Sustainable financing options to sanitation for the urban poor in Nairobi, Kenya : paper presented at the IRC symposium ‘Sanitation for the Urban Poor: Partnerships and Governance’, 19 – 21 November 2008, Delft, the Netherlands

More than a third of Africa’s population lack access to basic sanitation. In Kenya over 15 million people (46%), lack basic sanitation. The government and other actors need to construct over 234,000 toilets per year for the next 10 years to cover the deficit for halving the proportion of people without access to improved sanitation. Past efforts have focused on communal services managed by community groups. Usage by the urban poor however remains low. Practical Action in Eastern Africa has been working in several cities in Kenya to support advancement of sanitation to the urban poor and has learned valuable lessons that have shaped our strategies for sustainable sanitation for the poor through its urban programmes since 2002. Nairobi Water Company is responsible for providing water and sanitation for all residents of Nairobi with a focus to specifically improve these services for the urban poor. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate by documented evidence that financing for sanitation for the urban poor needs to be retargeted and managed more sustainably to deliver improved service. The two organisations have been working together in improving access to sanitation in the informal settlements through:

- Financing Land Lords to construct facilities for their tenants
- Financing trunk infrastructure to support community level facilities
- Partnering with micro-finance institutions to support land lords, community organisations and other private investments in sanitation for the urban poor

Despite increasing funding to integrated water and sanitation initiatives, proper sanitary practice, usage, and coverage remains low; current models for utilisation of funds remain dependent on continued external donations; Implementers of sanitation programmes have by-passed key stakeholders and sometimes damaged local initiative. The urban poor need to be empowered to take responsibility for investing in sanitation infrastructure and use them. All financing should be aimed at facilitating communities to invest in sanitation. Significant effort should be made to ensure sanitation gets high on the agenda for governments and community investment and an effective national monitoring system is developed to enhance accountability.

(authors abstract)