“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.
Hi Robert, don’t you think there is some ambiguity in the term ‘improved’? For me, it seems presumptive that the WHO/UNICEF (2015) report can say that 81.65% of the urban population are served with improved water. Do you agree?
ReplyDeleteHello,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment and question. My initial thoughts are definitely similar to yours, but let’s have a look into this.
The WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) is responsible for the construction and implementation of the standard definition and classifications for the situation of access to safe water and sanitation facilities. Their definition of “improved” is as follows: ‘An "improved" drinking-water source is one that, by the nature of its construction and when properly used, adequately protects the source from outside contamination, particularly faecal matter. An "improved" sanitation facility is one that hygienically separates human excreta from human contact.’
I do agree with what you have said. In practice, there are many problems with this definition: many “improved” sources are not adequately free for contamination; there are many issues surrounding maintenance of these improved systems, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa; and, as of Osman Bah’s study of rural well improvement in Sierra Leone, it can be said that many of these improved systems are located far from where they ought to be insofar that they are not used to the extent that they should be.
However, the JMP does have some credibility. In the WHO/UNICEF 2015 Update and MDG Assessment, the JMP is said to have ‘benefitted enormously from the support and advice of experts, policymakers and practitioners working in the field of drinking water, sanitation and hygiene … to provide technical advice on specific issues and methodological challenges related to monitoring the MDGs.’ For the purposes of monitoring, this definition might well be the best approach possible.
This is certainly a contestable issue. I hope I have provided some insight into this complex issue.
Robert
http://www.wssinfo.org/definitions-methods/watsan-categories/
http://www.ircwash.org/sites/default/files/824-7825.pdf
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/2081Progress_on_Sanitation_and_Drinking_Water.pdf
Hi Rob,
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting. With regards to your final paragraph, to what extent do you think that market-based approaches are the way forward in sanitation? To put it another way, is sanitation a profitable market on a large scale, or ultimately will provision be down to the state?
Hi Ana-Lin,
DeleteThank you for posing this question. From what I can gauge from reading around this matter is that market-based approaches to improve the situation of access to sanitation in Sub-Saharan Africa, and developing countries all over, have substantial potential, but are, unsurprisingly, plagued with similar problems to development practices world over.
With specific regard to Community Cleaning Services (CCS) in Nairobi, Kenya, burdensome access to sanitation facilities was reduced because of this bottom-up initiative. The partnership between SC Johnson and the youths within the slums of Nairobi was extremely innovative and had some success in improving the state of sanitation, while also providing entrepreneurial prospects for the younger generation.
However, market-based approaches do have their own problems. Despite its inclusive and participatory nature, involving many disempowered individuals, the scheme failed for numerous reasons. There were issues of governance, problems with the logistics of paying, and the hindrance of cultural norms/household dynamics, such as men entering a home without another man present. In all, this meant SC Johnson and the young workers in Nairobi reached a point where they were no longer in profit and were forced to seize their operations.
While market-based approaches have a great deal of potential, they have to be properly governed, with an adequate understanding of the specific context. However, despite the fact there are issues with market-based approaches, this does not mean sanitation provision should reside solely with the state. Top-down initiatives provided by the state have their own problems, which are arguably much more intimidating than those posed by CCS, for example.
If you would like to find out more about the nexus between top-down and bottom-up approaches to development, then take a look at some of my earlier blog posts, as I have touched upon this matter on numerous occasions.
Robert