It’s late in the evening in Malindi, a coastal city in Kenya. The city attracts many tourists keen to enjoy its beautiful beaches and the warm waters of the Indian Ocean, but in one community, far from the gleaming tourist hotels, an activity of a very different kind is taking place.
A group of men are smashing into a pit latrine, then using buckets to empty the latrine and dump the waste in a nearby hole they have dug. They wear no protective gear and are poorly paid by the household which requested the service. Its dirty, dangerous work which they have to do by torchlight because the work is illegal.
Yet this is currently the best option for most people in Malindi, where some 70 percent of the city’s 350,000 residents currently lack access to safely managed sanitation.
The costs of this lack of safe sanitation are high. Residents suffer from a lack of dignity without the basic services that people in the western world take for granted. Over 90 percent of hand dug wells in Malindi test positive for fecal contamination. Much of the waste also ends up in the sea, polluting the nearby beaches and harming marine life.
But in Malindi, something unusual is happening. For the last few years, WSUP has been working with city leaders to create an ambitious plan to tackle the problem. The County government of Kilifi and regional water & sanitation utility, Malindi Water & Sewerage Company with other partners like the regulator WASREB and the sanitation specialists at Sanivation, are taking steps to ensure that all residents in Malindi can access safely managed sanitation services.
This kind of planning, known as Citywide Inclusive Sanitation, is a must for any city committed to tackling the crisis of sanitation. It aims to develop a clear institutional and regulatory framework for the delivery of sanitation and solid waste services, expand services to reach all residents, and create a thriving local sanitation economy where the private sector can play an active role.
The progress being made in Malindi is evidence of what can happen when the public sector really invests in understanding the problems of poor sanitation and commits to tackling this issue. We are even hopeful that Malindi can set an example to other secondary cities in Africa.
Although it is early days, we are already seeing some of the benefits of the plan. The World Bank recently committed to spend $7.5m on new wastewater treatment facilities in the city. Other institutions, such as the UK government supported Sustainable Urban Economic Development (SUED) project and GIZ’s Connective Cities programme, have shown interest and commitment in supporting the Malindi municipality to address the sanitation challenges.
And this is where WSUP comes in. We will be looking at the whole sanitation chain – from construction of toilets through to sewage treatment and re-use – as well as improving the legal and regulatory framework in Malindi. We will support SMEs working in the sanitation sector, helping them to improve their business so that the private sector can operate as a partner to the city. Finally, we will work with the county government and utility to ensure that major investments made to the CWIS programme do translate into improved services for the poorest residents.
The work in Malindi is a perfect example of how social enterprises like WSUP can collaborate with the government to create innovative solutions. The sanitation crisis won’t be tackled without government action – and here, in Malindi, we’re starting to see that action.
Banner image: Informal waste collectors sort through debris in a Malindi dumpsite. (WSUP)
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