**5.2. Thinking at scale**

Following the example of several European countries such as Germany or France, which established decentralised management schemes in rural communities, collaborative arrange‐ ments should be sought for. A management interface also means the creation of operator networks, joint capacity building and cooperation between communities and neighbourhoods. This results in an increase in capacities and efficiency, as well as a higher level of profession‐

Innovative management arrangements imply the involvement of stakeholders beyond the utility in the planning, implementation and operation of sanitation systems. In faecal sludge management for example, the involvement of the private—and sometimes informal—service providers is crucial; for small‐scale sanitation systems at neighbourhood level, the involvement of the community is not less important. Engagement with different stakeholder groups is a critical activity that is essential for the successful development of sustainable sanitation services and behaviour change [5, 9, 19]. Enabling the civil sector and the local private sector to take a more proactive role in the definition, selection, planning and eventually management of appropriate and locally contextualised services is seen as the way forward for sustainable

Stakeholder involvement in the water and sanitation sector is justified by four main arguments: ownership, efficiency, better design and empowerment. Stakeholder involvement is the art of including stakeholders in the urban planning process in order to take into account their needs, priorities and interests, to achieve consensus and to remove opposition; in other words, to make them participate. It is largely about defining the participation level of people in the process, from simple information to consultation, collaboration or delegation, and how to best answer their needs, for example through awareness raising or training and capacity building. The benefits of alternative sanitation systems may not be clear to everybody from the beginning and some people may be reluctant to change their daily routine. For these reasons, information and transparency are fundamental. Involvement is also about showing the benefits of change to the different stakeholders and giving incentives. For example, with proper FSM, authorities gain recognition by improving the population's welfare. Informal service providers may get a voice, a status and get out of the margins of society, while the service they provide gets widely recognised. Private collection and transport entrepreneurs gain formal disposal sites and the

The capacity to provide services effectively and efficiently is the backbone of sustainable service provision. This includes well‐trained engineers and planners at all levels (municipal, provincial and central government), but also private sector and NGO stakeholders who have their role to play. That is why capacity building and on‐the‐job training are crucial to improve service delivery and expand coverage in rapidly urbanising areas. The necessary capacity will need to be developed at both, the individual and collective level; individual capacity refers to particular skills that individual people have and collective capacity refers to a community or a group's capacity to organise, mobilise and support collective actions [21]. Important com‐ ponents of water and sanitation sector capacity building involve (i) strengthening and

alism.

124 Sustainable Urbanization

urban sanitation.

*5.1.3. Inclusive stakeholder involvement*

price of services may be reduced for the households [20].

To solve the sanitation issue in an urbanising world, decision‐makers need to think at scale. Isolated initiatives carried out by dynamic entrepreneurs and civic champions are not the answer to immense sector challenges. 'Pilots never fail, but pilots never scale' (Gebauer, personal communication). Two main reasons can be mentioned for that [23]: (i) there is a tendency to overinvest in pilots in order to ensure their success, which per se makes them non‐ replicable; and (ii) pilots cannot reach the economies of scale which would make them competitive and sustainable, both in terms of implementation and management.

Thinking at scale is necessary to establish crucial elements, such as centralised management units or call centres. The gains driven by city‐level management of FSM can be reinforced by the optimal localisation of the faecal sludge treatment plant(s), minimising the distances travelled from each neighbourhood. The centralised management of decentralised systems can only be achieved when reaching numbers from the beginning, that is starting with a critical mass of projects.

Thinking at scale allows for the development of more sustainable management schemes, which also provide incentives for the private sector. It permits the standardisation of sanitation systems, as well as the development by the government of such mechanisms as licenses and certifications, and it helps to attract investors. Indeed, many promising small‐scale initiatives are not replicated because the capital needed is too low to interest the main urban sanitation donors, who are used to multi‐million dollar programmes. In general, access to small amounts of credit is often a major bottleneck to sanitation stakeholders [13] and micro‐entrepreneurs. In Dakar, for example, a special credit line was opened to allow faecal sludge service providers to borrow the amounts needed to renew their truck fleets.

#### *5.2.1. Towards sustainable business models for innovative sanitation services*

Some sanitation systems can constitutes an innovation in a specific context. As such, in order to be able to reach scale, new markets need to be created, highlighting the potential for the private sector and job creation. As pointed out by Truffer et al. [12], on‐site treatment systems represent a major challenge to the current competencies of utilities in terms of their providing urban water management services and organising their value chain. A future large‐scale application, thus, depends on the successful organisation of innovation processes in three domains [12]: (i) technological components and system integration, (ii) value chain formation and the development of new business models, and (iii) institutional innovations to create appropriate conditions under which these systems can reliably operate.

In order to reach the base of the pyramid (BoP), that is the low‐income customers, innovative business models must be defined. Key factors for success are affordability, accessibility, acceptance and awareness [24]. Unfairly, low‐income inhabitants in situations without proper service often have to pay more for water and sanitation than people connected to the govern‐ mental sewer system. Reasons for this are the lack of accessibility to services, transport costs, lack of economies of scale and the fact that sometimes illicit operators take advantage of the absence of viable public services. It, however, shows that there is a capacity‐to‐pay even in low‐income neighbourhoods.

In such neighbourhoods, the sanitation challenge often starts with the lack of toilets at the household level. People have to resort to poorly maintained public toilets, shared toilets or in the worst case to open defecation. Sanitation improvements cannot be reached with the construction of new toilets only; what is needed is the development of an integrated service chain that can maintain the toilets and collect, transport and treat the excreta. In Nairobi, Kenya, the NGO Sanergy developed a system based on the use of public toilets where urine and faeces are collected in separate containers and transported to a treatment plant where they are turned into fertilisers. The service is based on a franchising system in which micro‐ entrepreneurs (the franchisees) decide to maintain a toilet, versus a small fee from the users. Therefore, it includes local residents and offers job creation on‐site.

In Manila, Philippines, the Manila Water Company managed to incrementally extend the coverage of desludging at the household level by restructuring the tariff system. Desludging costs for households was fixed to the water volume used and not per trip as is usually the case. The tariff system created access for poor people to the desludging services, as they use less water volume. In Bangalore, this increase was triggered by the private sector itself. These businesses emerged when the Indian government was sponsoring the setting‐up of toilets with pit latrines. What the Indian government did not regulate was the emptying of the pits. Some smart entrepreneurs recognised this lack of regulation and started the so‐called 'honey‐sucker' desludging micro‐businesses (one entrepreneur, one driver and one helper). Interestingly, the micro‐businesses themselves did not grow, but were replicated to more than 300 businesses. Through collective action, the micro‐honey‐sucker businesses developed a specific vacuum truck, which drove cost reduction from 10 to 1, customised a specific pump, and developed pricing mechanisms for apartment buildings [25, 26]. They also developed agreements with farmers to get the sludge composted and reused. In short, through their entrepreneurial approach, they created their own market and business model.

#### *5.2.2. Centralised vs. decentralised, or how to tackle the uncertainty of urban growth*

Some of the most significant advantages of decentralised sanitation systems are their flexibility, modularity and cost‐effectiveness [27, 28]. They can be implemented in stages and built as close as possible to the actual wastewater volume, reducing the possibility of accruing idle capacity costs [29].

The high uncertainty in city developments and population growth in low‐ and middle‐income countries can be addressed through a modular and incremental approach. Instead of investing large sums for treatment plant designed for a planning horizon of 30 years, several smaller plants can be built with a planning horizon of 15 years, thus serving more people in the short‐ term. Such an approach allows for adaptation to better meet the rise in demand, and for the avoidance of costly over‐capacities. The optimal level of decentralisation must be carefully analysed for a cost‐effective clustering of the city. Overall, uncertain urban growth advocates for further decentralisation of sanitation services in the decades to come.

and the development of new business models, and (iii) institutional innovations to create

In order to reach the base of the pyramid (BoP), that is the low‐income customers, innovative business models must be defined. Key factors for success are affordability, accessibility, acceptance and awareness [24]. Unfairly, low‐income inhabitants in situations without proper service often have to pay more for water and sanitation than people connected to the govern‐ mental sewer system. Reasons for this are the lack of accessibility to services, transport costs, lack of economies of scale and the fact that sometimes illicit operators take advantage of the absence of viable public services. It, however, shows that there is a capacity‐to‐pay even in

In such neighbourhoods, the sanitation challenge often starts with the lack of toilets at the household level. People have to resort to poorly maintained public toilets, shared toilets or in the worst case to open defecation. Sanitation improvements cannot be reached with the construction of new toilets only; what is needed is the development of an integrated service chain that can maintain the toilets and collect, transport and treat the excreta. In Nairobi, Kenya, the NGO Sanergy developed a system based on the use of public toilets where urine and faeces are collected in separate containers and transported to a treatment plant where they are turned into fertilisers. The service is based on a franchising system in which micro‐ entrepreneurs (the franchisees) decide to maintain a toilet, versus a small fee from the users.

In Manila, Philippines, the Manila Water Company managed to incrementally extend the coverage of desludging at the household level by restructuring the tariff system. Desludging costs for households was fixed to the water volume used and not per trip as is usually the case. The tariff system created access for poor people to the desludging services, as they use less water volume. In Bangalore, this increase was triggered by the private sector itself. These businesses emerged when the Indian government was sponsoring the setting‐up of toilets with pit latrines. What the Indian government did not regulate was the emptying of the pits. Some smart entrepreneurs recognised this lack of regulation and started the so‐called 'honey‐sucker' desludging micro‐businesses (one entrepreneur, one driver and one helper). Interestingly, the micro‐businesses themselves did not grow, but were replicated to more than 300 businesses. Through collective action, the micro‐honey‐sucker businesses developed a specific vacuum truck, which drove cost reduction from 10 to 1, customised a specific pump, and developed pricing mechanisms for apartment buildings [25, 26]. They also developed agreements with farmers to get the sludge composted and reused. In short, through their entrepreneurial

appropriate conditions under which these systems can reliably operate.

Therefore, it includes local residents and offers job creation on‐site.

approach, they created their own market and business model.

capacity costs [29].

*5.2.2. Centralised vs. decentralised, or how to tackle the uncertainty of urban growth*

Some of the most significant advantages of decentralised sanitation systems are their flexibility, modularity and cost‐effectiveness [27, 28]. They can be implemented in stages and built as close as possible to the actual wastewater volume, reducing the possibility of accruing idle

low‐income neighbourhoods.

126 Sustainable Urbanization

As mentioned earlier, both vertical and horizontal unbundling tend to promote decentralisa‐ tion. If wastewater treatment plants usually offer economies of scale (the bigger the plant, the lower the price per capita), it is not the case for sewer networks, which typically represent more than 80% of the investment costs of a sanitation system [30], and also a significant part of the operation costs. The predominant 'expand and upgrade' leads to biased economic incentives because stakeholders tend to base their decisions on economies of scale in the cost of a centralised wastewater plant, while neglecting economies of scale at the level of the entire network, which are, as a rule, much more difficult to assess [31]. The optimum configuration will generally be defined by some sort of hybrid constellation [32], also referred to as a distributed wastewater infrastructure [33]. The strong reliance of most utility services on centralised network infrastructure is also becoming increasingly challenged by new techno‐ logical advances in decentralised alternatives, as well as remote operations [28]. Eggimann et al. [34] confirmed that the optimal degree of centralisation decreases with increasing terrain complexity and settlement dispersion, while showing that the effect of the latter exceeds that of topography. The use of more decentralised sewer systems or even simplified sewer systems can allow for major savings, by reducing the number of pumps and force mains, the depth of sewers and the size of manholes and the gradient of the pipes [6]. Overall, it also drastically reduces the operation costs. In case of organised communities, such sewer systems can be partly built and managed by the community itself.

#### **5.3. Communication: understanding and visualising the situation**

A clear overview of the diverse sanitation challenges in a city is the basis for the development of sound urban sanitation strategies. This requires good quality data and awareness from the decision makers. Accessing relevant data is challenging, especially in contexts where data is scarce and the urban development very dynamic. Often, data are either not collected or analysed properly, or, sometimes, hidden or manipulated for political or personal reasons. Governmental agencies usually have some reports, statistics and maps that can serve as a preliminary introduction. However, they should always be considered with care and, there‐ fore, the collection of primary data is recommended. In unplanned and informal neighbour‐ hoods without legal status, there is often no official data and the collection of primary data can be the only way of assessing the urban environment. The best way to get a reasonably accurate estimation is to rely on several sources of information, which can be cross‐checked and, if needed, complemented by further research [35].

All relevant urban sanitation stakeholders should be consulted in the planning process, such as water and sewerage utilities, the private service providers and the end‐users. This helps the understanding of the heterogeneous urban environment and gives access to first‐hand information from different perspectives. Depending on the stakeholder, data can be collected through different tools, such as household surveys and expert interviews, as well as other participatory methods that are focus group discussions, town hall meetings, transect walks or participatory mapping [5, 9].

New technologies facilitate data collection and visualisation. Mobile data collection and geo‐ referencing tools quicken the process, increase the quality of the data collected and allow rapid visualisation of complex urban areas. Mobile data collection is gaining importance as data can be collected with any mobile phone and viewed in real time [36]. With the decreasing costs and complexity of geospatial data collected from satellites, these data become accessible not only to all urban planners but also to civil society, which can even participate in the monitoring efforts. This is often already done, for instance, with the monitoring of water points.

An innovative way to visualise outcomes and communicate the urban sanitation challenge at the city‐wide level are the so‐called 'shit/excreta flow diagrams' (SFDs), which clearly show how excreta is or is not contained as it moves along multiple pathways from defecation to disposal or end‐user. As illustrated in **Figure 2** for the city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, the SFD

**Figure 2.** The excreta flow diagram for Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, shows the proportion of faecal matter that is safely managed (in green) compared to unsafely managed streams (in red) [37].

is an advocacy and decision‐support tool that can easily be understood by non‐technical key stakeholders and by civil society. It, therefore, has the potential to shift the focus of attention, money and activities towards more effective and inclusive urban sanitation beyond water‐ borne sewerage.
