www.net- UN JMP, 2008. Progress on drinking water and sanitation ssaf.net/111.0.html [Accessed 2 February 2010]. – special focus on sanitation. Joint Monitoring Pro- Pronk, W., et al., 2007. Pilot experiments with electro- gramme for Water Supply and Sanitation, Geneva. dialysis and ozonation for the production of a ferti- WSP, 2007. From burden to communal responsibility. A lizer from urine. Water science and technology, 56 success story from southern region in Ethiopia. (5), 219–227. Water & Sanitation Programme (WSP) Field Note, Ravaillon, M., Chen, S., and Sangraula, P., 2007. New January 2007. evidence on the urbanization of global poverty. WSSCC Working Group Environmental Sanitation, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 2000. The Bellagio statement [online]. Available 4199, Washington, DC from: http://www.sandec.ch/sesp [Accessed 2 Rosemarin, A., et al., 2008. Pathways for sustainable February 2010]. sanitation: achieving the millennium development WSSCC, 2009. Public funding for sanitation – the many goals. Stockholm: IWA Publishing, EcoSanRes faces of sanitation subsidies. Geneva: Water Supply Programme, Stockholm Environment Institute. & Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC). http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development Taylor & Francis

Community-based approaches for addressing the urban sanitation challenges

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Taylor & Francis
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1946-3146
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1946-3138
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International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development Vol. 1, Nos. 1–2, May–November 2009, 49–63 TJUE International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development a b b Christoph Lüthi *, Jennifer McConville and Elisabeth Kvarnström Department for Water and Sanitation in Developing Countries, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Eawag, PO Box 611, Dübendorf, Switzerland; EcoSanRes Programme, Stockholm Environment Institute, Kräftriket 2B, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden (Received 4 November 2009; final version received 25 January 2010) Urban sanitation presents one of the most significant service delivery challenges related to poverty alleviation and sustainable development in the developing world. The past decade has witnessed inno- vations in service delivery approaches for unserved rural and urban settlements with a clear policy shift to community-based approaches that attempt to overcome the supply-led, over-engineered sani- tation solutions of the past decades. This article presents two examples of new developments: the urban-focussed household-centred environmental sanitation (HCES) and the rural-focussed com- munity-led total sanitation (CLTS) approaches. The internationally renowned CLTS approach has achieved considerable success since its introduction, by harnessing community and small private sector capacity to solve sanitation problems locally. Experience with validation of the HCES approach in a variety of urban sites in Africa, Asia and Latin America is presented in the second part of the article highlighting some of the lessons learned. The article closes by arguing that a combination of HCES and CLTS, two field-tested methodologies, has the potential to improve the sustainability of sanitation service interventions. Keywords: urban basic services; infrastructure planning; environmental sanitation; household-centred approach; community-led total sanitation 1. Introduction will take place in the developing world over the next two decades, and 80% of the world’s urban Rising tensions and recent riots in South Africa’s population will be located there by 2030 (UNFPA townships in July 2009 (BBC News Africa 2009) 2007). Although the majority of the poor will still have demonstrated that service delivery backlogs be living in rural areas, empirical results show that in urban areas will continue to present significant the poor urbanise faster than the population as a political impacts for many developing countries in whole (Ravaillon et al. 2007). However, the the years to come. Many of the world’s cities urbanisation of poverty must be understood in the experience population growth that far exceeds context in which it occurs. The accelerated eco- their absorptive capacity in terms of conventional nomic growth in China and India in the past two shelter, water, sanitation infrastructure, public decades, although leading to rising income ine- health services, employment, education, food sup- quality (especially in urban areas), has lifted over plies and environmental protection. Urban areas in half a billion people out of $1-a-day poverty developing countries are especially at risk as it is between 1981 and 2004 (UN-Habitat 2008). In predicted that 95% of the urban population growth *Corresponding author. Email: christoph.luthi@eawag.ch ISSN 1946-3138 print/ISSN 1946-3146 online © 2009 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/19463131003654764 http://www.informaworld.com 50 C. Lüthi et al. Sub-Saharan Africa, though the urbanisation pro- not invest in new infrastructure because they lack cess has not been associated with falling poverty, formal tenure and are seen as ‘illegal’. The result is in many countries rural and urban poverty prevalence an increasing gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have- is almost the same (UN-Habitat 2008). nots’ in basic services and municipalities that are The challenges of sanitation service delivery are locked into expensive systems without the possibili- exacerbated by the fact that many poor urban resi- ties to extend coverage to those that need it. dents live in the unplanned and underserved infor- Despite this trend, there have been a number of mal settlements commonly known as slums or in recent innovative initiatives for extending the cover- expanding peri-urban areas. Urban administrations age of sanitation services in both rural and urban do not have the capacity and often are not planning contexts. These approaches are based on demand- for service provision in these marginalised areas. driven and participatory approaches that both This is reflected in the most recent United Nations motivate community involvement and encourage Joint Monitoring Programme reports that predict appropriate technology which better fits the realities that the number of the world’s urban population in the field. They promote participatory processes without access to a safe source of drinking water where solutions result from the inputs of local stake- will increase from 137 million (2006) to 296 mil- holders and not solely from ‘conventional wisdom’ lion (2015) and those without access to improved or ‘prescriptive’ planning (Atkinson 2007). This art- sanitation will increase from 661 million to 898 icle examines two of these approaches, one from a million, respectively (UN JMP 2008). rural perspective and the other more urban, to extract In these expansive urban and peri-urban settle- key lessons for improving service delivery in the ments, irregular water supply and ‘on-site sanita- growing complexities of the urban environment. tion’ are the norms. Yet, despite on-site low-cost sanitation being the reality for the vast majority of 2. The heterogeneous city the developing world’s urban population, much of the focus for policy-makers is still on network The rapid rates of urbanisation mean that conven- sewerage and centralised systems designed and tional city planning can no longer keep pace with implemented without consultation or participation population growth and urban sprawl. The result is of stakeholders and beneficiaries (Eawag 2005, that cities are a patchwork of formal and informal Rosemarin et al. 2008). Many governments and settlements, new and old infrastructure, and a wide international donors continue to propagate over- variety of cultures and classes. Especially in the engineered and heavily subsidised solutions informal areas, the slums and peri-urban fringe, assuming that ‘one size fits all’ will improve the modern city can often be described as a fusion access to all persons living in developing cities. between rural and urban environments. One of the Hardware subsidies in the form of infrastructure key challenges to urban service delivery is recog- and connection subsidies can be found in countries nising this complexity and providing adaptive as diverse as India, Senegal or Ecuador, but all solutions that meet people’s needs. have faced similar problems; they tend to be Rural and urban settlements offer different expensive programmes with limited reach that challenges regarding planning and the implemen- encourage subsidy dependency and discourage tation of improved urban services. Rural areas ownership. These national or regional pro- tend to have significantly lower service coverage grammes tend to favour high-cost designs and be rates than the world over. The largest disparity poorly targeted so that they hardly ever reach the between urban and rural sanitation coverage can be poorest segments of urban society and stifle mar- found in Latin America and the Caribbean (86–52%) ket provision and innovation in the sanitation sec- and Southern Asia (57–23%). Sub-Saharan Africa tor (WSSCC 2009). Furthermore, local authorities is worst off, as both rural and urban sanitation and utilities by-pass informal settlements and will coverage are both off track to meet the MDG International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development 51 target coverage (42% vs. 24%) in 2015 (UN JMP and service provision approaches that are tradition- 2008). Thus, the focus in the rural sanitation sector ally adapted to the rural environment. is often simply on hygiene and behaviour change On the contrary, urban areas, especially the and encouraging communities to move towards fast-growing non-tenured informal settlements, open-defecation-free (ODF) environments, i.e. the differ significantly from poor rural areas. This first step towards participation in sanitation serv- has important implications for implementation ices that ensure hygienic separation of human and ratcheting-up service coverage in the urban excreta from human contact. In the heterogeneous context. Issues that come into play such as the city, many of the rural attitudes and norms are political economy, institutional complexity/frag- still present in pockets of the city population, so mentation and urban socio-cultural diversity all that it is still relevant to consider planning tools make for a daunting policy environment to achieve Figure 1. The diverse city: different urban contexts demand context-specific solutions for improved urban services. Map of Nouakchott, capital city of Mauritania. 52 C. Lüthi et al. progress (SuSanA 2008b). Some of the key chal- WSSCC 2005) propose a 10-step process initiated lenges that make the urban area more challenging with a direct request from a community or com- than the rural environment are given below: munity leader and culminating with the implemen- tation of plans developed during the planning • Heterogeneous populations: people from process. Figure 2 shows the 10 steps involved. different origins, ethnic backgrounds, social The HCES approach belongs to the family of norms make for heterogeneous nature of communicative planning frameworks that focus urban settlements (Figure 1); on participatory, bottom-up methodologies where • Land tenureship: a key issue that needs to planners solicit the participation of a variety of be addressed as it is much more difficult to stakeholders in a democratic planning process achieve sustainable infrastructure solutions (Hamdi and Goethert 1997). with tenants or absentee landlords in a Successful implementation of the HCES commoditised urban land market; approach requires the dissemination of informa- • Sanitation chain: Urban sanitation presents tion on affordable and sustainable sanitation great challenges in the development of options to those responsible for improving envi- integrated solutions for managing a variety ronmental services, such as municipal officials, of waste streams that go beyond achieving urban planners and community representatives or defecation-free environments (e.g. proper chiefs. To fulfil their new roles, process stakehold- disposal of household wastewater; faecal ers need to be provided with information and sludge management) (Tilley et al. 2008); assistance so that their capacity to make decisions, • Technology choice: dense urban settle- implement and manage services grows. Widening ments limit the feasible technology options the scope of possible adapted and affordable solu- available (Mara and Alabaster 2008); tions from storage to transport to treatment and dis- • Institutional fragmentation: rural institutional posal/re-use (see Figure 3) is a cornerstone of the responsibilities are mostly straightforward household-centred approach (Lüthi et al. 2007). while in the urban sphere a multitude of differ- A further feature of HCES is the environmental ent stakeholders have a claim: local authorities, sustainability concept based on circular resource health departments, utilities, communities, etc. management systems, addressing environmental sanitation problems as close as possible to their The rest of this article focusses on two approaches source, and emphasis is placed on resource conser- to sanitation service delivery and how they have vation and waste reduction. This underlines recent overcome some of these challenges by integrated sectoral developments that have targeted alternative processes for achieving environmental sanitation approaches and solutions to the increasing environ- systems with the creation of local demand and mental sanitation problem. Innovations follow the acceptance, especially by the urban poor. paradigm to develop a set of technologies that facil- itate and allow best re-use of human waste products. Some examples are urine and faeces separation and 3. The household-centred environmental their re-use in agriculture (Pronk et al. 2007, Tilley sanitation approach et al. 2008), greywater separation and re-use (Morel HCES is a multi-sector planning approach geared and Diener 2006) or faecal sludge collection and towards service delivery in poor urban areas: it inte- treatment for re-use (Koné et al. 2007). grates water supply, storm-water and sewage man- agement; facilitates the incorporation of input from 3.1. HCES validation in Africa and Asia diverse actors and utilises the concept of urban zones for enhancing the implementation of decen- From 2006 to 2009, the HCES approach was tralised options. The HCES guidelines (Eawag/ tested in seven different urban and peri-urban sites d International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development 53 The 10-step process 1. Request for assistance 2. Launch of the planning and consultative process 3. Assessment of current status of UESS 4. Assessment of user priorities 5. Identification of options 6. Evaluation of feasible service combinations 7. Consolidated UESS plans for the study area 8. Finalising of consolidated plans 9. Monitoring, (internal) evaluation and feedback (MEF) 10. Implementation Figure 2. Defining elements of the HCES approach: an enabling environment framework and the 10-step planning process. Figure 3. HCES consider the entire sanitation system and a variety of technical options that are available from the toi- let to the final treatment. Example of a sanitation system configuration involving storage (septic tank), transport (motorised emptying) and treatment (constructed wetland). across Africa, Asia and Latin America. The two sites were all situated in either unplanned informal cases from Laos and Tanzania presented below or recently formalised low-income settlements, validate the methodology and highlight some peri-urban city fringe settlements (peri-urban key lessons about using HCES. The selected pilot interface). rr G 54 C. Lüthi et al. 3.1.1. Lao PDR (Hatsady Tai Village, Vientiane) component) with limited coordination and informa- tion exchange meant that (i) community consultation Hatsady Tai is a small community of about 100 was not well organised and thus partly inconsist- households in the central part of Vientiane with a ent or repetitive; (ii) one planning team could not lack of basic environmental sanitation services. benefit from the interactions of the other team with This densely populated neighbourhood is well the community and (iii) operation and management organised and community members took an active procedures were defined separately, generating a role in the HCES process. Through the HCES pro- feeling of confusion among the community. cess Hatsady Tai village has succeeded in imple- menting new sanitary facilities plus small-bore 3.1.1.3. Involvement and capacity of key stake- sewers and improved drainage lines to prevent holders. The importance and the decision-making future flooding. No households were relocated and power of the district authorities were under- around 80 m of private land was provided volun- estimated. This key stakeholder was not involved tarily for new infrastructure by two private land- early and actively enough in the planning process, owners. Beneficiaries and local enterprise which compromised full political commitment and contributed about 10% of the total project budget thus the smooth management and execution of the (US$ 72,000), the rest was funded by a small project. This was especially felt during Step 8 project fund from the Swiss research programme (finalisation of environmental sanitation service National Centre of Competence in Research plans) and Step 10 (implementation), when top- (NCCR) North–South. The success of this case down decisions were taken by the district authorit- shows the importance of involving all key stake- ies, which put into question the outcomes of the holders, including the community and private sec- participatory planning process. Project implemen- tor from the very start of the planning process. tation (i.e. construction) was complicated by the fact that the local contractor (selected based on the 3.1.1.1. Contextual challenges in Hatsady Tai lowest tender) was not involved in the planning Village, Vientiane. The following section summa- process and thus did not understand the participa- rises the main challenges faced during planning and tory solution-finding process that had taken place implementation of the approach and highlights in the past 12 months. This resulted in ineffective strengths of the planning process. Some of the chal- community mobilisation (community contracting) lenges were external to the project (e.g. ongoing and communication difficulties with the community. institutional reforms at the national level) and there- The project did not put sufficient emphasis on fore, could not be addressed by the project coordina- training and human resource development prior to tion team. The following section focusses on the the planning and implementation of the project. internal challenges and lessons learned during the Some training was carried out, but it was not ori- 18-month planning and implementation process. ented specifically enough towards the core stake- holders of the project. Lack of planning capacity 3.1.1.2. Institutional challenges. The institutional of local authorities and community-based organi- separation of the planning and implementation of sations is clearly one of the main bottlenecks in the solid waste component and the liquid waste urban areas characterised by weak institutional components (drainage, sanitation) compromised settings. This needs to be addressed early on by the effectiveness of the project elements. The community-based approaches such as HCES. share of responsibilities between Water Resources & Environment Administration (coordination of 3.1.1.4. Differing expectations within the beneficiary– the solid waste management component) and the implementer–backstopper relationship. There Public Works and Transportation Institute (PTI) were different interests and expectations among the (coordination of the liquid waste management community (i.e. the beneficiaries), the implementing International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development 55 agency (PTI) and the backstopping agency (Eawag). has led to a strengthening of community capacity and The community expected the implementing agency self-organisation and has managed to raise awareness to provide services as quick as possible. Eawag, as about the water – sanitation – health nexus. The a research institution, was mainly interested in the municipality, in collaboration with a local NGO, is planning process and requested well-defined now in the process of setting up a microcredit facility working plans and progress documentation. PTI, for funding improved sanitation at household level in as the main implementing agency, found itself in Changombe. the centre of this conflict. Despite contractual agreements and agreed ToR for each party of the 3.1.2.1. Contextual challenges in Chang’ombe project coordination committee, the roles and settlement, Dodoma. In the following, we summa- responsibilities were interpreted in as many ways rise some of the context-related challenges faced as there were parties. Clear project monitoring, during the validation process in Dodoma. feedback and accountability procedures were missing. 3.1.2.2. Institutional challenges. The main institu- tional challenges were in dealing with the two 3.1.1.5. Limited willingness/ability to pay. During most powerful institutions in Dodoma: the implementation, it was found that the residents Dodoma Urban Water Supply and Sewerage were not able to pay the planned household sanita- Authority (DUWASA) and the Capital Develop- tion improvements and were reluctant to take out ment Authority (CDA). Both institutions found it loans despite the microcredit scheme established difficult to ‘buy-in’ to a new participatory process at the neighbourhood level. This reluctance was that diverges from the status quo and fosters not recognised early enough and not well addressed experimentation outside of the norms within in community consultation and awareness cam- which they are deeply embedded. DUWASA car- paigns. This eventually led to friction between res- ries the term ‘sewerage’ in its name and is above idents and the project coordination committee all, interested in expanding its sewerage network during implementation. Issues such as the finan- to all planned areas of town, even if almost 90% of cial contribution by households or the cost sharing Dodoma’s citizens will continue to rely on on-site for the retrofitting of buildings had to be settled by systems like septic tanks and simple latrines. the negotiation committee. DUWASA currently does not operate any exhauster trucks (although it is planning to purchase one in 2010) but does allow faecal sludge to be disposed 3.1.2. Tanzania (Changombe, Dodoma) of in the waste stabilisation ponds and believes An unplanned but formalised settlement north of the that centralised sewerage is still the most efficient town centre, Changombe, offers some of the worst and safest way for excreta removal. sanitation-related problems in Tanzania’s capital city Inflexibility on the part of the utility has at with regular outbreaks of cholera. There are only times caused uneasy relations between the HCES four public water standpipes, serving a population of project unit and DUWASA representatives; 35,000, and many households continue to rely on DUWASA did not attend the workshops and contaminated high-level groundwater. Innovations in showed general disinterest in the planning process. the HCES planning approach included the construc- However, following the options workshop (July tion of three demonstration facilities at schools and 2008), the DUWASA Sanitary Engineer did start public buildings based on community priorities iden- to show interest and contributed to the experts tified in an options workshop. These pilot facilities meetings. The willingness to invest in the purchase allowed community members to test and better of a new exhauster truck shows that DUWASA understand novel sanitation facilities adapted to dry, began to see a potential money-earning market in water-scarce environments. The planning process emptying the thousands of on-site facilities in 56 C. Lüthi et al. Dodoma. Overcoming ‘institutional inertia’ takes and community representatives shared their views time and comes in gradual steps, but it appears as and discussed viable options for improving envi- if DUWASA is making steps in the right direction. ronmental conditions. A good degree of agreement The CDA is a powerful institution that holds was achieved during the workshops and group all public land in Dodoma and wields overall plan- work sessions. Initial resistance from the water ning authority. This means that unlike other local and sewerage utility could be partially overcome. authorities in Tanzania, Dodoma Municipality has Because of the many workshops, focus group dis- no major assets and no real planning authority. cussions and social events (e.g. official opening of CDA managed to regularise the entire unplanned the school toilets at Chang’ombe Primary), there is settlement of Chang’ombe in 2007 and ensured now a great willingness to improve urban environ- that the inhabitants secured tenure. The promised mental conditions in the neighbourhood. This is upgrading of roads and drainage systems has been crucial for raising demand for funds from the delayed because of the lack of funds. It also cre- microfinance project to be used for sanitation. ated some project delays by initially refusing to Key project features of the HCES validation grant construction permits to the three planned include the following: pilot facilities in Chang’ombe. As in Laos, a further challenge was the limited • efficient planning and implementation costs management capacity at all levels; capacity that is (planning costs below US$ 2 per inhabitant needed to carry out this kind of comprehensive and implementation costs of between US$ 30 planning approach in a secondary city in Africa. and 60 per beneficiary); There are too few professionals who understand • reasonable planning timeframe of 15–20 sanitation options at household and community months – depending on context and size of levels, a lack of expertise to carry out statistically settlement and sound sample surveys and a lack of skilled moder- • ability to attain real participation in project ators/communicators who combine communica- selection, project design to operation and tion skills with knowledge about community maintenance of works (this is currently dynamics. Professional capacity development being studied in more detail through an ex- requires considerable attention in the future. Given post cross-country evaluation). the low capacity in terms of time and human resources, the HCES approach in its current format is 4. Community-led total sanitation still too demanding for the reality of small- and medium-sized African towns. Community-led total sanitation was initiated in An important learning is that planning and Bangladesh in 1999, as an innovative methodology programming for safe sanitation is not only about for eliminating open defecation (Kar 2005). It has logistical and financial issues but about another attracted much attention for its simplicity of obstacle to improving hygiene and sanitation: get- approach and the rapid results that follow. Success ting people to change their behaviour – especially stories of the CLTS approach in rural areas show that in the expanding peri-urban settlement areas. This after a single-day triggering event in which commu- is where the CLTS participatory approach to nities are led to experience disgust at the present san- empower local communities may add value to the itation situation, villages achieve ODF status within structured HCES planning approach. a month (Kar and Chambers 2008). CLTS uses a participatory approach to empower local communi- 3.1.2.3. Strengths. The 14-month planning process ties to stop open defecation and promote the building in Dodoma brought together a great many stake- and use of latrines through community-led action holders from public, private and civil society (local instead of subsidies. Although there are many varia- and international NGOs). During the process, officials tions in the specifics of the approach, all apply the International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development 57 core elements of (a) working with the whole com- inspired authorities in the urban municipality of munity rather than individuals and (b) focussing on Kalyani near Kolkata, India, to introduce CLTS in stopping open defecation rather than construction of its informal settlements. The Kolkata Metropolis a particular type of latrine, hence no subsidies for has over 12 million inhabitants, of which about hardware. The approach has shown positive results one third are estimated to live in slums. Before the and proved to be a strong triggering mechanism for CLTS intervention, the area was characterised by community hygiene behaviour change, especially in a high rate of open defecation. Since 2003, the rural South and Southeast Asian, as well as in several Department for International Development (DFID) African countries. supported Kolkata Urban Services for the Poor Where it has been implemented in rural areas of (KUSP) Programme, which has been active in pro- Asia and Africa, CLTS has resulted in a very large viding sanitation solutions to the Kalyani urban uptake in latrine construction and latrine use. In poor. Originally, almost one third of its budget Bangladesh, where CLTS started, more than 16,000 (US$ 17.7 million in 2003–2004) was spent on rural villages have been declared ODF and the infrastructure, with the highest priority given to approach is now recognised in national policy household toilet construction (SEI 2008). The (MoLG 2005). In the Southern Region of Ethiopia, KUSP provided slum households with free toilets with a population of 14 million, a locally adapted (cost of US$ 236). However, it was noted that the version of CLTS has been developed and used within subsidised facilities often had low usage rates, were an existing institutional setting, the Bureau of Health, poorly maintained or were used for other purposes using its own funding sources to run the process and than defecation. In addition, the programme real- this has led to a pit latrine ownership increase from ised that the subsidy approach would not be able to 13% in 2003 to 88% in 2008 (WSP 2007). In a study reach 100% of the population at the same time as it of the WaterAid-supported CLTS interventions in was creating a dependence on external subsidies. rural Bangladesh (Evans et al. 2009), the general out- In 2005, the concept of an urban CLTS was come showed continued up-grading and repairing of conceived under the KUSP and with the support of latrines, sustained behaviour change and highly cost- the Chairman of Kalyani Municipality who effective programme implementation. showed the political will to make Kalyani an ODF As noted earlier, many of today’s rapidly urban- City (SEI 2008). A pilot CLTS exercise was con- ising cities contain a heterogeneous mix of people, ducted in the Kalyani slums with the objective to infrastructure and service provision which are rep- test the approach of ‘self-mobilisation’ in an urban resentative of both urban and rural attitudes and slum and to empower the local community through standards. The great strength of the CLTS approach community participation. The CLTS programme is in triggering behaviour change and mobilising was coordinated and facilitated by the chief health community action to reinforce this change. Poor officer of Kalyani Municipality who was keenly hygiene practices and open defecation are not prob- interested in the approach. The CLTS process sen- lems restricted to rural areas and therefore hygiene sitised all levels of stakeholders about the method, promotion campaigns are frequently included in including elected municipal councillors and urban sanitation programmes. The CLTS success departmental heads of the municipality, local with mobilising behaviour change and increasing NGOs and Community-based organisations (CBOs), community involvement makes the adaptation of health workers and community people including this tool to urban setting an attractive possibility. local community leaders. It was made clear that the goal was behaviour change and not the model of toilet. However, the first piloting failed, prima- 4.1. CLTS validation rily because of high expectations for subsidies. Although most of the experience with CLTS comes In the other four pilot areas, however, the CLTS from the rural context, the success of the method approach ‘clicked’. There were natural community 58 C. Lüthi et al. leaders who emerged to take on the process of pro- The results from the urban experience in moting ODF and eventually other community Kalyani support the lessons learned from rural projects. All five slum settlements were declared work with CLTS. Key lessons learned from these ODF within six months although it took longer in rural CLTS experiences are the importance of (i) the first slum. The approach was spread to the rest leadership that is well-informed, well-respected of the municipality and 44 out of the 52 slums in and well-connected, (ii) an affordable product, Kalyani were declared 100% ODF by 2007. The (iii) latent demand by a critical mass of early municipality established a monitoring system in adopters, (iv) the right context and (v) the tipping which ward representative publicly kept track of point (WSP 2007). However, the WaterAid study the number of ODF slums under their supervision. of CLTS (Evans et al. 2009) also supported the Several thousand slum dwellers have built their need to institutionalise the results of CLTS inter- own toilets and some slums have also started ventions. It emphasised that triggering is only one projects to repair tube wells and clean drainage point along a trajectory towards improved sanitary ways, showing how CLTS can act as a spring- conditions and that closer involvement of local board to other community development initiatives. politicians and service-providers could led to The lessons learned from this urban CLTS improvements in the sustainability of ODF status experience highlight the influence of subsidies, nat- and sanitation infrastructure. This conclusion is ural leaders and political will. It was found that sub- also highlighted from the Southern region experi- sidies and the associated politics are hurdles for ence in Ethiopia where the Bureau of Health defi- community self-mobilisation. At the same time, it nitely sees the need to build on the existing was found that the CLTS approach was less expens- momentum achieved by CLTS and take further ive than scaling up a large subsidised programme, steps towards a more sustained sanitation situation and investment in software approaches proved (WSP 2007). There appears to be room for the more cost-effective than infrastructure investment institutionalisation and formalisation of CLTS, (SEI 2008). In the first five months of CLTS, 10 which could fit it better to the urban context. slums covering more than 800 households were Given the results achieved through CLTS in the engaged, constructing their own toilets, mobilising Kalyani slum there seems to be a potential for more money than what KUSP could offer as sub- CLTS to be a tool for urban authorities for achiev- sidy. The natural leaders who were so instrumental ing behavioural change and genuine community in motivating the change were encouraged for their participation. work, but at a small cost to the municipality. The role of the natural leaders in the process 5. Experiences in applying people-centred was also emphasised. After the triggering process, approaches these leaders took over the role of motivating change in the other slums. However, it was also Creating a demand-driven approach means work- noted that there was initially more resistance in the ing in a participatory way with a wide range of slums with stronger tribal connections and, as stakeholders. Multi-disciplinary participation would be expected, less social cohesion in those throughout the planning, decision-making and slums with more migrant populations. The lack of implementation processes is seen by many plan- legal status in some slums was also a challenge, ning scholars as a critical means of achieving which underlined how important the support and more equitable and thoughtfully designed cities involvement of the local authorities was to the (Friedmann 1992, Allen et al. 2008). Participatory success of the programme. However, local leaders planning frameworks allow actors from different could also act as gate-keepers and the Kalyani spheres and sectors (public, private, parastatal) to experience showed how crucial political will is in work together, thereby changing individual and insti- implementation of a CLTS approach. tutional perceptions. Working together and trying to International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development 59 find common ground and workable solutions adds Critical analysis of the HCES experiences has also value in many ways. shown that user participation can take on many Experiences with CLTS in rural and peri-urban forms and degrees of empowerment, from weak settings show the power of collective action and the ‘participation by consultation’ to more empower- need to involve the entire community in change. ing ‘interactive participation’, where stakeholders Achieving an ODF community is not the work of are fully involved in the analysis and action plan- one individual but requires the full participation of ning, right-down to project implementation and all inhabitants. However, it also underlines the role infrastructure improvements. The choice of which of natural leaders and local politicians and the influ- approach to use depends on the complexity of the ence that they can have on motivating or hindering issues and the purpose of the engagement. There is successful action. A core element of the CLTS phi- no ‘one size fits all’ formula but a number of tools losophy is therefore the need to sensitise all stake- and techniques that can be applied. Ideally, a good holders and keep them informed (Kar 2006). The participatory process features three elements: strength of CLTS is in its ability to trigger com- munity action and develop a sense of community • participatory methods and tools (e.g. pocket pride and empowerment through joint action. How- voting or problem mapping exercises); ever, in the urban setting, the approach has stumbled • a flexible process for the planning and at hurdles related to local politics and technology sequencing of events; subsidies. CLTS is a powerful behaviour change • a set of guiding principles (as is the case tool, but by itself lacks institutional weight. It has with the HCES or CLTS Guidelines). also been criticised for motivating a desire for sanita- tion without providing the capacity and knowledge To achieve genuine participation, it is important for developing appropriate sanitation systems. to empower local people by raising their skill-level Experiences in testing the HCES process in the and capacity for action. A key issue is information- urban context also stress the importance of devel- sharing from the outset of any project or programme. oping people’s capacity, skills and local know- Individual and collective capacity development ledge, in a way which is parallel to CLTS. It also deserves special attention for the household- shows the importance of an open-ended and flexi- centred approach as this is the main sphere of ble planning framework, which makes the plan- decision making. Although capacity development ning more relevant to local conditions, increases is not explicitly mentioned in the existing guide- people’s control over their livelihoods and helps lines, experience in the different pilot sites has promote community-based action (Eawag 2005). shown that while training and awareness-raising Validation of the household-centred approach workshops were carried out in several of the case highlighted the following lessons, which are in studies (e.g. Laos and Tanzania), this aspect line with participatory planning principles: deserves more attention and resources. In the future, planning efforts must address the capacity • Participation should be relevant and time- deficiency at community and municipal levels in a efficient to the project end-users. more structured way (Lüthi et al. 2009). • Methods and tools used respect the knowledge This recognised need for capacity develop- and experience of all stakeholders. ment, awareness-raising and triggering for behav- • There is an emphasis on learning and know- ioural change within HCES is perhaps the first ledge for action. step in bridging the divide between urban and • The process must acknowledge and address rural approaches to sanitation service delivery. In inequalities of power among participants. the past, urban sanitation planning tools and • The process must remain flexible, even within guidelines, such as HCES, have been designed to a set of guiding principles such as HCES. work mainly within a formalised administrative 60 C. Lüthi et al. network with defined roles and procedures that reality of the contemporary cities of the South, it is give structure to subsequent actions. Although also clear that these approaches can complement they might challenge decision makers to find inno- each other. vative solutions, the tools still worked within the framework of urban government and policies, with 6. Financing community-scale infrastructure minimal impact on the actions of households or projects individuals. In contrast, rural sanitation tools such as CLTS are often designed to work directly at the Experiences with communicative planning processes household level. The origin of many of these tools in the past decades have shown that multi-stake- is often based on participatory rural appraisal and holder approaches with community involvement Self-esteem, Associated strengths, Resourceful- can lead to cost-effective solutions. In many cases, ness, Action planning and Responsibility they have been shown to be less expensive than (SARAR) techniques, which seek to stimulate hardware, supply-driven solutions that fail to meet individuals to identify and solve their own prob- people’s needs and desires. For example, rural- lems. Tools like participatory hygiene and sanita- based CLTS implementation delivers direct benefits tion transformation aim to overcome community for poor households thanks to its self-help, zero- resistance to change by creating a space for dia- subsidy approach. logue and raising awareness of the consequences In dense urban environments, however, capital of poor sanitation. Although the hygiene message costs for infrastructure services are beyond the in these tools often targets individual behaviour means of the poor and various forms of government change, they have also been effectively used for or donor-funded subsidies for capital investments community mobilisation. In the absence of strong are needed, as is the case for drinking water supply. administrative units, rural tools focus on individu- In the HCES cases presented earlier, this was pro- als and community action as the drivers of sanita- vided in the form of a microcredit for sanitation that tion improvements. A comparison of CLTS and provides households credit for household infra- HCES clearly shows the differing perspectives structure improvements below Tanzanian market from which they were developed (Table 1). How- rates or through external donor funds matched by ever, when considering the heterogeneous urban private local funds in the case of Vientiane in Laos. Table 1. Overview of the two presented planning approaches. HCES (2005) CLTS (1999) Context Urban and peri-urban Rural and peri-urban Main aim Improve service delivery for Motivate behavioural change to stop environmental sanitation open defecation Countries tested Applied since 2007 in urban areas of First applied in Bangladesh, since Costa Rica, Burkina Faso, Kenya, then in over 20 countries in Asia Tanzania, Laos, Nepal and Mongolia and Africa Stakeholder involvement - Multi-stakeholder format, focus on - Participatory rural appraisal and methods used primary stakeholders techniques - Include community in all planning steps - Mobilise entire community into collective action Technology choice - Technology neutrality - Mainly simple pit latrines (first - Waste seen as a resource rung of the sanitation ladder) Infrastructure funding - Link to existing municipal and national - 0% subsidy approach funding vehicles; full cost recovery Note: Adapted from SuSanA 2008a. International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development 61 To move to scale and beyond one-off, small- the sanitation service delivery down the line. scale projects, approaches must be able to tap into Technology neutrality forces the stakeholders to decentralised urban infrastructure finance. Targeted think actively on their demands they have on the funding vehicles include poverty-oriented grant fin- sanitation system and what functions the systems ancing of International Finance Institutions (e.g. the should supply. The CLTS process stops at the World Bank’s Social Funds) or national Municipal choice of toilet/latrine, because CLTS in its pure Development Funds. In a further example from an form is only aspiring excreta containment, whereas ongoing HCES site in Kathmandu Valley in Nepal, the technology neutrality of HCES goes all the way follow-up grant funding for implementation has through from collection to treatment and reuse/dis- been secured from UN-Habitat’s Water for Asian posal by explaining the variety of options available Cities (WAC) programme. for each step. An open approach to technologies, in combination with an understanding of the capacity of the service delivery entity on their capacities to 7. Conclusion: creatively combining the best deliver the desired functions, will improve chances of both worlds of a technology choice that meets the demands of This article argues that the two approaches the users and the management capacity of the ser- reviewed here, HCES and CLTS, have complemen- vice delivery entity. tary features making a combination of both Urban and peri-urban areas are complex with approaches ideal for tackling sanitation service regard to meeting infrastructure needs and the prob- delivery in a sustainable manner in challenging lems facing them are heterogeneous and are inter- urban and peri-urban contexts. The CLTS approach linked, but this does not mean that they are with the triggering and stimulating positive behav- impossible to solve. Solutions will require a plan- ioural change has its strengths in creating genuinely ning approach to environmental sanitation that is meaningful action through a community-led and more inclusive, participatory, comprehensive and community-owned process. However, CLTS can- multi-disciplinary. Service provision in such a not maintain a more complex sanitation system as mixed environment will require an integrated plan- exemplified in Figure 3 as this involves stakehold- ning process and a variety of technologies that meet ers at higher levels than the community. HCES on the needs of the poor, rich and middle income the contrary, with its forte as a structured planning groups. Planning will need to recognise the mixture methodology with multi-stakeholder involvement of rural and urban characteristics within the peri- does ensure sustainable basic urban services, espe- urban interface and draw on established strengths cially for disenfranchised urban areas, but is less within these respective fields. Sanitation plans strong in triggering behavioural change which may should utilise behaviour change and community be necessary in many urban and peri-urban settings. mobilisation techniques at the same time as estab- The spotlight in this article on novel, but field- lishing an institutional framework that supports the tested approaches to service delivery in urban and Bellagio principles. For this to work, a specific rural contexts has sought to focus much needed enabling environment needs to be put in place – attention on the process of bringing about effect- government support, political will and support at all ive and sustained access to sanitation. An import- levels, legal framework, institutional arrangements, ant feature of both planning tools is that they take required skills, credit and other financial arrange- a position of technology neutrality; they attempt to ments, information and knowledge management. broaden the set of technology solutions that get Here some of the experiences with HCES can pro- implemented, such that choices are better matched to vide insights and inspiration for the way forward. the economic constraints and management capacity Each sanitation context is unique from a phys- of a given area (Murray 2009). This technology ical, social, economical, environmental and institu- neutrality improves chances for sustainability of tional point of view, which needs to be reflected in 62 C. Lüthi et al. the planning of the sanitation service delivery. 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Journal

International Journal of Urban Sustainable DevelopmentTaylor & Francis

Published: Jan 1, 2009

Keywords: urban basic services; infrastructure planning; environmental sanitation; household-centred approach; community-led total sanitation

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