Good practices for Social inclusion - Case studies and summary

Together with the concerned city departments, the ISSDP investigated urban
sanitation coverage and classified all neighbourhoods on sanitation conditions and
risks to public health. It then helped the cities develop comprehensive and pro- poor
city sanitation improvement policies and strategies. The main recurring elements of
these strategies are:
- Introduction of innovative technologies or approaches to decrease and
improve quality. For instance, participatory hygiene promotion methodologies
were introduced as these are more effective and more cost-efficient.
- Linking improved sanitation with poverty alleviation by combining income
generating opportunities with improved WASH services. For instance, civicpublic
partnerships for solid waste management, female care-takers for
community latrines, female water vendors, etc.
- Flexible (re)payment arrangements to enable the poor to make payments at
times they have cash. Micro-credit facilities and interest-free loans for the
poor were introduced to support in the poor in making large one-time
investments.
- Well-targeted subsidies for the poor combined with participatory well-fare
classification to ensure transparency and accountability. Subsidies will also
cover the safe disposal of faecal sludge.
- Improved regulation and legislation. For instance, the obligation for land lords
to provide connection to a sewerage network or provide a septic tank.
- Capacity development of the poor. For instance, to ensure the safe handling of
handling of solid waste, provision of improved equipment and protective
clothing, etc.
- Promotion of participatory methods to ensure ownership of communities, and
improve the quality and sustainability of services.
- A series of generic and cross-cutting measures such as adequate information
that is also suitable for non-literate participants, ensuring that procedures and
documentation are gender and poverty specific.
- Finally, measures were taken to improve the gender equity and sensitivity
within the ISSDP project team.
ISSDP Approach
The practical approach of making an inventory and analysing innovative pro-poor
community participation and/or gender initiatives for improved sanitation and hygiene
in the cities proved to be a good way to incorporate local best practices in the city
strategies and identify areas for further improvement. Together with city authorities
several participatory action research studies were identified and formulated. ISSDP
will finance one/city.
The applied approach turned out to be a good catch-up strategy for social inclusion. It
would have been better still had it been part of the city inventory and planning
strategies from the very start, involving pokjas, male and female staff from the
different departments and ditto community representatives and household groups in
the processes and the documentation of these process and their outcomes.
Learning and scaling up
The ISSDP does not have learning platforms. Yet, the organizational set-up, with a
national component, and in each city sanitation pokjas, a local government system
62