Can water and sanitation services reach low-income communities? Lessons from Africa

By 2025 there will be 700 million urban Africans. Sub-Saharan Africa not only has the world’s fastest rate of urban population growth, but its cities also have the highest proportion of unplanned – and often illegal – low-income settlements. Given their highly informal nature, providing African cities with adequate water and sanitation services, and increasing hygiene awareness presents a great challenge.

A report from the Water Utility Partnership suggests how technical, institutional, social, financial and economic constraints to water and sanitation service delivery may be overcome. It draws on the experience of nine African countries. Most low-income urban households are forced to purchase small quantities of water on a daily basis, as they are not served by utility companies. In many African cities the majority of people live in informal settlements. Frequently they have electricity or telephone services but lack water or sanitation facilities. Providers argue that lack of secure tenure or lack of compliance with building codes and standards makes any intervention in these areas problematic and risky.

Inappropriate technical and quality standards can make services too costly for low-income households. Planners continue to promote conventional waterborne sewerage systems as models in densely inhabited neighbourhoods. These are often based on technical factors that may not be economically viable in such areas. Regulations often prohibit the construction of pit latrines. Authorities may prevent utilities from installing pipes in areas without legal status in case their permanence is seen as providing some degree of legitimacy for residents.

Sub-Saharan African water and sanitation faces enormous challenges:

• Poor inter-agency coordination, particularly between state agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) leads to duplication of efforts, contradiction and inconsistency.
• There is a demonstrable lack of political will: voters in low-income settlements may be significant in numbers but they do not unite to demand a development-focused agenda.
• Inappropriate institutional arrangements and unclear organisational mandates hinder service provision: many small-scale or independent providers indicate that policy and legislation explicitly prevents them from providing water and sanitation services to low-income customers.
• Inadequate human resource capacity in both utilities and local authorities limits knowledge of issues involved in service delivery to low-income households.
• Officials commonly consider the poor to be ignorant and apathetic. This prevents their badly-needed involvement in the planning and management of services.

A majority of the good practices identified by the stakeholders in each country surveyed are undertaken by small-scale providers, communities and NGOs – often outside the context of utility or municipal projects. Many are spontaneous and demand-driven efforts promoted by private entrepreneurs and communities. Frequently, however, these schemes are isolated and un-coordinated, opportunities for scaling up are not identified and positive experiences are poorly documented.

Creating an enabling environment for service delivery and building partnerships to meet the water and sanitation needs of the poor requires:

• challenging the perception that service delivery to low-income settlements is a loss-making activity
• involving users in the planning and management of services and creating new channels of communication between officials, utilities and poor communities. Problems of vandalism, neglect, illegal connections and non-payment of bills can only be addressed with the participation of poor people
• adopting standards that are flexible and adapted to local circumstances: on-site sanitation solutions may be more appropriate than sewers
• determination to lower the price threshold for water connections and direct subsidies to those who need them most
• regulatory systems that ensure fair competition and involve input from consumer groups and professional/trade associations
• reconsidering restrictions related to tenure and land titling which prevent utilities from taking the risk of connecting poor neighbourhoods.

It is vital to recognise that there is never just one solution to any particular problem. Within each country context, the key to a successful strategy lies in the capacity of all practitioners and stakeholders to innovate and to adapt water and sanitation solutions to address local constraints and opportunities.

Source(s):
‘Better water and sanitation for the urban poor: good practice from sub-Saharan Africa’ Water Utility Partnership for Capacity Building (WUP) Africa, July 2003 Full document.

Funded by: European Commission

id21 Research Highlight: 28 February 2005

Further Information:
Mukami Kariuki
World Bank
Energy and Water Department
1818 H St NW
Washington DC 20433

Tel:   + (1) 202-473-2408
Fax:   + (1) 202-522-7462
Contact the contributor: rkariuki@worldbank.org

Water Utility Partnership for Capacity building, Africa

Dennis Mwanza
Water Utility Partnership
05 BP 2642
Abidjan 05
Côte d’Ivoire

Tel:   + 225 240828
Fax:  + 225 240053
Contact the contributor: wup@africaonline.co.ci

Other related links:
Wasting wastewater: new scope for decentralised management and wastewater re-use?

Water and sanitation for all: where are we now?

Private sector participation in water supply: too fast, too soon?

WaterAid in-depth publications on private sector participation