Goal

Increased sanitation coverage, leading to improved well-being for urban populations, particularly the urban poor.

Purpose

Implementable strategic sanitation approch to urban sanitation tested and adopted by urban government officials in pilot project area.

Outputs

1. Information on successful application of SSA elements collected and analysed.
2. Pilot project exercise completed in selected municipality
3. Training materials produced
4. Training materials tested in South Asia
5. Information on the SSA disseminated

The research started with a literature review, structured around consideration of the various key elements of the Strategic Sanitation Approach (demand -led, incentive driven, horizontally and vertically unbundled etc.). The next investigative phase includes three main components. The first is concerned with the detailed examination of a number of case studies, each of which appears to incorporate some aspects of the SSA. The second involves the detailed examination of a number of crucial issues, for instance the place of contingent valuation in the sanitation planning process and the availability of treatment methodologies to deal with waste from unbundled sewer systems, leading to the production of a number of working papers. The third element of the research is the monitoring of a pilot process in the town of Bharatpur in Pajasthan, India. The aim of this is to explore what the Strategic Sanitation Planning process might mean in the context of a typical small town in South Asia. A number of parallel activities, including workshops in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh and collection of basic information on four other small towns in Rajasthan, have been undertaken by the Water and Sanitation Program in South Asia (WSP-SA) one of our project partners. The results of these investigations will inform a Guide for Project Planners that will provide the main output of the project.

A Conceptual Framework report was produced in early 1998 and has been circulated within DFID.

The literature review has been finalised and will shortly be published by WEDC.

Working papers are in various stages of completion and it is expected that several will be available by the end of March 1999.

Two reports have been produced on the Bharatpur pilot strategic sanitation planning process. The process itself is ongoing. The most important lesson learnt to date is that the SSA's assumptions about the conditions necessary to start its implementation can rarely be realised in practice. In particular, local stakeholders often do not take a demand-based approach and incentives are often 'perverse'. It cannot be assumed that any one stakeholder group or organisation will take the lead in promoting the SSA. The research has therefore concentrated on the processes that can lead to the development of more favourable conditions for the implementation of a full strategic sanitation approach. In particular, what action can the various stakeholders - policy makers, line agency managers, municipal officials and representatives of NGOs - take to promote better planned and coordinated sanitation services, bearing in mind their starting position and the information and powers available to them.

Another key result is the finding that there are some theoretical and practical problems with the assumption of a purely demand-based approach. Similarly, 'unbundling' of services is not a panacea. Unbundling is a workable principle but raises questions about the links between different actors. Strategic sanitation approaches require increased emphasis on providing the conditions necessary for improved coordination between different actors. This will often require changes not only in attitudes and assumptions but also in legislation and procedures.

Finally, the research has shown that there is a need for further work on the technologies required to support unbundled approaches to sanitation provision. This work cannot confine itself to the technologies themselves but must also consider their relation to social, economic and institutional conditions.

The main conclusion of the research to date is that we should perhaps talk about strategic approaches to sanitation provision rather than an all encompassing Strategic Sanitation Approach. The conditions for a holistic strategic approach to sanitation provision occur relatively rarely and the challenge for practitioners is to move towards the ideals expressed in the original SSA publications. This means that the emphasis shifts more towards the process and what individual stakeholders can do in any given situation and where they require help to achieve results.

Practical Development of Strategic Sanitation Concepts, First Phase Report: Conceptual Framework and outline of Pilot Project Process, Report to DFID, March 1998.

Bharatpur Pilot Planning Process: Report on Information Sharing/Problem Identification Stage, GHK Research and Training - Report to DFID, July 1998

Strategic Sanitation Approach: A review of literature. In preparation for publication by WEDC

Strategic Sanitation in South Asia, K Tayler, in Proceedings of 24th WEDC Conference - Sanitation and Water for All, Available from WEDC, Loughborough, UK.

DFID has approved in principle a follow-up research project that will explore the development of the process beyond a single town and the options for starting the process from other than the municipal level.

Tel: 0171 736 8212
Fax: 0171 736 0784
Email: TaylerK@ghkint.com