Building Towards a Future in Which Urban Sanitation Leaves No One Behind

Plans to improve access to sanitation in towns and cities of the global South are hampered by multiple challenges. One is a lack of reliable information. In particular, global and national-level data often diverge from data on particular settlements, collected by inhabitants of those settlements themselves. Local data highlight the inadequacy of living conditions -- and in so doing evidence the difficulties in securing improvements. Another challenge lies in the setting of standards around acceptable sanitation. At a global level, for instance, shared sanitation is not considered part of "improved" sanitation. Yet the reality for many low-income urban populations is that communal sanitation can be hygienic, cost-effective and locally acceptable.The difficulties in reaching a consensus around data and standards point to the importance of diverse approaches to increasing and improving sanitation, including considering both on-site and off-site solutions. They also highlight how crucial it is for the planning and implementation of all such solutions to be inclusive of those often missing from global debates, such as the low-income urban groups that cannot afford substantial sanitation spending. Financial and political commitments, drawing on the circumstances and approaches articulated by low-income groups themselves, will be key to securing a future in which everyone has access to the sanitation they need

Urbanisation as a Threat or Opportunity in the Promotion of Human Wellbeing

It is possible to present a credible picture of urbanisation as one of the greatest threats to human health, wellbeing and development, although this paper will argue that to do so requires focusing on a limited set of cities. There is a stronger evidence base on cities and urbanisation underpinning good health, fulfilment of civil rights, democracy and freedom from deprivation, although with important exceptions. It is possible to present urbanisation as the most serious driver of human-induced climate change (and of most other kinds of ecological damage). But cities also have the potential to be places where high living standards can be delinked from unsustainable ecological footprints and high greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (and there are some cities that demonstrate this). Of course, a very different set of urban centres get highlighted, depending on which of these points one wants to substantiate. What this paper seeks to do is to highlight both the threats and the opportunities posed by urbanisation

Urbanisation as a Threat or Opportunity

Urbanisation is often seen as a problem for development yet all the world’s wealthiest nations are predominantly urban and almost all urbanisation among low- and middle-income nations is associated with economic growth. The world’s largest cities are heavily concentrated in the world’s largest economies. The more urbanised nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America generally have the highest life expectancies and lowest infant and child mortality rates. The nations with the worst health and living conditions among their urban populations are generally the least urbanised. Urbanisation is often seen as the main driver of ecological damage and human-induced climate change. But among the world’s wealthiest cities with the highest living standards, per capita greenhouse gas emissions vary by a factor of ten or more. There are cities and city districts that show how urban concentration can delink a high quality of life from unsustainable levels of consumption and the ecological damage and greenhouse gas emissions these cause. Several key issues are raised by an increasingly urbanised world.The Rockerfeller Foundatio

With and beyond the state -- co-production as a route to political influence, power and transformation for grassroots organizations

This paper reviews the use of co-production – with state and citizensworking together – as a grassroots strategy to secure political infl uence and accessresources and services. To date, the literature on social movements has concentratedon more explicitly political strategies used by such movements to contest forpower and infl uence. Co-production, when considered, is viewed as a strategy usedby citizens and the state to extend access to basic services with relatively littleconsideration given to its wider political ramifi cations. However, co-productionis used increasingly by grassroots organizations and federations as part of anexplicit political strategy. This paper examines the use of co-productive strategiesby citizen groups and social movement organizations to enable individualmembers and their associations to secure effective relations with state institutionsthat address both immediate basic needs and enable them to negotiate for greaterbenefits.ESRC-DFI

A study of relations between Northern and Southern NGOs in Kenya.

For the last 30 years, an increasing proportion of development assistance funds has been allocated to non-governmental organisations (NGOs), often in OECD countries. The received wisdom is that NGO programmes make an important contribution to development. However, whilst many funds are given to Northern NGOs, increasingly development projects are implemented by Southern NGOs. Many Southern NGOs secure most of their income from Northern NGOs, often with few alternative sources of funds. This study draws on the literature on relations between Northern and Southern NGOs, theories about inter-organisational relationships and six detailed case studies of such relationships in Nairobi (Kenya) to understand current experiences, to explore the problems that exist and to analyse how agencies are responding to their situation. The research findings suggest that Southern NGOs are generally dependent on a small number of Northern NGOs for most of their income. Despite this situation, Southern NGOs seek to secure their autonomy in establishing their goals and activities through three strategies: donor management, donor diversity and donor independence. A further finding is that Northern NGOs are encouraging the formalization of Southern NGO administration, with potential detrimental effects for their relationship with target groups. Northern NGOs are themselves constrained by their need to identify a Southern NGO that shares their objectives. For this reason, half the Northern NGOs contacted in the study are directly initiating or encouraging the formation of new Southern NGOs. In this way, Northern NGOs are influencing the development of the NGO sector as well as the work of individual agencies. Further analysis suggests the existence of three types of relationships between Northern and Southern NGOs, with Northern NGO's attitudes being a critical determining factor: shared values (close alignment of mission), common agenda (time-bound agreements between agencies with mutual respect) and coincidental interest (temporary alliances to address different but overlapping interests)

COVID-19: What is Not Being Addressed

As the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases nears 27 million, there is a rush to answer (what next) and a rush to act (to solve the immediate problems of COVID-19). This paper discusses, with a specific focus on urban areas in the global South, what is missing to date from this response. That includes an identification of things that there are too much of, things that are not being done at all, and things that are unbalanced. There has been an enormous upsurge of academic research papers and opinions on COVID-19. “Technological” and “scientific" solutions tend to overshadow other approaches, even if people know that “social is important”. Based on our analysis to date, our primary concern is that there is too little understanding about the importance of building dialogue, exploring collaboration and co-producing solutions. There is too little understanding as to why social and cultural responses are important, and how the recognition that they are important can be actioned

Out of sight, out of mind:Understanding the sanitation crisis in global South cities

Global monitoring efforts do not provide a clear picture of the challenge of managing human waste at the city scale. Where cities do not provide universal access to publicly managed sanitation systems, households and communities find their own solutions resulting in a patchwork of approaches to removing human waste from places where people live. In dense urban environments, the absence of a coordinated approach can create serious public health problems. In the absence of comparable city-level data, we analyze primary and secondary data from 15 cities and 15 informal settlements in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. Across these regions, our study finds that 62 percent of human waste is not safely managed. We also find that, while many cities have a proportion of households connected to sewers, none of the 15 cities safely manage human waste at scale. In the absence of sewers, on-site fecal sludge management systems place enormous responsibility on households and private providers, and unaffordable sanitation options result in risky sanitation practices

Covid-19: Community Resilience in Urban Informal Settlements

Around the world, the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated differences that already existed. Health outcomes and the economic impacts of resulting lockdowns have not been evenly distributed and inequalities have deepened. As the pandemic began, there were widespread concerns for the urban poor. Population density and limited service provision in informal neighbourhoods meant that standard measures to reduce transmission were difficult or impossible. Livelihoods based on day labour and the unskilled service economy were also most seriously affected by the resulting lockdowns.FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office