Pressure of Urbanisation and a Sustainable Sanitation Infrastructure: Experiences with a Research-Driven Planning Method in Northern Namibia

Many sanitation projects fail because they only involve residents ex post in measures to boost acceptance and provide user training. It therefore follows that a combined explorative and participatory approach prior to technical implementation can create improvements. The demand-responsive approach presented here follows this path. Residents and local stakeholders are actively included right from the planning stage as the only way to ensure informed decisions on their part.

The technical advantages of the concept are plain to see: the decentralised wastewater treatment including a water re-use system can be incorporated into existing structures and extended on a modular basis. However, the results so far also show the challenges involved. The Town Council has very little experience of building sanitation infrastructure in settlements undergoing such dynamic change. Many challenges such as the lack of building materials or delays in delivery are of a technical nature. Others stem from the lines of communication in the planning process and the fact that Town Council has underestimated the effort required to bring about the requisite degree of behavioural change. Not only are the sanitary facilities a long-awaited improvement for the participating households; they also necessitate rethinking of domestic routines and everyday practices, a difficult step requiring attention before and in the early phase of operation. Town councils often take a hierarchical stance towards residents of informal settlements, tending to follow a top-down strategy. Such behaviour can prove counterproductive to the externally imposed participatory procedure. A further challenge is the reservation with which stakeholders view pro-investment strategies. This can impact on the ideological and/or material support given to a town council from other players in the scheme. And lastly, we would refer once again to the problematic lack of training. Given the current dynamics of population movement it remains a very tricky task to train staff to an appropriate level and retain their services.

 

 

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