Beyond "Build, Neglect, Replace"; Making Water & Sanitation Work in Africa

This piece overarchs all my insights from the International Water Association congress and exhibition in Kigali last week. My interests were innovation, regulation, and financing of climate-resilient sanitation in Africa and partly on aligning enabling environment for rural water supply. These themes were covered in multiple sessions most of which I attended including the plenary ones. At the end of the article, I provide opportunities for research, practice, and funding, as well as links to specific posts making up this synthesized content. Please share with those who were unable to attend the conference or the sessions.

Highlights:

? Decentralize and optimize on-site sanitation systems to promote inclusive access

? Bridge financing gaps with instruments like microfinance and climate funding  

? Enable regulation by strengthening mechanisms and regulator-provider collaboration

? Build climate resilient infrastructure through technologies and accessible financing

? Improve efficiency and integrate user participation in decision making

? Reverse “build, neglect, rebuild” via asset management and performance incentives 

? Advance sustainable access through connecting decentralized systems, communities, governments and financing

? Enable regulation by strengthening mechanisms and regulator-provider collaboration

? Build climate resilient infrastructure through technologies and accessible financing

? Improve efficiency and integrate user participation in decision making

? Reverse “build, neglect, rebuild” via asset management and performance incentives 

? Advance sustainable access through connecting decentralized systems, communities, governments and financing        

Water and sanitation provision in many African countries still faces systemic challenges around inclusion, innovation, funding, regulation, and sustainability. However, insights shared at recent high-level meetings highlight paths forward, with links to more details attached at the end of the post:

To start with, decentralized and on-site sanitation solutions/systems have significant potential for expanding access. But most provision currently happens through informal systems in low-income areas! Optimizing and integrating these with centralized infrastructure can promote inclusivity. Additionally, innovations in management, financing, partnerships, and technologies should suit local contexts. When such innovations reach maturity, they need to be standardized.

Secondly, financing remains a major barrier. Usual annual investments fall far short of targets. Funding needs to bridge viability gaps for providers through instruments like microfinance, bonds, and public-private partnerships. Cost recovery mechanisms that account for positive public health impacts need to be part of financing strategies. Additional funds could be unlocked by positioning projects to leverage climate funding sources which have the potential to provide impetus.

Third, effective regulation enables organization and investment in and for the sector. Many countries still lack adequate legal backing and coordination mechanisms for sanitation governance. Therefore, regulators need to act as collaborators, rather than police, when supporting providers to expand access. To complement this, formal frameworks need adaptation for informal systems that currently serve most populations.

Fourth, building climate-resilient water and sanitation infrastructure is imperative given increased climate variability. Mainstreaming climate risks in policy and planning while leveraging technologies like water quality monitoring systems will be necessary to improve resilience. Accessing international climate funds to achieve this, however, requires developing bankable projects and pooling financing locally.

Fifth, while external investments help, households still provide most capital for water and sanitation through tariffs and out-of-pocket payments. Thus, ensuring efficiency and accountability to users is paramount in steering public resources. It is therefore important to integrate service users in decision-making around regulation and infrastructure development.

Lastly, sustainability remains elusive as neglect leads systems to premature decay. A “build, neglect, rebuild” tendency dominates - increasing life-cycle costs and inconveniencing consumers. Systematic asset management alongside performance-linked incentives for service providers offers paths to reversing this default.

To conclude, advancing sanitation access sustainably relies heavily on decentralizing and strengthening onsite systems. Connecting top-down governance and financing with bottom-up stewardship and knowledge sharing is indispensable. The road ahead demands collaborative effort.

Opportunities for researchers

Researchers could:

1. Conduct comparative assessments of decentralized, on-site, and centralized sanitation systems across different contexts to inform integrated planning and regulation. This could cover performance, costs, governance, environmental impacts etc.

2. Develop and pilot appropriate financing mechanisms for sanitation provision in low-income areas e.g. microfinance, and community-based models. Evaluating sustainability and scalability potential.

3. Understand current informal governance, regulation, and accountability structures for sanitation, especially in low-income urban areas dominated by non-state providers.

4. Quantify wider socio-economic impacts of poor sanitation and benefits of improved access to inform cost recovery and financing policy. Linking sanitation infrastructure to broader development goals.

5. Pilot and evaluate asset management models for water infrastructure in developing country contexts. In addition, assess requisite financing, capacity building, incentive structures, and regulatory oversight to ensure sustainability.

6. Model climate risks to sanitation infrastructure across locales and develop context-specific resilience strategies covering technologies, investments, policies, and institutional mechanisms.

Opportunities for practitioners

Practitioners could:

1. Pilot and scale decentralized sanitation systems and optimize onsite models (e.g. scheduled emptying) in urban low-income areas currently lacking adequate access.

2. Facilitate the establishment of public-private partnerships between municipalities, donors, communities, and enterprises to develop inclusive sanitation infrastructure and service delivery models.

3. Develop the capacity of regulators and policymakers on emergent climate resilience strategies and technologies to incorporate into sanitation planning and regulation.

4. Develop bankable proposals for climate financing by assessing and integrating resilience needs into sanitation infrastructure project designs and business models.

5. Institute monitoring and benchmarking frameworks for sanitation assets to systematically assess functionality gaps and prioritize maintenance investments for sustainability.

6. Build participatory accountability mechanisms for sanitation provision involving communities, regulators, and utilities to track service quality and provide course corrections.

7. Train sanitation service providers on business models integrating resource recovery/reuse using treatment byproducts to enhance financial viability.

Opportunities for funders

Funders could:

1. Support pilots and research on decentralized, onsite, and even container-based sanitation solutions optimized for challenging urban contexts lacking adequate water and sewerage infrastructure. Funding innovation around onsite sanitation technologies and service models.

2. Finance work analyzing current informal governance structures around sanitation provision in low-income settlements and scope for integration with formal regulation. Enabling context-appropriate policy.

3. Back research quantifying wider health and socio-economic impacts of poor sanitation which constrain economic mobility and exacerbate inequality. Making the case for greater financing.

4. Underwrite capacity building and technological innovation by utilities/municipalities for climate resilience planning, with a focus on vulnerable communities. Mainstreaming adaption.

5. Resource the development of bankable proposals to leverage green funds for sustainable sanitation infrastructure upgrades that embed climate risks. Unlocking climate financing.

6. Institute an African sanitation innovation fund to catalyze enterprises tailored to bridging access gaps through appropriate solutions while addressing climate threats. Accelerating progress.

The individual and more detailed posts that this article is based on are as follows:

1. Key takeaways around innovation in sanitation systems Link
2. Synthesis of the status and needs in urban sanitation into a mathematical equation framework Link
3. WASH and climate finance Link
4. 10 key Points on financing sanitation from a High Level Sanitation Summit Link
5. Tips for improving the performance of water and sanitation utilities Link
6. Building inclusive and sustainable water and sanitation systems with a focus on youth Link
7. Climate resilience in the water sector Link
8. Role of regulators and service providers Link
9. Perspectives of regulators and service providers using the traffic analogy Link

This work is supported by Sandec-Eawag , Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation , and is part of Knowledge brokering activities at Eawag .