1. SEI/EcoSanRes 2 Workshop on:
Urban Sanitation systems – building on the Household Centred Environmental Sanitation approach (HCES)
SEI/EcoSanRes 2 Workshop on:
“Planning and Implementation of Sustainable Sanitation in Peri/Semi-Urban Settings – A Need for Development of Existing Tools”
August 2008, Stockholm
Roland Schertenleib
Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) / W+S Consult

2. Content Development of the HCES planning approach
Main characteristics of HCES
Enabling environment for HCES
10 step planning process
Validation of the HCES approach
Successes and challenges

3. Basis for future approaches in ES
People and their quality of life should be at the centre of any environmental sanitation system
Solutions of ES problems should take place as close as possible to where they occur
Any ES system must be designed in such a way to balance economic with environmental good
Wastes, whether solid or liquid, should be regarded as a resource
ES systems should be ‘circular’ designed in such a way as to minimize inputs and reduce outputs
Problems relating to ES should be handled within an integrated framework, and this framework should itself be part of a wider system of integrated water resources, waste management and food production

4. HCES Approach is based on ……
The Bellagio Principles for sustainable sanitation:
Human dignity, quality of life and environmental security at household level should be at the centre of any sanitation approach.
In line with good governance principles, decision making should involve participation of all stakeholders, especially the consumers and providers of services.
Waste should be considered a resource, and its management should be holistic and form a part of integrated water resources, nutrient flow and waste management processes
The domain (zone) in which environmental sanitation problems are resolved should be kept to the minimum practicable size (household, community, town, district, catchment, and city).
The Bellagio Principles: WSSCC (2000)

5. What is environmental sanitation?
interventions to provide a hygienic environment
excreta management
Interventions to reduce people's exposure to disease by providing a clean environment in which to live, with measures to break the cycle of disease.
Involves both behaviors and facilities which work together to form a hygienic environment.
wastewater management
solid waste management
behaviours
facilities
stormwater drainage
washing facilities
The WSSCC has defined environmental sanitation as: Interventions to reduce people's exposure to disease by providing a clean environment in which to live, with measures to break the cycle of disease.
This usually includes hygienic management of excreta, wastewater, solid waste, stormwater and the control of disease vectors and provision of washing facilities for personal and domestic hygiene.
Environmental sanitation involves both behaviours and facilities which work together to form a hygienic environment
control of disease vectors

6. Water Supply and Environmental Sanitation
Solid Waste Management
Drinking Water Supply
WATER SUPPLY AND
ENVIRONMENTAL SANITATION
Healthy and productive life
Ecological integrity of aquatic systems
Protection of natural resources
Drainage
Hygiene
Excreta and Wastewater Management

7. Household Centred Environmental Sanitation (HCES) Approach
… places the household and its neighbourhood at the core
of the planning process
… is a multi-sector approach: accounting for excreta
management (sanitation), storm water drainage, solid waste
management and water supply
… is a multi-actor approach: emphasising the participation of
all stakeholders, beginning at the household/neighbourhood
or community level, in planning and implementing integrated
urban environmental sanitation services

8. Main characteristics of HCES
HCES is based
… on the concept of ‘zones’, and solving problems within the
‘zone’ nearest to where the problems arise
(V)
Nation
District / Province
(IV)
Town / City
(III)
Neighbourhood
(II)
Household
(I)

9. Main characteristics of HCES
HCES is based
… on the circular model, emphasising resource conservation
and reuse (rather than linear model)

10. Concept of zones with bottom-up and top-down component

11. From linear to „reuse oriented“

12. From centralized to decentralized

13. Potential of decentralized sanitation systems
Tailoring to
local conditions
Responsiveness
to local demands
Minimizes
waste of freshwater
for transportation
Permits
waste segregation
at source
Lower risks
system fails
Increases
local wastewater reuse
opportunities
Permits
stepwise development
and investment of sanitation
system

14. Decentralized and tailored solutions

15. Structure of the HCES Guideline
How to create an ‘Enabling Environment’
10-STEP planning process
Need for a change
Bellagio Principles
HCES approach
HCES planning GL
Enabling Environment
10 STEP process
What next?

16. Enabling Environment
Elements necessary to support the application of the HCES approach:
Government Support
Legal Framework
Institutional Arrangements
Required Skills
Financial Arrangements
Information and knowledge management
Need for a change
Bellagio Principles
HCES approach
HCES planning GL
Enabling Environment
10 STEP process
What next?

17. Government support Political will and support at all levels
Objective: secure agreement that HCES should proceed in the program area; doesn’t have to be an unconditional endorsement of HCES by the government.
Favourable national policies and strategies
Ensure that the HCES approach does not contradict existing policies and strategies
Need for a change
Bellagio Principles
HCES approach
HCES planning GL
Enabling Environment
10 STEP process
What next?

18. Legal Framework
Need for a change
Bellagio Principles
HCES approach
HCES planning GL
Enabling Environment
10 STEP process
What next?
Many existing standards are inappropriate, but cannot be rejected by public sector officials (personal liability).
Examples:
Service delivery standards
National and municipal codes (e.g. health or building codes)
Technical standards (water supply and sewer standards)
► Secure a moratorium on the application of existing
standards to the program area
► Try to identify more appropriate standards
► Upgrade existing standards

19. Institutional arrangements
Institutional arrangements are required that suit the highly decentralised and zone-by-zone approach used in HCES
Arrangements across zones: support of local organisations (providing the services) from organisations in larger zones with greater capacities, such as:
direct provision of services
technical assistance, capacity building, information dissemination
Arrangements between institutions at municipal level: close collaboration between various organisations involved in environmental sanitation services
Arrangements legitimising and supporting the participation of small-scale private sector entrepreneurs
Need for a change
Bellagio Principles
HCES approach
HCES planning GL
Enabling Environment
10 STEP process
What next?

20. Required skills
Effective training and communications, ensuring that all participants understand and accept the HCES concept, including its pre-conditions and implications, e.g.:
Householders must understand implications of different options to them, e.g. convenience, costs, O&M requirements, etc.
Professionals must be familiar with existing legal framework, regulations, codes, range of technical options etc.
Municipal officials must be reoriented towards a better understanding of the social, institutional, financial and other factors that have to be addressed (paradigm shift)
Private service providers must be trained in business management, bidding, analysis of market demand etc.
► resource centres, short courses, curricula development, etc.
Need for a change
Bellagio Principles
HCES approach
HCES planning GL
Enabling Environment
10 STEP process
What next?

21. Credit and other financial arrangements
Credit and other financial arrangements that facilitate household participation and community involvement
Strong advocacy is required to convince different levels of government (from national to local) that:
HCES programmes require (initially) an increase in investment in the WATSAN sector, which have to be covered by increased budget allocation.
Allowance needs to be made for funding the full range of costs: administrative and hardware costs; software costs (e.g. training, social marketing programmes, O&M needs).
Local private initiatives must be supported through setting up of micro-credit schemes (rather than grants and subsidies).
Need for a change
Bellagio Principles
HCES approach
HCES planning GL
Enabling Environment
10 STEP process
What next?

22. Information and knowledge management
Guidelines are required, providing information on a comprehensive range of technical and software options, addressing questions such as:
benefits and limitations of different technical options
user friendliness
impact on environment, potential for resource recovery
traffic and land use implications
potential for income generation
impact on service for the poor
...
Basis for locally developed guideline: “Compendium of Sanitation Systems and Technologie”, ‘state of the art’ texts, national and regional resource centres, academic institutions, experienced sector professionals etc.
Need for a change
Bellagio Principles
HCES approach
HCES planning GL
Enabling Environment
10 STEP process
What next?

23. The 10 STEP Process Request for assistance
Need for a change
Bellagio Principles
HCES approach
HCES planning GL
Enabling Environment
10 STEP process
What next?
Request for assistance
Launch of the planning and consultative process
Assessment of the current status
Assessment of user priorities
Identification of options
Evaluation of feasible service combinations
Consolidated UESS plans for study area
Finalising of consolidated UESS plans
Monitoring, evaluation and feedback
Implementation

24. The 10 STEP (iterative) Process
Need for a change
Bellagio Principles
HCES approach
HCES planning GL
Enabling Environment
10 STEP process
What next?
Request for assistance
Launch of the planning and consultative process
Assessment of the current status
Assessment of user priorities
Identification of options
Evaluation of feasible service combinations
Consolidated UESS plans for study area
Finalising of consolidated UESS plans
Monitoring, evaluation and feedback
Implementation

25. VALIDATION SITES: Waruku is a village in Nairobi’s westlands area
Population is 6000
Peri urban setting
A small portion without land tenure, others have

26. Forum to meet local and other authorities
Successes
Forum to meet local and other authorities
Formulation of community priorities especially in environmental management
Discussion of valid options & prioritization
Real ownership of interventions
Willingness to invest and to address priorities step by step
Sanitation as an entry point to community development !
Especially to raise concerns (collection of market revenue for example with hardly any service being rendered)

27. Sometimes priorities not high on local authorities’ agenda
Challenges
Sometimes priorities not high on local authorities’ agenda
Setting high expectations amongst communities
The communities tired of planning processes and searching for solutions
Issues of land tenure and investment
Like in this case the local authority has more open areas to address garbage issues, beautification of the central business district
Where land tenure issues have not been addressed then there is no motivation for joint investment

28. ...thank you for your attention!

29. One-for-all solution in cities with highly heterogeneous physical and socio-economic conditions ??

30. Extreme socio-economic heterogenity
Main challenges in planning for sustainable environmental sanitation systems
Insecure tenure
Extreme socio-economic heterogenity
High settlement densities
High growth rates
Unplanned and informal settlements
1. Insecure tenure
The urban poor frequently live in neighbourhoods without legal tenure on land that authorities have deemed unfit for habitation. Thus, peri-urban neighbourhoods often remain officially invisible. Their illegal status means that many of the urban poor are excluded from census counts and live with the daily threat of eviction or slum clearance. The urban poor are often not taken into account in municipal programmes for improved or extended services, such as water, sanitation, refuse collection, roads, flood protection, fire fighting, health care, and education. (Wright, 1997, p. 2)
2. High settlement densities
Cramped and precariously constructed housing also creates physical problems in infrastructure development. For example, construction of latrines or conventional sewers is far more difficult in the congested narrow streets and alleys of many peri-urban settlements. The land is often flood-prone or threatened by landslides, thereby adding to the construction risks. (Wright, 1997, p. 2)
3. Extreme socio-economic heterogeneity
Urban neighbourhoods are often very heterogeneous, with mixed residential standards (squatters next to modern high-rise buildings) or non-conforming land use (factories in residential areas).
4. Sectoral approaches
The principles of planning that continue to dominate the thinking of urban planners and political decision-makers are based on the concept of ‘manageable towns’ and often a replicate of the principles of colonial urban planning. Today, however, large parts of the cities of the developing world are completely neglected by mainstream planning, heavily dominated by top-down, technocratic approaches excessively restrictive, divorced from reality and oblivious to the present and future needs of lower-income citizens. The dual tools of ‘northern’ planning, land-use plans and development control are not working in rapidly growing urban contexts of the developing world. Current planning departments are heavily biased towards development control, covering only a fraction of the built city. (SuSanA, 2008)
5. Low funding priority
Household sanitation affecting several million disadvantaged people, is generally not the target of environmental education and action campaigns in developing countries. Water supply and sewerage have never accounted for more than 6% of the World Bank’s annual lending – this figure includes both rural and urban projects. If the costs and benefits of investment in environmental improvements are weighed in the light of their significance to the poor, urban sanitation improvements are among the most effective of any short-term measures.(Campbell, T. in: Lüthi et al., 2008a, p. 58).
While the costs of sewerage systems and treatment plants are high, not investing in basic sanitation and wastewater treatment can be extremely expensive. (Wright, 1997, p. 4)
6. Lack of integration of the excreta, wastewater and solid waste management sectors as well as stormwater drainage
A lack of solid waste removal has a detrimental impact on the operation of stormwater drainage systems, as open drains are used as receptacles for solid waste disposal. Similarly, flooding of on-site and off-site waste and wastewater facilities due to inadequate stormwater drainage creates unsanitary conditions.
Finally, inadequate wastewater disposal may result in ponding, thereby leading to an ideal environment for disease vectors and destroying whatever health benefits that were anticipated by the supply of potable water. (Kalbermatten et al., 1999)
Low funding priority

31. The conventional planning approach
In the conventional planning approach, utility planners & engineers develop demand projections based on demographic and economic indicators (e.g. Maser Plans)
Infrastructure planning and service delivery continue to be supply-driven with a high degree of centralised control, little local accountability and low end-user involvement
The supply-driven model is a top-down approach, built around bureaucratic mechanisms and implemented by govt bureaucrats and engineers.

32. Failures of the conventional planning model
Inflexibility in form and content
Procedures to amend plans are bureaucratic
Restrictive nature of master plans
Regulations and legislation favour planning of centralized sewerage systems – carry with them technology lock in…

33. Common elements…