Supporting water sanitationand hygiene services for life

Marielle Snel,July 1st 2015

Urban sanitation in line with Urban Led Community Total Sanitation

Purpose of the roundtable discussion

• To reflect on Urban Led Community Total

Sanitation (ULCTS) and how it fits in line

with urban sanitation and its potential

impact.

• Defining key suggestions on the way

forward in creating sustainable sanitation

within cities

Key challenges definedUrban poverty in the global South can only be significantly reduced if the urban poor can influence decision makers and be given space to design and implement their own initiatives (Satterthwaite and Mitlin, 2013).

Photo: Peter DiCampo

The urban setting • Communities are more heterogeneous

• Urban dwellers are more transient

• Issues relating to limited space, tenancy arrangements and pit-emptying, particularly in urban slums.

In recognition of this, urban CLTS (ULCTS) has not been about conducting conventional triggering, people digging pits or erecting structures(City bylaws would not permit this)

Adoption of CLTS in an urban setting

Many urban CLTS adaptations have focused on empowering citizens to demand their rights, bringing different stakeholders (e.g. the municipality, landlords, tenants) together to discuss and resolve the issue jointly and/or enforcing existing laws regarding sanitation, hygiene and public health.

Successes

CLTS has also been adapted to schools (as School-led Total Sanitation or SLTS) and the urban setting (UCLTS or Urban Citizen-led Total Sanitation) and increasingly, there are calls for innovative ways of utilising it in the post-emergency context.

Pan-Africa programme: Reflect on CLTS in eight African countries (2010-2015)

In some of the countries within the Pan African Programme, the CLTS approach has been adapted and piloted within the urban context.

Most notably the work done by Plan Kenya in Mathare illustrates one way in which this approach can be implemented in an urban slum settings .

On a smaller scale, urban CLTS has also been piloted in peri-urban and urban areas of Ethiopia, Uganda and Zambia.

One specific case on ULCTS: Zambia

• Urban CLTS through legal enforcement’ used in Choma and Lusaka. Initiated as a response to cholera outbreaks in Lusaka.

• Aspects of triggering still used, but emphasis on legal enforcement of laws and by-laws to address and confront open defecation and improve general hygiene.

• Institutions and businesses are sensitised with campaigns and trainings to ‘clean up their act’ and provide proper sanitation facilities.

• Replication of approach conducted in Chembe and Mansa Districts, contrib uted to enforcement of governmental Public Health Act whereby public places such as markets, bars, schools and other settings are being inspected in terms of their sanitation status.

Choma

Lusaka

Chembe

Mansa

Some of the lesson learnt around ULCTS

• As reflected in the Pan-Africa program and minimal existing data, due to the complex nature of the urban environment the pre-triggering stage may be the most important element of the process.

• Reflect on broader societal issues/challenges are of importance. This involves finding out community priorities and working out ways these can be linked with the UCLTS process and how this fits into the wider sanitation chain.

• Maintaining good relationships with a variety of different stakeholders, especially politicians is extremely important.

Lesson learnt

• Exploring different ways to include the ULCTS approach as part of a wider programme and possible part of the whole sanitation chain, which includes dealing with faecal sludge.

Lessons learnt

• More documentation, which means more action research, is needed, including more explicit reporting on the tools used, both those adapted from rural CLTS and newly developed ones. Continuously reflecting on how to find sustainability of programmes is essential and again a focus on how ULCTS fits into the whole sanitation chain.

Key question for our discussion1. Given that Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) encourages and tries to enable people living in poverty to decide together how they will create a clean hygienic environment, can this approach make a significant contribution in an urban setting (ULCTS)?

2. Where does ULCTS fit in the urban sanitation framework?

3. How do we move forward around ULCTS given our discussion?