Service approach needed to ensure sanitation is grounded in reality
Updated - Wednesday 19 November 2008
A project approach will never succeed in solving the urban sanitation crisis because it will not succeed in sustaining services in the long term or extend them to all who need them.
That was the central theme of the main background paper to the symposium, introduced by IRC’s Joep Verhagen. The aim was to promote a service approach which tried to ensure that people received services long term. “Service at scale does not just mean reaching a lot of people, it means at scale in terms of time. You want service today, you want it tomorrow you want it in five years.”
A service delivery looked at the entire chain hardware and software, delivery and support.
“We believe that local government is essential. Civic society has an important role but delivering services cannot be done without the involvement of local government.”
Embedded in urban reality?
Joep Verhagen asked participants to address two key questions:
“Is the approach or methodology well embedded in the urban reality or does it try to keep the reality out? We believe that unless you engage with the urban reality you will never be able to go to scale.”
The second set of questions was: “Whose shit is it? How do you deal with it and who foots the bill?” The first question is to do with governance, the second is to do with technology and the third is to do with finance.
In urban slums insecurity was a barrier to finding solutions. Local authorities do not want to acknowledge that slum dwellers have a right to live where they live, while people who rent properties are reluctant to invest in improving the environment.
The options that people have are often unacceptable. “If I had a choice between a dirtyn community toilet and the beach next to it I would use the beach.” As a result, many women have to wait for the night and take risks to find somewhere to defecate.
Joep said that delivering services is the outcome of a political process, and that must be addressed in sustainable sanitation service delivery forthe urban poor.
