Improvement of urban environmental sanitation services (UESS) in Ban Hatsady Tai, Vientiane City, Lao PDR

This paper looks at the Household-Centred Environmental Sanitation Planning (HCES) as an approach to environmental sanitation. The HCES approach is a radical departure from past central planning approaches as its places the household and its neighborhood or the community at the core of planning process, and looks at environmental sanitation services including water supply, storm water drainage, and sanitation and solid waste management) in a comprehensive manner. For this article, the authors seek to evaluate the HCES approach with Ban Hatsady Tai, Vientiane City (Lao PDR) as a case study.

Using the HCES approach to plan and implement urban environmental sanitation services offers the opportunity of overcoming the short comings often observed in conventional approaches, which largely neglect the population living in low income areas. Ban Hatsady Tai was selected as case study site for the
testing of the preliminary HCES planning guideline as

• the village lacks appropriate urban environmental sanitation services (UESS). Solid and liquid waste is being discharged within the village boundaries without any  management strategy in place, leading to a deterioration of the living environment and to increased health risks
• the local authorities and the community of Hatsady Tai agreed that the problems related to UESS must be tackled urgently and agreed to adopt the HCES planning approach with active participation of all main stakeholders, especially the community in the planning and decision making process
• there is an interest on national level for alternative approaches to environmental planning.
  

The authors argue that lack of supportive planning guidance is one of the actors that hamper the effective implementation of HCES approach. The paper concludes that demand responsive approaches like HCES are often perceived as slow and too complex and time consuming to deliver, therefore there is need to invest in time and human resources since the approach delivers sustainable sanitation. They recommend that:

• active participation of the community is important
• there is need to have demonstration projects, awareness raising and information campaigns for all relevant stakeholders
• there is need for finance and support by international funding agencies.