Increasing Sustainability of Water and Sanitation

Despite the urgent need for adequate water and sanitation services in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), there are significant challenges in constructing development projects which provide sustainable solutions to existing problems. This post is going to describe these challenges and explore how they can be overcome.

Continuing on from last week, the first component of sustainability is effective community demand. The challenge with this is that despite the need for water and sanitation facilities being universal, the understanding of local demand for such needs is not well-known because documentation is limited. Facilitation processes are hindered due to a lack of physical and technical infrastructure in SSA communities. The second component is local financing and cost recovery. The lack of financial services poses a significant challenge. Often it discourages community members from partaking in water and sanitation activities. The third component is dynamic operation and maintenance (Montgomery et al., 2009). Unreliable and inefficient services can be a result of inadequate monetary awareness and planning and a distinct absence of accessible replacement parts or technical expertise (Hutton and Bartram, 2008).

Breaching the Barriers

Improving both access and sustainability of water and sanitation facilities in SSA is a difficult task that requires development practitioners, engineers, and policymakers to work together to assist communities in achieving their goals. In their paper, Montgomery et al. (2009) identify four steps which can be taken to overcome the challenges to establishing sustainability:

1. Improving communication-idea transfer and stimulating behavior change – local priorities ought to be understood through demand assessments;
2. Increasing access to capital and financial sustainability – making use of alternative means of borrowing and managing financial resources can assist communities in overcoming financial barriers;
3. Establishing dynamic operation and maintenance practices – community members should play an important role in developing and enforcing an operation and maintenance plan; and
4. Call for assessing sustainability in water and sanitation services – assessment of use is important to global aims and determining success of projects.

Headway towards realising and ideally exceeding the water and sanitation targets set out in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires those involved in improving the situation of access in SSA to alter their concentration from focusing solely on increasing infrastructure to focusing on attaining long-term practicality aims through improving operation and maintenance of existing systems.

SDG 6. Source: United Nations

The basic components of sustainability arguably provide a structure for involved actors to organise and apply water and sanitation enterprises. If the African population were to be equipped with the means to effectively and efficiently support water and sanitation systems, the outcome would be one of improved economic, health, and educational benefits. Montgomery et al. (2009) go as far as to suggest it would provide ‘future generations of Africans with a realistic opportunity to escape the devastating cycle of poverty.’

This blog has identified and critically assessed a number of possible solutions to development challenges regarding access and use of water and sanitation in SSA. There has been a focus on the urban and the challenges it faces, looking at case studies in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Nairobi (Kenya), and Dakar (Senegal), among others. While the rapid growth of urban populations has amplified the demand for safe water and sanitation facilities, it is impossible for me to say whether this age has brought with it solutions which quash the tension between our growing needs and what the planet can provide.

Sustainability of Water and Sanitation

Today, many in developed countries take water and sanitation for granted, while many others in developing countries across the globe are deprived of this basic human right. The impacts of this on human populations are significant, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where access to safe and secure water and sanitation services is often limited. The impacts are so extensive that, according to Montgomery et al. (2009), a ‘lack of universal access to water and sanitation results in well over a million preventable deaths each year.’

However, among the most significant measures to enhance a population’s well-being and health, increase economic prosperity, and decrease high rates of rural and urban poverty is to increase the provision and use of safe water and sanitation services, so far as to say that it is universal. Sustainable development goal (SDG) 6, as formulated by the United Nations, even suggests that access to safe water and sanitation services are two prerequisites for communities to thrive.

So often, however, these vital services do not exist or fail or cater for everybody’s needs. The challenge that remains for actors involved in improving the situation of access to safe water and sanitation services, in countries where provision and use is limited, is to combine efforts to ‘make pro-poor [water and] sanitation a reality and interdisciplinarity the norm’ (Paterson et al., 2007). Together, there is a greater possibility that the critical need for sustainability in both water and sanitation sectors will be met.

Sustainability as a Pragmatic Concept

Sustainability can be defined as ‘whether or not something continues to work over time’ (Carter et al., 1999). With a specific regard to water, sustainability is whether:

1. Water continues to be abstracted at the same rate and quality as when the supply system was designed;
2. The excreta and wastewater disposal systems continue to function and be used as planned; and
3. Environmental quality continues to improve.

The problem in developing countries is that these systems fail to continue to work over time. They are unsustainable. According to Carter et al. (1999), the ‘sustainability of community water supply and sanitation systems involves a chain of four essential links, the failure of any one of which endangers the entire enterprise.’

Sustainability chain. Source: Carter et al. (1999)

Community members might not utilise the improved source of water because the taste might be unfamiliar or there might be a further distance to travel to collect safe water compared to unimproved sources. If there is no community motivation to use the facilities, then sustainability is unmanageable. The second element in the sustainability chain is maintenance. This is a fundamental component, because both water and sanitation systems will become unusable without it. Next in the chain is cost-recovery. Funding for projects should ideally be determined by communities, as they can select a viable technology to improve access to safe water and sanitation facilities. The last element in the sustainability chain is continuing support. The sustainability of both water and sanitation systems in the long-term will be determined by the level of input by local municipalities or non-governmental organisations, as community enthusiasm for projects can begin to fade after two or three years (Carter et al., 1999).

Elements of Sustainability

In their perspective paper, Montgomery et al. (2009) uncover the most important elements of sustainability in both sectors, in order to extract the primary obstacles in meeting these elements, to then comment on the most viable resolutions for disabling and overcoming obstacles within a Sub-Saharan Africa context. Together, they identified and presented three main elements from existing literature that are fundamental to greater sustainability, which include:

1. Effective community demand;
2. Local financing and cost recovery; and
3. Dynamic operation and maintenance.

The basic premise is that the presence of these three elements increases the likelihood of a community gaining a functioning water and sanitation supply for the long-term, while the neglect of these three elements undermines sustainability.

According to Montgomery et al. (2009), ‘effective community demand is the foundation for understanding and prioritizing community and household water and sanitation needs.’ The scholars argue that a demand-responsive approach results in a system founded on the wants of the community members, their financial budget, and what they can sustain. The reason for why they have prioritised demand-responsive approaches over supply-driven approaches is because the latter is often associated with a lack of funds, financial and operational mismanagement, and inequality as it often benefits wealthier community members.

Local financing and cost recovery, as the second element fundamental to greater sustainability, ‘refers to local access to capital and savings’ (Montgomery et al., 2009). Until recently, water and sanitation problems have not often been included in local investment programmes. Lately, however, we have witnessed greater levels of local financing of projects that permit more tolerant repayments schedules, allow for non-monetary forms of repayment (including labour and supplies), and increase business development in rural areas (Fonseca et al., 2007).

Dynamic operation and maintenance, as the third element fundamental to greater sustainability, relates to the level of performance which allows for adjustments and alterations (Montgomery et al., 2009). This element, according to Harvey and Reed (2007), is based on determining certain duties and 'responsibilities that may be held by the community, an external provider, or through a collaborative arrangement.'

Three elements of sustainability. Source: Montgomery et al. (2009)

The next and final blog in this series of posts on water and sanitation in the Sub-Saharan African context will describe the challenges in establishing these elements of sustainability in order to go on to explore how these obstacles can be overcome.

Burdensome Access to Water and Sanitation

Some of you might be wondering why this blog is named Realising African Rights. To overturn this query, I will outline the reasons why in this post. Then, to pre-emptively quash any concerns about the legitimacy of my claim, I will support it with a range of examples.

The right to safe water and sanitation facilities has been embraced whole-heartedly by international organisations as nothing less than a basic human right. The United Nations, in particular, has adopted this term time and time again, using it to illustrate its position on access to water and sanitation. Yet, in accordance with Sultana and Loftus (2012), ‘how such universal calls for a right to water are understood, negotiated, experienced and struggled over remain key challenges.’

In other words, despite the fact international organisations, governments and quasi-governmental institutions, non-governmental organisations, and other, grassroots organisations, all, repeatedly, demonstrate the fact they understand the miserable situation in regard to water and sanitation, I am of the opinion not everyone is fully aware of the undesirably restrictive access to safe water and sanitation facilities in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

I argue the water and sanitation target in the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (7.C) was not met because the vast majority of the world’s population did not appreciate or concern themselves with this problem, and the target to ‘ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all’ in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS) (Goal 6) is likely to follow a similar path and not be achieved.

Children drink from water pump. Source: Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters

The reason for this claim is based on the fact progress to eliminate the detrimental effects attached to a limited access to safe water and sanitation facilities is slower than the level it should be. The combined efforts of all actors involved in improving the situation of access to safe water and sanitation facilitates should, I suggest, mean headway is much quicker.

The catastrophically large number of child deaths caused by diarrhoeal disease (which many label is a waterborne disease) in SSA is, for example, a persistent problem. It is a problem which has received attention in a variety of policy documents and initiatives, but has not been overcome. Today, according to the WHO (2016), an estimated 1.5 million child deaths per year are caused by the disease.

The time spent collecting water by women and children, as another example of how the situation of access to safe water and sanitation has been neglected by the vast majority of the world’s population, is extremely high in SSA. In fact, according to the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Report (2015), ‘women and children spend 125 million hours each day collecting water.’ This is time which woman could use to participate in income earning market-based activities. Furthermore, Gayatri Koolwal and Dominique van de Walle (2010) found that ‘both boys’ and girls’ [school] enrolments improve as a result of a reduction in the time needed to collect water.’

Surely, I believe, there are enough socially responsible and conscious individuals on this planet to overcome such harming scenarios in relation to water and sanitation. While this blog has looked into the history of water provision and developmental efforts to overcome unfavourable situations of a limited access to safe water and sanitation in SSA, the next couple of blogs in this series of posts will take a look into the future. It will explore sustainability as a pragmatic concept and the components which compromise sustainable development.

The Unique Case of Dakar, Senegal

Earlier on in this blog I spoke about the implications of rapid urbanisation in Sub-Saharan Africa, and how, on the one hand, it is a process which provides urban spaces with the stimulant they need to grow, yet, on the other hand, it is a phenomenon which inflicts significant challenges for the development of improved safe water sources and sanitation facilities. Now, as this blog has developed, I want to inform this debate by providing an in-depth example of how rapid population growth in an urban area can exaggerate problems of access to safe water and sanitation facilities.

This post is going to look at the anthropic pressure put on water resources in the region of Dakar, Senegal. The city of Dakar is the capital of Senegal, and is the most populated area in the country. The unregulated growth of the coastal population in recent years has exaggerated problems of access to safe water and sanitation services, becoming a major source of concern for both water supply and quality control (Re et al., 2010).

The public supply of water in the region of Dakar is derived from a combination of sources, including groundwater and water piped from the Senegal River (Figure 1). However, an assortment of challenges is preventing the effective supply of safe water and sanitation services in the city and region. The most stressing issue revolves around the contamination of groundwater sources.

An outflow pipe in the city of Dakar, Senegal. Source: Getty Images

Contrary to many other regions within Africa, where groundwater has been labelled as a viable option to increase the supply of safe water (Döll et al., 2012; Taylor et al. 2009), the situation in the Dakar region is much different. In countless cities and regions across Africa, groundwater is in abundance, it is relatively clean and does not require any chemical treatment, and, according to Taylor et al. (2013), might grow in supply irrespective of the driving forces of climate change. In Dakar, there are numerous issues with their groundwater source, relating mainly to its quality.

In 2002, an early warning bulletin on groundwater quality for Dakar was released by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP, 2002). This report highlighted the fact that the aquifers in Dakar were beginning to become contaminated beyond an acceptable level, stating: ‘Widespread contamination of the aquifer by nitrates is imminent.’ However, in 2016, the situation has only worsened (Richard Taylor, UCL Geography Lecture, 2016). This is partially down to contamination from faecal matter and partially attributable to the intrusion of salt water due to Dakar’s coastal location and high water table.

This makes me question the applicability of groundwater stores as one of the main supplies of drinking water for the population of Dakar. Luckily, the authorities have had similar provisions. In recent years, members working with France’s Eranove subsidiary (Senegalaise des Eaux) have been looking into the provision of desalination plants to provide clean and abundant water. The development of a desalination plant in Dakar will, supposedly, provide an additional 100,000 cubic meters of water per day (CR 2014). However, this approach to increase the provision of fresh water is still very expensive. Current methods of desalination still require lots of energy. Perhaps a more viable approach would be to re-construct and extend wastewater networks so that groundwater is not contaminated in the first place.

The city of Dakar is a classic example of poor water supply and management. Regardless of the (questionably) innovative management agendas affecting Dakar, more needs to be done to improve the situation off access to safe water and sanitation facilities.

PHAST: A Participatory Approach to Development

A theme which has been touched upon on numerous occasions in this blog is that of participatory development; a concept which has arisen out of the increasing contestability of the term ‘development’ (Willis, 2005). Participatory approaches to development, as a reminder to those whom have not touched upon this subject in great detail, have been born out of a distaste with “top-down” approaches. They are “bottom-up” solutions in a development context, which are characterised by indigenous knowledge, the empowerment of marginalised individuals, and, clearly, community participation, which, together, give power to local actors (Briggs, 2005).

One particular example of this kind of bottom-up approach to a development problem can come from PHAST, which is an abbreviation for Participatory Hygiene and Sanitation Transformation. The approach is clearly defined in the WSSCC 2009 Annual Report:

The approach is a participatory learning methodology that seeks to help communities improve hygiene behaviours, reduce diarrhoeal disease and encourage effective community management of water and sanitation services.

This is an approach which has an objective to empower small-scale, local communities to improve their hygiene behaviours by promoting community-management of both water and sanitation services. The goal is to improve the general health of the targeted populations by reducing and eventually preventing the spread of diarrhoeal diseases. PHAST encourages community learning and planning through the application of a seven step process (Lienert, 2011), introduced from the World Health Organisation (1998) (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Seven steps to community planning for the prevention of diarrhoeal disease. Source: WHO (1998)

The seven-step process is applicable to a wide-range of communities which are attempting to enhance their overall hygiene behaviours and sanitation facilities. There are many advantages to such a participatory approach, including the fact community members can: gain the ability and confidence to undertake their own projects, meaning their voices are heard; have an effective involvement in the workings of the community through monitoring and evaluating the implemented services; and be trained in participatory techniques to become a lasting asset to the community.

Nevertheless, the development of such a process can be quite burdensome. There are some standout disadvantages in regard to the PHAST initiative, including the fact: training requires a vast number of man-hours to conduct in-depth training of community members, which also has implications on the budget; training does not mean community members will end up being equipped with the appropriate skills to assist community projects; the initiative requires a well-structured management structure; and it is relatively time-intensive.

All-in-all, participatory approaches to development provide a valuable alternative to “top-down” initiatives. The PHAST approach, as an in-depth example, offers many advantages compared to market-based or "top-down" approaches.

The Shortcomings of Market-Based Approaches in Nairobi, Kenya

Following on from blog post 6, where I spoke of numerous inadequacies among urban services in Nairobi, Kenya, and a solution to the problem of a lack of sanitation facilities, namely that provided by SC Johnson with Community Cleaning Services (CCS), this post will unravel the underlying principles behind market-based approaches to development in order to assess their effectiveness. The aim is to find out whether market-based approaches are an adequate alternative to state-controlled systems of provision.

In order to refresh your memories, I will provide a quick recap of what CCS was and what it did: CCS, sponsored by SC Johnson, was an innovative market-based approach to deal with the limited availability of safe sanitation services in the slums of Nairobi. CCS employed around twenty young individuals to provide a cleaning service within their communities, operating on over one-hundred toilets. Thus, this project was dedicated to improving the state of sanitation in Nairobi’s slums, while also providing entrepreneurial prospects for the younger generation (Thieme and DeKoszmovszky, 2012).

CCS' youthful employees. Source: Washplus Resources

From what I can gauge from reading around this specific market-based approach to improve the situation of access to safe sanitation facilities in Nairobi, Kenya, is that it is one which had substantial potential, but was, perhaps unsurprisingly, plagued with similar problems to market-based development practices world over. As promoting development was not the sole objective for every involved stakeholder, and there was always concern in regard to profits, this business, which turned a basic human need into an opportunity, failed to deliver. Due to unforeseen circumstances, including issues in regard to payment habits and certain cultural dynamics about men entering the home of a woman without her husband being present, this particular scheme had to seize its operations in 2012, seven years after its inception (Thieme, 2015).

This corporate-led development scheme is likely to be viewed as a business failure for a number of reasons. First, its participatory nature perhaps caused there to be inefficient business management. For instance, an inadequate payment method arguably heightened concerns over money flows and profits. Second, its profit-dominated focus and privatisation of cleaning services diverted attention away from the objective of improving sanitation facilities. However, depending upon someone’s background, their opinion on CCS’ operation can differ. A practitioner focusing on sustainability may view the development scheme as a socially responsible agenda, in which a business approach was applied in order to promote entrepreneurial opportunities and the improvement of sanitation facilities (Cross and Street, 2009). And others might regard CCS as ‘business innovation’ (Thieme, 2015), one which combines job creation with human welfare, and sets a precedent for other similar initiatives. The commodification of this basic service can, therefore, be applauded.

However, from a geographer’s perspective, a departure from an approach which considers safe water and sanitation facilities as economic goods will, arguably, provide a more effective, development-focused strategy (Bakker, 2007). The practice of participatory development, inaugurated by, for example, socially responsible development organisations, is arguably a more appropriate approach to improving inadequate sanitation services in Nairobi, and the rest of the developing world. Indeed, this is because the commodification and marketisation of basic goods and services must have an adequate cost-recovery or profit-making infrastructure – a formality which draws attention away from the primary development objectives – so that the initiatives are economically maintainable (WSP 2010).

Initiatives which encourage engagement from community actors, which are not founded nor sponsored by commercial companies, are both more balanced and morally attractive. The initiatives will be adapted to avoid similarities with failed top-down approaches, and will be based around ideologies of equality and empowerment (Hickey and Mohan, 2004).

Nevertheless, participatory approaches to development are not without their own problems and inadequacies. This is an issue which requires some careful consideration and will therefore be the primary focus of my next blog post. Therefore, in the next blog in this series, I will be focusing on the effectiveness of participatory approaches to development, with a specific consideration towards the provision of safe water and sanitation facilities in Sub-Saharan Africa.

19 November: World Toilet Day

This blog in this series of posts on water and sanitation is now going to take a slight interlude and, today, focus on what was the 16th World Toilet Day.

‘Minuscule masterpieces for World Toilet Day’ – Timbuktu, Mali. Source: WaterAid

For the vast majority of the world’s population, having a toilet, or more than one toilet, within your house is a given. This should come as no surprise as needing to use the bathroom is an incident that occurs a handful of times each day and thus it makes perfect sense to have the required facilities nearby. However, for many, ‘having a toilet in one’s home is a distant aspiration’ (Thieme 2016). There are numerous issues of access to sanitation which often revolve around cost and safety.

Since 2001, the 19th of November has been labelled World Toilet Day, in order to promote the importance of confronting ‘the oft-neglected global sanitation crisis’ (UN 2016). The toilet, albeit previously a taboo subject, has become a sort of poster child to spark a global interest in the situation of access to sanitation facilities. Unquestionably, this phenomenon is worthy of this intensified attention, as poor provision is a leading cause of disease in Sub-Saharan Africa and developing countries world over, with 2.4 billion people across the world living without access to improved sanitation (UN 2016).

This year’s particular theme revolves around ‘toilets and jobs,’ and how ‘toilets play a crucial role in creating a strong economy’ (World Toilet Day 2016). The United Nations recognises the fact that inadequate sanitation puts a large strain on economic development, estimating that poor sanitation can account for a 5% loss in GDP for many countries within Sub-Saharan Africa. Thus improved sanitation offers itself as a preemptive measure to avoid this burdensome result.

However, what needs to happen beyond World Toilet Day is a wider recognition and appreciation of what the toilet stands for, if we are going to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 6: to ‘ensure access to water and sanitation for all’ (UN 2015).

Journalist Rose George looked into many hidden but important topics during a Ted Talk in 2013. During the conference, she urges everybody to look at this problem as the “urgent, shameful issue that it is.” Rose concludes by saying the solution to all of this is “easy” and that we all need to “go out, protest, and speak about the unthinkable and talk shit.”

Let’s talk crap. Seriously. Source: Ted Talk

The next post is going to look closely into sanitation projects and their effectiveness in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a particular focus on Nairobi, Kenya.


To find out more about World Toilet Day, visit: www.worldtoiletday.info

Making Comparisons in Nairobi, Kenya

“The global sanitation crisis is rapidly urbanising” – McFarlane et al. (2014)

Like in Tanzania, the rapid urbanisation of Kenyan cities is causing all sorts of problems in regard to the situation of access to safe water and sanitation facilities. Rapid urbanisation has left cities in Kenya without the ability to cope with the enormous demand for basic services to the extent that only 81.65% of the urban population are served with improved water (WHO/UNICEF 2015). As is possible to see by referring to Figure 1, the situation is worsening in Kenya while improving in Sub-Saharan Africa. This lack of provision means ‘some 15 million city dwellers lack access to a piped water supply or sanitation services’ (WSUP, 2016).

Figure 1: Graph showing urban population served with improved water (%). Source: WHO/UNICEF (2015)

This shortage of adequate urban services is exaggerated in low-income regions, as a large proportion of the population is forced to settle in illegal and informal settlements WSUP (2016). In Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city, the situation of access to safe water and sanitation facilities is especially bad in urban slums, where services are scarce, costly, and uncertain.

Nairobi is home to Africa’s largest urban slum, known as the Kibera slum. Kibera is an informal settlement without the full provision of basic urban services, such as water and sanitation facilities. The inadequate provision of services in Kibera is a result of numerous factors, including:

The unwillingness of the post-colonial government to accept the legitimacy of the growing settlements it inherited, the unregulated context of vendors and landlords building enterprise on shaky rights, and the rise and fall of gangs and cartels operating with connections to city government (Crow and Odaba, 2009).

Within Kibera, like in every other locality with inadequate water and sanitation infrastructure, a longstanding taboo surrounding bodily waste has caused ‘a lack of attention to urban inequalities’ (Jewitt, 2011). Issues surrounding the discussion of bodily waste have meant limited sanitation services continue to persist in Kibera, and Nairobi as a whole. This is to the extent that only 31.23% of the urban population are served with improved sanitation (WHO/UNICEF 2015).

The burdensome access to sanitation facilities calls on authorities and organisations to create and employ responsive schemes and strategies to relieve disadvantaged individuals and households of their enduring problems. One innovative market-based approach, sponsored by SC Johnson, in the slums of Nairobi, including Kibera, was a scheme known as Community Cleaning Services (CCS). Under this intervention, young individuals would provide a cleaning service within their communities. This project was dedicated to improving the state of sanitation in Nairobi’s slums, by operating on around 100 toilets, while also providing entrepreneurial prospects for the younger generation (Thieme and DeKoszmovszky, 2012). This is an example of how an inclusive, participatory, and empowering scheme, otherwise known as a bottom-up approach, can help improve the situation of access to safe water and sanitation in Sub-Saharan Africa.

However, there are shortcomings with this particular scheme; issues which I will delve into in my next blog post, where I will also discuss the effectiveness of other solutions to a limited provision of water and sanitation services in Nairobi, Kenya.

Services and Supply Chains in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

As I alluded to in the previous blog post, water supply in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, is highly undependable. Throughout the city, there are persistent breakdowns in the production of water, disruptions to power, and the deterioration of piped networks. Problems which have been exaggerated by the effects of climate change. Droughts, in particular, have triggered severe devastation to the water networks (Mushi, 2013).

For this reason, sizeable areas within the city continue to exist unserved by the water utility, namely The Dar es Salaam Water and Sewerage Authority (DAWASA), and many of those households which do have access to the piped system have to endure an unreliable service. Consequently, small-scale domestic, private, and informal suppliers of water have been driven to show agility in response to deficiencies in the DAWASA network (UNDP, 2011), and now provide a basic yet fundamental service for many, especially the urban poor whom are detached from the piped network and would otherwise not be reached.

In most cases where urban water utility is notoriously insufficient, residents exploit all their resources and conjure up approaches to manage with the unreliable or intermittent supply of water (Nganyanyuka, 2014). However, in Dar es Salaam, the outcome has been a somewhat inefficient, ineffective, and costly service, which strongly penalises the already urban poor. The informal service that has arisen from the inadequate public supply of water is very disjointed, with many drawn-out supply chains.

According to the UNDP (2011), this has resulted in many low-income households, which are situated far away from the DAWASA utility infrastructure, purchasing water from vendors ‘at the end of the private supply chain at a price equivalent to over US$17/m3,’ a price almost thirty times as much as what is paid by a household which is connected to the DAWASA piped network (US$0.59) (Foster and Briceño-Garmendia, 2010). These lower-income households do not pay such prices because they have the money and ability to do so, but because, in most cases, there is no other alternative. Gaining access to water is a priority in every household, regardless of economic worth.

Water vendor in Dar es Salaam. Source: Humanosphere

Thus, the small-scale domestic, private, and informal suppliers of water in Dar es Salaam present an enormous policy challenge. Regardless of the significant role they play in increasing water access for the residents of the city, the vast majority of independent providers are not regulated. For instance, the price of the water is solely decided by the provider’s own discretion and the quality of the water is rarely checked.

Hence, at one time and the same time, private vendors offer an indispensable service which supports many in low-income regions, yet are a burden to the provision of long-term, inclusive, and consistent water supplies in the city. According to the UNDP (2011):

They provide an essential service to a large proportion of Dar es Salaam’s residents and support livelihoods in low-income areas … [but] at the same time, they are a manifestation of a vastly inefficient system that is fragmented, individualized and extremely regressive.

This post has tried to illustrate some of the pros and cons of private efforts to supply water in a city ridden with water access problems. However, to take this example in Dar es Salaam as illustrative of all private efforts is not sufficient. In the next post in this series, I will be exploring a different example of an adaptive response to a limited supply of water, showing either similarities or differences in approaches.

Informing the Debate: Water Access in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Given the path this blog series is beginning to take (looking into the implications of rapid urbanisation and the adopted solutions in urban regions among Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)), I have decided it is an appropriate time to introduce a site-specific case-study example in order to supplement the blog posts I have done so far. Having spent some time in Tanzania, and more specifically Dar es Salaam, I want to take this opportunity to enrich my understanding of the country and city, knowing the nation has sizeable problems in regard to the provision of water services.

In developing countries world over, society’s access to safe drinking water continues to be a major challenge for policymakers and governing bodies. This unfortunate situation of access to safe drinking water seems to be exaggerated among nations in SSA, where just 61% of the population have access to improved water sources (UNICEF/WHO, 2012). Dar es Salaam, in particular, suffers from a limited access to safe drinking water, but these insufficiencies are far from new. The city’s inadequate water facilities date back to the colonial period and have not been on the receiving end of maintenance or development many times since. Thus, for most of the citizens in the city, access to safe water is poor, and in some cases nonexistent (Smiley, 2013).

The Dar es Salaam Water and Sewerage Authority (DAWASA) is the primary supplier of piped water in the city. The corporation owns all of the water infrastructure in Dar es Salaam. However, there are many deficiencies in the system. According to a recent report by Nganyanyuka et al. (2014), just shy of half the water produced reaches its intended target, as it is often lost as a result of decaying infrastructure and illegal extractors. This tells us the situation has not changed a great deal since the turn of the century, where, at that time, fewer than half the population received their water from DAWASA (Kjellen, 2000).

The Dar es Salaam Water and Sewerage Authority logo. Source: DAWASA

The city is also subject to rapid urbanisation; a phenomenon which is making the condition progressively worse for urban dwellers. As I mentioned in my last post, rapid urbanisation in SSA inflicts a significant challenge for the development of improved safe water supply sources to the extent that countless cities throughout SSA are struggling to meet basic infrastructural needs in regard to safe water. This is the case for Dar es Salaam; the city experiences great inadequacies in the provision of water as a major proportion of the population reside in unplanned communities, where it is notably harder to provide piped water supplies (Smiley, 2013).

This case study makes me think back to the question I originally posed on my first blog post: will disparities between Sub-Saharan Africa and more developed regions across the world widen, or will this age of rapid urbanisation bring with it solutions and opportunities?

For all the shortcomings with the formal provision of water by DAWASA, a number of alternative means to gain access to safe water have arisen. Water vending has become a major sector in the informal economy and a way to provide water in a city where pipe distribution is not available to all citizens (Nganyanyuka et al., 2014). An influential study by Kjellen (2000), suggested vending should be an interim solution, regarding the practice highly:

The private, commercial and community initiatives compensate for the shortcomings of the public water distribution system, and should be seen as a complement towards meeting city dwellers’ demand.

However, the water access situation in Dar es Salaam is still inefficient and ineffective. More recent studies by Sarah Smiley (2013) and Nganyanyuka et al. (2014) highlighted the fact many households were supposedly the recipients of clean water on paper, yet in reality they faced issues of water contamination or an undependable or expensive source of access.

Thus, the current state of water access in Dar es Salaam leaves a lot to be desired. For all the interventions, disparities only appear to be widening between Dar es Salaam and more developed nations, as conditions worsen in the city.

The Implications of Rapid Urbanisation in Sub-Saharan Africa

The main purpose of this post is to identify and explain the rationale behind the patterns of access to safe water and sanitation facilities in various urban regions throughout Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), mainly taking into account the implications of rapid urbanisation.

Rapid urbanisation in SSA has been viewed by some observers as a phenomenon which provides urban spaces with the stimulant they need to grow. Indeed, it is undeniable that urbanisation provides the conditions conducive to economic and infrastructural expansion, as economic activity takes a step away from the agricultural-type described in Rostow’s "Traditional Society" to become more advanced and lucrative.

In reality, ‘virtually no country has graduated to a high-income status without urbanizing, and urbanization rates above 70 percent are typically found in high-income countries’ (World Bank’s 2013 Global Monitoring Report). Thus, longstanding principles of economic and development progression have regarded urbanisation as a fundamental aspect of economic growth in the developing world.

However, for all the economic and development advances that reside from rapid urbanisation in SSA, the region’s urban population has been subject to sizeable drawbacks. For all its advantages, rapid urbanisation in SSA inflicts a significant challenge for the development of improved safe water supply sources and sanitation facilities. This is to the extent that countless urban regions across SSA are failing to meet basic infrastructural needs in regard to safe water and waste disposal, for example (UNISDR).

As I alluded to in the first post of this series, the rapid growth of urban areas has amplified the demand for access to safe water and sanitation facilities to the extent that population growth in urban SSA is increasing the tension between the population’s growing needs and what the planet can actually provide. This resonates with the opinion of Joan Clos, the Executive Director of UN-HABITAT, who said:

Africa is the fastest urbanizing continent on the planet and the demand for water and sanitation is outstripping supply in cities.

There are many reasons for this negative relationship, most of which revolve around the increasing tension put on facilities by a growing population. Despite the fact that since the mid-1990s urban access to a safe water supply has expanded, albeit slowly, efforts to increase the SSA population’s access to an improved water supply have not been sufficient to cope with such high levels of population growth (World Bank, 2011). As alluded to by Baye et al. (2012), water supply systems and sanitation facilities have failed to meet the needs of consumers as they are continuously confronted with problems of under- and over-use, negligent maintenance and insufficient ‘cost recovery.’

The process of rapid urbanisation is seen by some observers as a largely unwelcome source of more problems in regard to access to safe water and sanitation facilities. The development of improved water supply facilities in nations with high growth rates among urban populations is often seen to be trailing behind urban population growth. For this reason, an increasing number of the urban population in SSA are turning to unimproved sources of drinking water, including wells, boreholes and vendors. In fact, dependence on wells and boreholes in urban regions with high population growth rates grew from 25 to 27 percent between the late 90s and the late 2000s (World Bank, 2011).

This may come as a revelation since the number of individuals with access to piped water has increased dramatically over the past 10 years (see Graph 1).

Graph showing urban population served with piped water. Source: WHO/UNICEF (2015)

However, there is a simple explanation for why so many urban dwellers are having to turn to unimproved sources of drinking water. The issue is one of distribution, not volume; the development of piped water services in urban spaces in SSA has been uneven. The current tariff arrangements benefit the wealthiest in society. For example, in Accra, Ghana’s capital city, 80 percent of the affluent communities have access to the piped public supply, whereas only 16 percent do in less well-to-do areas (World Bank, 2011).

Urban population growth has too overtaken the rate of improved sanitation in SSA, leaving a greater number of the population dependent on unimproved forms of sanitation. Countries with high population growth rates among their urban regions tend to have a comparatively lower proportion of their population with access to improved sanitation. This is evidenced by Carolina Dominguez Torres, as she writes for the World Bank:

In the late 2000’s, on average 52 percent of the urban population in these countries had access to improved sanitation, compared to 67 and 71 percent in countries with medium and low urban population growth rates, respectively.

The need for improved sanitation facilities in Ethiopia, for example, is stark, as a mere 21 percent of the population has access to satisfactory sanitation facilities. In Ethiopia, the majority of the population, mostly the deprived urban dwellers, are subsisting in contaminated environments, unprotected from sanitation and water-related diseases. In fact, more than 88 percent of the population in urban slums are forced to use unimproved sanitation services (Beyene et al., 2015).

This post has aimed to explore the state of access to safe water and sanitation facilities in SSA, using various examples of spaces which are experiencing rapid urbanisation. By identifying the various patterns of access in SSA, it is possible to begin to comprehend how far management strategies still have to go to meet various goals. The next blog in this series of posts will take a look into a specific example of a current system of water provision in an urban setting within Africa, and go on to analyse its effectiveness.

Development in Practice: Alternatives to Top-Down Solutions

The water landscape in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is characterised by inconsistencies within and between nations. For instance, some nations were much closer than others to achieving the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 7.C, which was 'to halve by 2015 the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.' In this post, I present a brief overview of the history of development practice in urban SSA by looking into the evolution of water practices and policies.

MDG 7.C. Source: United Nations

Historically, development practice across SSA has been predominately “top-down” (Gould, 1993). There has been a longstanding notion that practices of development in the West can be exported to other territories; a notion that characterises the rest of the world as “the other” – an idea which stems from Edward Said with Orientalism (1978). However, this approach to development has been highly criticised by scholarship. Perera and Tang (2013), for instance, have condemned the United Nations for adopting a “one size fits all” approach in their efforts to theorise the world’s cities and their problems.

Development has thus become a highly contested term (Willis, 2005). In the last couple of decades, academics, politicians, economists, and the like, have begun to realise the problems of top-down approaches and that “bottom-up” solutions are preferable in many contexts. These bottom-up approaches are characterised by participation, indigenous knowledge, and the empowerment of marginalised individuals (Briggs, 2005). By giving power to local actors and making them more involved in the design of policy and schemes that directly affect them, bottom-up approaches to development are increasingly being recognised as an adequate alternative to more traditional top-down approaches (Crescenzi and Rodríguez-Pose, 2011).

In the case of water and sanitation, bottom-up approaches have had some success among SSA nations in recent years. Drawing upon research from Dill (2009), it is possible to discover an example of bottom-up water governance in the city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which serves as evidence to suggest bottom-up development solutions are often more appropriate and effective than their top-down alternatives.

The situation of access to safe water and sanitation services in Dar es Salaam is problematic to the extent that ‘among the many challenges confronting Dar es Salaam’s residential areas, lack of access to improved water sources is arguably the most enduring, problematic and important’ (Dill and Crow, 2014). Across Dar es Salaam, urban residents are beginning to adopt greater responsibility for the provision of safe water and sanitation facilities through a range of ‘government-community partnerships’ (Dill, 2009). Such schemes are thought to be fundamental to make sure provision is effective, competent, sustainable, nondiscriminatory, and appropriate for the needs of urban residents.

This post has provided a brief overview of the history of development practice in urban SSA by looking into the evolution of water practices and policies. It has introduced the notion of bottom-up approaches to development as an alternative to more traditional top-down approaches. The next post will take a look into the implications of rapid urbanisation in urban areas within SSA.

Access in Africa

Welcome to the first post in a blog concerning access to safe water and sanitation in urban Africa.

Most of us will probably agree the positive contributions to welfare made by safe water and sanitation cannot be overstated. It is a universal need (Baye et al., 2012) and nothing short of a basic human right (UN 2010). However, many countries around the world have found themselves in quite the predicament, as decades of national and international interventions have failed to overcome the barriers to improved conditions.

The United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – the framework that has played a key part in improving the lives of the world's poorest people – challenged the international community to 'halve the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.' Yet, as the MDG era has come to a close, it is possible to see how far we still have to go. Despite the UN suggestion that more than 90 percent of the world’s population now has access to improved sources of safe and secure water, we have fallen short in meeting the sanitation goal, as 2.4 billion people are still without access to improved sanitation facilities.

In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), access to clean water and sanitation services is notoriously insufficient. Throughout the region, 319 million people do not have access to improved drinking water and 695 million people lack improved sanitation facilities (WHO, 2015). Moreover, approximately one out of every five deaths in children under the age of 5 years is attributable to a water-related disease (WHO/UNICEF 2009).

Many of the problems relating to access in SSA are exaggerated in urban regions and in cities, especially. African cities are said to be the fastest growing cities in the world. According to The World Bank, cities in SSA are growing at a rate of 4.2% per year.

Graph showing population growth. Source: The World Bank

The rapid growth of urban areas has amplified the demand for access to safe water and sanitation facilities. Thus, population growth in urban Africa increases the tension between our growing needs and what the planet can actually provide.

In the posts that will follow in the coming months, I hope to explore the implications of rapid urbanisation on access to safe water and basic sanitation in urban SSA, and identify the management strategies which could jointly form a unified approach to achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6. Furthermore, I will consider whether disparities between SSA and more developed regions across the world are going to widen, or whether this age of rapid urbanisation can bring with it solutions and opportunities.

The next blog in this series of posts will take a look into the history of development practice in urban SSA by exploring development in practice.