This paper presents recent developments in environmental sanitation planning for cities of the global South by presenting two approaches that provide a combined response for dealing with the complexity of sanitation problems in unserved urban areas. Both approaches presented; the revamped HCES guidelines (now referred to as Community-led Urban Environmental Sanitation – CLUES) and the Sanitation 21 framework are process-oriented approaches that aim to address socio-economic and spatial diversity and seek to overcome the limitations of blueprint approaches characterised by "one-size-fits-all‟ interventions. The paper highlights the fact that both approaches require close consideration of the "domain interface‟ which allows for the linking of localised community solutions and city-wide interventions