People-centred solutions: meeting urban sanitation projects without donor support

The Orangi Pilot Project (OPP), in a devastated informal settlement in the Pakistani city of Karachi, has been hailed as a model of how NGOs can provide sanitation for the urban poor. How has it acquired its reputation? As a community-grounded NGO grows in influence, can it remain true to its roots?

A report from WaterAid records the growth of an unconventional NGO that challenges dominant development ideas emphasising technical designs and involvement of government and donors. OPP has shunned the air-conditioned offices, comfortable salaries and 4-wheel-drive vehicles typically enjoyed by donor-dependent Pakistani NGOs. It has persistently argued faith in the ability of ordinary people, however marginalised, to help themselves.

In twenty years it has harnessed local materials and labour to construct cheap but practical sewers which have transformed the lives of about a million people. By using a simpler design and eliminating middle men and contractors, OPP has built sewers at one seventh the cost incurred by the Karachi municipality. Pedestrians, children and petty traders have reclaimed lanes once fouled by stinking open sewers. Infant mortality has dropped from 130 to 37 per thousand.

OPP has expanded beyond sanitation provision to develop health, credit, low-cost housing and education programmes and to train municipal engineers. It is now being asked to design treatment plants and other infrastructure it has often criticised. Advocacy capacity is now so developed that OPP successfully blocked a government-backed Asian Development Bank plan to lend £48 million for the construction of a network of new trunk sewers. Arguing that Karachi did not need to assume such a repayment burden, OPP persuaded the Governor of Sindh that the project was over-elaborate and did not take account of existing facilities.

OPP has made enemies. OPP’s forceful rejection of funding or external subsidies and its depiction of other local NGOs as business-oriented contractors have raised hackles. Critics have argued that OPP’s success is a fluke of topography: in a flatter urban environment sewers would have needed expensive pumping stations and treatment plants and not drained away into natural drainage channels. It could do more to involve women.

Key to the OPP philosophy is:

• social preparation as an on-going process
• working with and empowering existing local community organisations and activists
• training local para-professionals and street technicians instead of employing engineers and architects
• leaving all construction work and financial management to local people
• belief that the best way to change government is to create conditions outside governments – via developing community skills – in order to make government shape up.

Globally applicable lessons arising from the Orangi experience suggest that:

• Providing health education and measures to tackle endemic problems of solid waste accumulation should take place at the same time as sewers are being laid.
• As agencies grow in influence, they should provide a mentoring role for other NGOs.
• Dissemination of accessible, reader-friendly materials can move forward the process of building policy dialogue between the urban poor and NGOs, municipalities, politicians and donors.

Source(s):
‘From the lane to the city: the impact of the Orangi Pilot Project’s low cost sanitation model’ by S Akbar Zaidi, WaterAid, June 2001 Full document.

Funded by: WaterAid

id21 Research Highlight: 19 September 2002

Further Information:
WaterAid
Prince Consort House
27-29 Albert Embankment
London SE1 7UB

Tel: +44 (0)20 7793 4500
Fax: +44 (0)20 7793 4545
Contact the contributor: azaidi@fascom.com

WaterAid

Other related links:
'O&M of urban water and sanitation systems: is there a role for the poor?'

'Providing together: tri-sector partnerships in water and sanitation supply'

'Managing water and sanitation: keeping it clean and simple'

'Addressing shanty-town blues: guidelines for effective and sustainable sanitation'

'Much to be done: can water supply and sanitation targets be met?'

Find out more about the Orangi Pilot Project at the Urban Resource Centre

The Asian Coalition for Housing Rights reports on the Orangi Pilot Project