Urban & Peri-Urban Sanitation Workshop

Background | Purpose | Key Objectives
Envisaged Outcomes | Target Group

Background

Globally, despite an increase of almost 40% in the number of people served with improved sanitation, the deficit of urban unserved is growing. According to current projections, the number of urban dwellers without access to improved sanitation will increase by almost 50% by 2015, compared to 1990.

However,  in recent years a number of promising approaches to urban sanitation have emerged, including community managed toilet, washing and bathing complexes, component sharing and pit-emptying enterprises. Furthermore, a number of approaches proving successful in rural areas are now being tried in urban areas, for example CLTS and social marketing. These all have one thing in common – their success or failure hinges on much more than technological choice or sufficient financing – the relationships that underpin and maintain them are crucial.

Purpose

Sanitation in informal settlements is a particularly complex field with a large range of stakeholders. Each has carved out their own niche and faces a very specific set of incentives and disincentives. Not surprisingly, talk of partnership abounds in this sector; yet the challenges of creating and managing these partnerships remain relatively uncharted territory.

The Learning and Sharing Workshop sought to unravel this complexity, providing a robust set of tools with which to plan and negotiate partnerships on the ground.  The workshop was conducted by professionals from BPD Water and Sanitation, IRC Water and Sanitation Centre and WSSCC. They were supported by practitioners, municipal authorities, policymakers and NGOs from, South Africa, Mozambique and other SADC countries with pressing urban and peri-urban sanitation challenges, such as Angola, Malawi, Madagascar, Zimbabwe and Zambia. The workshop was conducted in a participatory manner, ensuring ample room to respond to particular issues faced by participants and allowing wide sharing of experience. 

This workshop built on successful collaboration between IRC and BPD in hosting a one-day Sanitation Partnerships Masterclass during the November 2008 IRC Symposium on Sanitation for the Urban Poor. 

Key Objectives

1. To help practitioners and policymakers better understand the circumstances in which partnerships for urban and peri-urban sanitation delivery can be effective (and highlight when they are not) and provide principles to help those planning or participating in such partnerships.
2. To enable practitioners from different sectors (civil society, government and the private sector) to talk through real-life case studies involving sanitation delivery, unpacking the incentives and disincentives for collaboration and the impact partnership has had on the ground.
3. To help practitioners cut through much of the complexity of sanitation partnerships, giving them a robust set of tools with which to plan and negotiate partnerships on the ground. 

The starting premise was that participants had as much to learn from each other as did the workshop ‘tutors’.  Group work and two-way exchange between participants was mixed with other training methods to achieve these three objectives.

Envisaged Outcomes

• Enhanced cooperative relationships among sanitation and hygiene planners, practitioners and service providers
• Enhanced partnerships from various perspectives – what are the specific drivers and needs of public, private and civil society actors?

Target Group

The workshop was open to practitioners from public, private and civil society institutions and organisations undertaking a role in urban and peri-urban sanitation planning, infrastructure development and/ or ongoing service delivery in the SADC region.