1. Achieving Universal Sanitation Coverage in Durban
Neil Macleod
Danube Water Conference, May Vienna

3. Introduction
The provision of services in urban areas is relatively easy compared to rural areas – in many cases rural water and sanitation services are seen as the responsibility of the household.
This means that individual families have to bear the full cost of these services, whereas in urban areas cross subsidisation is common
The provision of water services is far easier than providing sewage collection and disposal services
Rural sanitation is more about logistics than about infrastructure
Politically water infrastructure is easier to motivate for than sewerage infrastructure
In Durban, it took a cholera outbreak in 2002 to change this paradigm

4. Lessons we learned in Durban
People want service level choices and sufficient technical and financial knowledge to make informed choices
Ultimately the responsibility for the safe disposal of faecal waste is that of the public authority concerned – it is the provider of last resort
Piped sanitation (sewer) in rural areas is unaffordable – EUR 4.2 billion for families that are off-grid in Durban
Many more infrastructure options exist for the provision of water services than for sanitation services : flush toilets or pit toilets, sewers, on site treatment systems
Structuring the organisation to have rural and urban services in separate divisions should be a short-term consideration only
The sanitation edge concept:

6. Matching planning to implementation

8. The circular economy of sanitation concept
The off-grid, rural sanitation service is a value chain that is not yet sustainable without subsidies but which can be operated in a way that reduces the need for a subsidy
Some technologies already in use to recover nutrients and energy:
DEWATS
Ladepa
Black soldier fly production
Oil from algae
Gas to energy