The unique challenges of improving peri-urban sanitation.

Abstract

Indefinite land tenure poor infrastructure poverty high population density and no recognition by formal governments characterize peri-urban settlements. Peri-urban areas have low levels of sanitation services because of their rapid growth and informal status. Municipal governments are overwhelmed by the numbers and needs of peri-urban residents since they exceed the capacity of local planners and government. The lack of basic services especially the lack of sufficient human waste management jeopardizes the public health and environment of peri-urban settlements. There is only limited knowledge or experience on how to address the problem of peri-urban areas. The Water and Sanitation for Health Project (WASH) has prepared a document to help project designers understand and address the problems in improving sanitation in peri-urban settlements. Specifically it provides them with key questions to ask with information to assemble so they can plan and design the process and with suggestions about what basic strategy to adopt in establishing peri-urban sanitation projects. The challenges of peri-urban settlements are poor site conditions unreliable water availability high population density heterogeneous population and the lack of legal land tenure. Experience shows that technology-driven projects often do not meet objectives so a more comprehensive interdisciplinary approach is needed to define the problem before designing a project. The project designer must work not only with engineers but also with legal specialists financial analysts social scientists urban planners and various institutions (the water and sanitation utility the Ministry of Health urban development authorities and the municipality).