Coordination of Urban Infrastructure and Public Service Delivery for the Urban Poor in Asia

Ellen Brennan-GalvinSchool of Forestry and Environmental Studies

Yale UniversityNew Haven, CT

Paper presented at the “Forum on Urban Infrastructure and Public Service Delivery for the Urban Poor, Regional Focus: Asia,” sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the National Institute of Urban Affairs, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, 24-25 June 2004.

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Introduction

In recent decades, economic development has lifted scores of millions of residents of Asia’s cities out of absolute poverty. Urban dwellers in cities in China and India and in many other Asian countries live in a milieu that is worlds apart from that of their parents’ generation – with gleaming city centers filled with modern high-rise buildings, high-speed transportation systems, modern shopping facilities filled with every type of consumer good, and evidence of modernity and prosperity everywhere. Yet, in parts of these cities that residents may drive by, but that few tourists or higher-income residents ever visit, it is a very different world. Residents live in improvised housing, obtaining water from standpipes or vendors, defecating in the open or in filthy public toilets, frequently surrounded by fetid wastewater and piles of solid waste. The statistics tell the story. For Asia’s urban population as a whole, 98 million people do not have access to an “improved” water supply, and 297 million lack access to sanitation (United Nations Human Settlements Program, 2003).

Whereas economic development has brought about dramatic improvements in many aspects of urban life: decreasing illiteracy, increasing life expectancy, improving levels of education and health, convincing women to have smaller, healthier families, and so forth, one of the great ironies is that, as economic development progresses, almost all of the urban environmental problems that cities face are likely to become much worse, or at least more challenging to tackle. With rising incomes, for example, residents of Asian cities will demand significantly larger quantities of water. In a city in India, for example, such as Mumbai, residents of the slums receive 45 liters of water per capita per day; in chawls, they receive 90; in flats, they receive 135; and in more prosperous areas, residents require over 200 liters per capita per day (Biswas, 2000). Already, as conditions improve in slum areas such as Dharavi, there is rising demand for larger quantities of water. Demands for water-borne sanitation will also increase exponentially. Likewise, most Asian cities have barely been able to cope with their current volume of solid waste, yet face staggering challenges in managing the vastly larger waste streams that will inevitably result from rising levels of income and changing patterns of consumption. Given the worldwide process of decentralization that has taken place in recent decades, municipal governments throughout the developing world are now at the forefront in tackling these challenges. Yet they are not alone. Alongside decentralization, the widespread process of democratization has enlarged the space in which the poor and various community groups have made their voices heard. Moreover, it is now widely accepted that governance is much more than the formal institutions of government. Governance includes the whole range of actors within civil society, such as community-based or grass-roots organizations, NGOs, trade unions, and businesses, both formal and informal, alongside the various branches of government (Devas, 2001).

This paper will attempt to discuss how municipal governments interact with these other actors, and community groups in particular, in providing urban services to the poor –

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specifically, water supply, sanitation, and solid waste collection services. In writing this paper, whereas the charge was given to discuss “coordination” of municipal and community-based activities, in reality, throughout most of the developing world, there is very little coordination. Moreover, it is very difficult to generalize, as each city has its unique circumstances, including its distinctive political setting, historical, economic, social and cultural context, and even the unique personalities of the politicians, municipal officials, and community organizers who are involved in these processes. Ideally, one would like to have detailed case studies of the process of top down-bottom up engagement from many different Asian cities. Still, some general observations can be made.

Water supply challenges:

In a context of continuing outward sprawl of large metropolitan regions, rapid growth of un-serviced peri-urban areas, rising levels of deprivation among some segments of the urban population and increasing affluence among others, water problems in many of Asia’s largest cities have become increasingly complex.

In a growing number of Asian cities, new sources of water that could be developed cost-effectively are simply not available. Indeed, the real cost of water per cubic meter in second and third generation projects in some cities has doubled between a first and the second generation project and then doubled again between the second and third (Bastemeijer and others, 1999). Surface water in the environs of many cities is grossly polluted, forcing cities to pipe water from further and further upstream, at an ever-increasing marginal cost. At least 1 billion urban residents in Asian cities depend on groundwater (e.g., wells, springs, and boreholes), which is becoming increasingly contaminated by domestic and industrial effluents. In many cities, such as Dhaka, there has been a substantial and widespread draw-down of aquifer levels over the past two decades as a result of heavy exploitation of groundwater sources. In some cities, such as Chennai and Jakarta, this has led to the reversal of groundwater flow direction, resulting in serious water quality deterioration from the ingress of sea water.

The challenge is not just a question of water supply, but rather of inequitable distribution. Despite significant progress in the water supply sector, piped water coverage is typically less than 50 per cent in many Asian cities. Because of a variety of factors, including supply shortages, weak economic incentives to deliver services to low-income areas, land tenure issues, and the physical layout of housing in some peri-urban areas, a large proportion of the urban poor still have no access to water and sanitation services. The prevailing wisdom in many cities divides communities into neat groups between those who can pay and those who cannot. This has given rise to parallel economies – the so-called formal water economy with piped municipal supply and the informal or hidden economy serviced mainly by water vendors. Ironically, the poor are typically forced to pay more for water from water vendors or other informal suppliers, or to purchase bottled water.

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Water supply and sanitation utilities in developing world cities come in many forms – from semi-autonomous public agencies, to joint ventures, to wholly privatized institutions. In some cities, a number of separate organizations are engaged in the various aspects of water supply and distribution, water quality, and so forth. In Ho Chi Minh City, for example, surface water allocation is the responsibility of the Ministry of Irrigation; groundwater regulation the responsibility of the Ministry of Heavy Industry; drinking water quality the responsibility of the Ministry of Health; and wastewater quality and pollution control of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment (Asian Development Bank, 2004). Whereas national governments were formerly responsible for the water sector in many countries, in line with the worldwide process of decentralization that has been taking place in recent decades, responsibility for the water sector has been devolved in most instances to local governments.

In many Asian cities, water utilities function in a less than optimal manner, with poor management and low productivity. Utilities frequently are over-staffed, with personnel who are not well trained or efficiently employed. Whereas the number of staff per 1,000 connections is only 1.4 for a well-managed utility such as in Kuala Lumpur and Seoul, it is 50 in Tianjin, 33 in Mumbai, 27 in Beijing, and 26 in Chennai (Biswas, 2000; Asian Development Bank, 2004).

The financial management of many water utilities is also problematic. A study conducted by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) concluded that metering of connections was the single most important water-related area requiring improvement. Of 18 cities in the study, only 8 – including cities as diverse as Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Osaka, Phnom Penh, Shanghai and Vientiane – had 100 per cent metering. In contrast, Dhaka had only 50 per cent metering, Delhi had 33 per cent, whereas Karachi had less than 1 per cent (0.3) (Asian Development Bank, 2004). Billing also has been a problem. Whereas accounts receivable should be less than the equivalent of 3 month’s sales, in some cities it is considerably higher: e.g., 20 months in Mumbai, 17 in Karachi, and 11 in Dhaka and Shanghai (Biswas, 2000).

Pricing poses a particular challenge. Whereas water used to be thought of as a common good, today, the notion that water is a finite resource with an economic value is widely accepted, as per the Dublin Principles (1992). The Dublin Principles essentially reinforced the conceptualization of water as an “economic good”, which can be loosely defined as a good that can command a price in a market (Budds and McGranahan, 2003). Still, monthly household water bills in many Asian cities are very low, encouraging extravagant consumption and high wastage rates. Among the 18 utilities in the study conducted by the Asian Development Bank, the average tariff ranged from lows of US$0.04 (Vientiane), $0.06 (Dhaka) and $0.07 (in Delhi and Karachi) to highs of $0.35 and $0.49 in well-managed utilities such as Hong Kong and Seoul (Asian Development Bank, 2004).

Providing a 24-hour supply also has been a challenge. In the ADB study, only 8 of the 18 utilities provided a 24-hour water supply to all of those connected. In Dhaka, Kathmandu, and Karachi, there are no areas with a 24-hour supply, whereas Delhi has

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been able to provide a continuous supply to only 1 per cent of its service population. Paradoxically, interrupted services entail more wastage than uninterrupted services and per capita water usage is often higher compared with areas experiencing a continuous supply. Because water tariffs are very low in many Indian cities, or non-existent, as in the case of Kolkata, residents fill up their tanks whenever the water supply is resumed. It is therefore common to find that storage tanks are overflowing, significantly increasing water wastage (Sagane, 2000).

Non-revenue water (NRW), or unaccounted-for-water, continues to be one of the major unresolved issues facing water utilities in Asian cities. Non-revenue water typically is in the range of 40-50 per cent, compared with an acceptable industry standard of 10-20 per cent. The worst examples of NRW are Manila (62 per cent), Colombo (55 per cent), Delhi (53 per cent) and Jakarta (51 per cent) (Asian Development Bank, 2004). (What is surprising is how long this has been taking place. If a business reported that it regularly lost half of its inventory, it would be considered shocking; in the water sector, this is considered normal!)

There are a number of reasons for the high proportion of NRW in Asian cities, although some are more amenable to solving than others. There is a huge wastage of water through public standpipes, which municipal authorities are in some cases being urged to phase out. Leakage is a serious problem. In some instances, visible leaks can be monitored and stopped through community watchdog efforts. In-ground leaks from old encrusted pipes are more problematic (although technology to detect and monitor these leaks has made major advances). A persistent problem in many Asian cities is unauthorized and illegal tapping of the water mains. In Delhi, for example, there have been cases of theft of water from industrial areas, which is then resold to poor communities. Unlike leakage, such actions do not constitute a loss per se but deprive the service provider of its legitimate revenue and may eventually affect the sustainability of the supply itself.

Instead of taking serious steps to reduce existing water losses, the alternative in many developing country cities has been construction of new water development projects. This is in the interest of several groups of people: politicians, who generally feel that there are more votes in the construction of new projects; engineers, who feel that new projects “exciting”, whereas maintenance is mundane; and contractors and consulting companies, who lobby politicians and water managers for approval of new projects because of enormous profits (and who are major contributors to political parties in many countries) (Biswas, 2000).

Privatization:

In undertaking new water development projects, privatization has come increasingly to the fore, particularly in light of the lackluster performance of public sector utilities in many Asian cities. Privatization has occurred in many contexts, including in cities in socialist countries. Shanghai, for example, represents the first case in the PRC in which a private company has participated not only in water treatment but also in piped water

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distribution. Indeed, in Shanghai, Pudong-Vivendi Water Supply Co, Ltd., which supplies water to Pudong’s urban districts, represents a large-scale joint venture, with Vivendi holding 50 per cent of the stocks of the joint company.

A number of Asian cities have privatized the water sector in recent years. In Dhaka, for example, the Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority was reconstituted in 1996 to run on a commercial basis. Likewise, in Jakarta, the Jakarta Water Supply Enterprise (Pam Jaya), a government corporation, was responsible for water supply and sewerage until 1998, when two private companies began operating the city’s systems under separate 25-year concession contracts. PT Pam Lyonnaise Jaya serves West Jakarta and PT Thames Pam Jaya serves East Jakarta. In Manila, in 1997, water distribution came under the control of two private corporations, Maynilad Water Services, Inc. in the East Zone, and Manila Water Company, Inc. in the West Zone – under separate 25-year concession agreements (although that has been a rather controversial experience which will be discussed later). Interestingly, dividing cities into more than one zone and giving contracts to different operators, as in Jakarta and Manila, reflect attempts to introduce competition into the water sector. Both these projects have been criticized, however, for lack of transparency and/or corruption in the bidding process (Budds and McGranahan, 2003).

Finance has usually been the paramount consideration in driving governments to involve the private sector in water and sanitation utilities. (Of course, in some cases, the most immediate external driver in indebted low-income countries has been conditionality from multilateral development agencies, in particular in relation to loans.) On the other end, the most important aspect for private companies is the potential profit or rate of return and the issue of scale. Bankers and multi-lateral water companies are typically looking for large-scale projects, with values of US $100 million upwards, and typically in cities with at least 1 million inhabitants (the more populous and richer the better, and preferably not including peri-urban zones!) (United Nations Human Settlements Programme, 2003).

There are a number of options for private participation in municipal water supply activities (of course, in practice, private sector arrangements are often hybrids of the options outlined below). These include service contracts, under which a private sector firm is contracted for a short period (typically 6 months to 2 years) to perform specific discrete tasks, such as installing or reading meters, repairing pipes, or collecting accounts. In Seoul, for example, a private company conducts bimonthly meter reading and billing operations. Other options include management contracts (typically 3-5 years); leases (under which the private firm in effect buys the rights to the income stream from the utility’s operations), and concessions (which give the private partner responsibility not only for the operation and maintenance but also for investments). Additional arrangements include joint venture leases and concessions; and build-operate-transfer contracts (BOT), under which a private firm typically constructs a new plant, operates it for a number of years and, at the end of the contract, 25-30 years later, turns it over to the public sector. This has been taking place in many cities. In Kuala Lumpur, the operation and management of utility works, including the water treatment plants, have been privatized through long-term concession agreements with several companies, usually

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involving capital works based on BOT. At the same time, in Ho Chi Minh City, a new water treatment facility was constructed under an agreement with a Malaysian firm through a BOT agreement (Asian Development Bank, 2004).

The water and sanitation sector worldwide is dominated by a very small number of multinational utility companies (together, 4 companies control over 80 per cent of the privatized market). The percentage of the world’s population currently estimated to be served by the formal private sector is only about 5 per cent (although a much higher proportion are served by small scale private providers, which will be discussed later) (Budds and McGranahan, 2003). Prior to 1990, there were just a handful of large private initiatives in water and sanitation infrastructure and services. Privatization in the water and sanitation sector accelerated during the 1990s and peaked in 1997. Following the Asian financial crisis, however, investors became less confident in investing in developing countries in general, and in East Asia and Latin America in particular. In the water sector specifically, lenders and operators alike have realized that the water and sewerage sector is both more complex and less profitable than originally anticipated. There also is a feeling that fewer projects are “bankable” (United Nations Human Settlements Programme, 2003). Many of the most attractive locations were either privatized during the 1990s or show few signs of preparing to engage with the private sector. Judging from current trends, there are indications that privatization process may be stalling, yet it has hardly begun to make a significant impact on the urban centers and neighborhoods where water problems are most severe.

At present, these are very uncertain times for public-private partnerships, with the recent experience in Manila of Maynilad Water Services, Inc. (and its partner, Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux) representing one of the more visible signs of strain. In 1997, as noted, Manila’s Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage Systems (MWSS), one of the oldest water utilities in Asia, was transferred to private hands. Whereas Maynilad’s starting tariff was half of what MWSS used to charge its customers, and that of the other concession, Manila Water, was even lower, water rates continued to rise on both sides of the concession area (in the Maynilad concession from US $0.10 to almost $0.40 and in the Manila Water area from $0.05 to $0.28). Moreover, as costs increased, services declined. Whereas the private concessions had pledged to substantially reduce the incidence of non-revenue water, NRW actually increased – from 65 to 70 per cent in the East Zone and from 44 to 50 per cent in the West. Eventually, Maynilad and the government terminated the concession agreement. Moreover, an International Arbitration Panel was subsequently established to investigate the reasons for the failure and determine which side was at fault.

Privatization has entailed a variety of other problems. In Chengdu, for example, because of an overestimation of demand, as well as the emergence of many small-scale water providers, the Chengdu Municipal Water Supply General Company (CMWSC), a state-owned enterprise, has been forced to reduce its own production by 40 per cent. It then must buy higher-priced water from Generale des Eaux-Marubeni Joint Venture Water Supply Company, which produces 400,000 cubic meters of treated water per day and sells it to CMWSC under a prior agreement (Asian Development Bank, 2004). In other

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Asian cities, privatization has been undertaken with considerable caution. In Kathmandu, for example, in 1997, the government decided to delegate service delivery to the private sector under a management lease contract; although it set up a high-level private sector participation committee, the pace of privatization has been slow, mainly because residents are concerned that privatization could result in higher water tariffs, as occurred in Manila. In addition to price concerns, labor issues also have been a factor impeding privatization. In Seoul, for example, the government is considering privatizing its waterworks operations, but is concerned by the prospect of workers’ union strikes, which are allowed in private companies but not in government enterprises (Asian Development Bank, 2004).

The role of small-scale providers:

In many Asian cities, a significant proportion of the urban population is served by small-scale private water providers, which provide a competitive and appropriate service to households without access to a utility connection. It difficult to estimate how many people rely on them; in many low-income cities, they are clearly far more important than large-scale private water companies in terms of the number of people they reach and in benefiting low-income households. Moreover, in some cities, small-scale providers even provide services to middle- and upper-income households whose homes are located in areas beyond the piped network.

Typically, small-scale providers are small in terms of number of employees and ownership; independent from government or donors; and private in that they invest their own capital and receive no direct subsidies. It is difficult to generalize about independent providers, since they take many forms: from individuals with push-carts selling water by the glass, bag or gallon, to truckers who carry water from house to house, to independent water networks. Some local operators work closely with the water utility, purchasing water from the water company at a flat rate and selling it to end users at a margin; these operators typically do not invest in infrastructure to improve the service provided by the utility. These vendors and resellers, who include mobile water truckers, carters and water carriers, as well as household resellers, provide water in times of scarcity and in places that water utilities are unable to serve. In Manila, for example, as many as 23 per cent of households obtain their water from small-scale private water vendors who resell municipal water or obtain water from tube-wells. In Delhi, water carriers typically operate side by side with the water utility, fetching water in 10-20 liter plastic canisters from public hydrants (where it is provided free) and delivering it to houses, whose residents pay them on a monthly basis. Jakarta has a similar system, with private tankers and water vendors, who purchase water from the pubic taps (at Rp. 100 per 5 gallon container), reselling it at a price that is seven and a half times higher.

Many cities rely on a variety of small-scale private sector arrangements. In Karachi, for example, there are three types of small-scale water vendors, serving about 20 per cent of the city’s residents: operators of tanker lorries, operators of donkey carts and persons who manually transport water in leather bags. Private vendors obtain water from hydrants (from which the KWSB receives little revenue) at very low, illegal rates and are

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therefore highly profitable. Other small-scale providers invest larger amounts of capital for permanent equipment and provide a higher quality of service than vendors or partners of water utilities. Some small-scale water providers drill their own wells, as in Ho Chi Minh City. In Manila, many residents obtain water from small-scale private operators with their own deep well sources and from small distribution networks, at costs that are 20 to 50 per cent higher than the municipal rates.

Some small-scale providers are profitable; others are not. In Chengdu, for example, of 69 small-scale water providers (that supply 15 per cent of the city’s population), many made very little profit; a quarter of the providers suffered a loss, whereas only 10 broke even. In Shanghai, of the city’s 158 water supply companies, 64 are small, providing only 4 per cent of total water and serving about 9 per cent of the population on the city’s rural fringes (Asian Development Bank, 2004). The government plans to either closer or merge most of these small companies because of their lack of profitability and poor management.

Private entrepreneurs in many Asian cities have been setting up businesses to produce bottled water. Currently, from 5 to 20 per cent of the population of many Asian cities rely on bottled water. These small-scale bottling units typically treat water with various technologies (e.g., UV, reverse osmosis) and sell it directly to customers within the geographic proximity of their production units (Conan, 2003). In Dhaka, NGOs have established some 60 bottled water companies which provide bottled water to slum dwellers on a cash basis. In Phnom Penh, private networks pump water directly from the river and supply untreated water to individual connections; others perform further treatment on the water and sell it as bottled water. Standards may sometimes be a problem. In India, for example, since there are no specific regulatory requirements for establishing a bottled water plant, anyone who wishes to construct one can do so without indicating the source of the water, the technology used to purify it, or the final quality of the bottled water. In 1997, an article in India Today carried out an independent analysis of 13 major brands of bottled water, finding that only 3 brands conformed to all the specifications for drinking water (Biswas, 2000).

The great advantage of small-scale providers is their flexibility in adapting to local conditions; hence it is not surprising to find that the technical approaches found in one city will not necessarily be transferable to another location. As with formal service providers, there is a whole range of different types of water providers in the informal sector, ranging from households sharing a private house connection to completely autonomous community-based systems. Residents of low-income areas are rarely consumers at the individual household level because services don’t extend to households. Many users are not connected to the piped network because they are beyond its reach, because they cannot afford the connection charge, or because they have been turned down since they live in an area considered to be illegally occupied.

Surveys done on customers’ demand for service highlight fact that users are more ready to pay for a service that fits with their expectations. Ideally, low-income users would like to receive clean water at home. They ask for enough water to cover their daily needs and

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for reliable service (full time or on a regular basis, at an affordable price). Regarding management issues, they ask for more flexibility in payment, and the option to pay for a household connection in installments. Indeed, when they rank services desired, a household connection is their first choice, followed by well water; subsequent preferences are for shared services or community based approaches (Conan, 2003). The connection fee is often an important determinant of whether a household will connect to a municipal system. Surveys indicate that a large proportion of households tend to drop out beyond a nominal threshold.

A fact that is often overlooked is that most low-income earners do not work in salaried positions. Surveys have indicated that they are not in a position to set money aside for the larger payments required for individual household connections or quarterly water bills. What independent providers offer is therefore what they need and can afford – namely, small quantities of water.

There are various modalities. With group taps, which are closest to private connections, households jointly take one private connection and share the bill. In other instances, a communal water point consists of several taps with a bucket stand, drain, etc. and a valve box which contains the water meter and can be locked; the user group chooses a small tap committee which oversees proper water use, receives and divides the bill, and so forth. In community-managed vending kiosks, water is sold per bucket at public vending points (sometimes the vending is done by the utility or the utility gives the vending rights to concession holders in the private sector; however, in a growing number of cities, vending is done by community groups) (United Nations Human Settlements Programme, 2003).

While many small-scale providers are working quite successfully, a challenge remains when it comes to scaling them up to cover larger geographical areas. One of the major problems in this regard is that small-scale independent providers frequently are not recognized by the municipal government or by the water utility. Even though they are currently providing a significant proportion of water to poor urban residents, and sometimes investing their own resources to lay pipe and to pump and treat water, the small local private sector is typically left out of the equation when public-private partnerships are discussed. Because they rarely have authorization from the existing water utility, the risk of their investment is high. Their business typically is seen by commercial banks to be risky and non profitable, hence their assets have little or no value in the market. As a result, they have limited access to long-term credit and have to borrow at high interest rates of from 5 to 10 per cent per month (Conan, 2003).

It is not only important to recognize the role of small network operators and to include them in water supply strategies drafted by local governments and utilities, but also to review the legal framework underpinning the water sector, including private utility concession contracts, in order to allow utilities and local governments to engage in partnerships with small local providers. Likewise, a big step forward would be to provide incentives to water utilities to work with small local network operators and to ensure special bulk tariffs for small operators distributing water to low-income areas.

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The involvement of users and communities early on in the process of development of a water supply is also critical in order to ensure the sustainability of these services. This is not the usual norm, however, and most service providers operate with a top-down approach, deciding on such crucial issues as service levels for the user communities who are brought into the picture only after the services are provided. One way to accomplish this is through public information campaigns.

Public information:

In managing demand for water, it is often said that the “next” best source of water is often that which can be saved. Public information is the starting point for community involvement and effective participation in water conservation and improved water management practices.

Many consumers have no knowledge of their water source, supply capacity or availability, and necessary treatment and distributions costs. An effective public information program can not only create a conservation ethic among individual water users and communities but also can help to create a voluntary commitment to achieving reductions in water use.

As previously noted, at the simplest level, community policing of leaking standpipes has been highly effective in a city such as Manila. In some cities, the latest technology has been employed, as in Seoul, where the internet has enhanced the transparency of the city administration, whose homepage gives information on source and tap water quality, annual financial budget in the water sector, and construction bids and contracts. In Chennai, where over 300,00 buildings have been participating in rainwater harvesting, the municipal government has set up a website to give a daily progress report and to disseminate best practice on rainwater harvesting.

Sanitation:

Throughout the developing world, sanitation is a major problem affecting water quality. More than 50 communicable diseases are associated with poor sanitation, resulting in disease and premature death to millions of people, and especially children, every year. Coverage by piped sewerage is typically poor and only a part of the sewage that is collected is typically treated.

As in the case of water supply distribution networks, sewerage systems in most developing country mega-cities were constructed to meet the needs of the colonial population of the original core city. Manila’s primary sewer network was built during 1904-1911 to serve a target population of 500,000. Currently, only 7 per cent of the population of metropolitan Manila has access to sewerage and there have been no significant improvements undertaken in the system in the last 10 years. Colombo’s sewerage system was likewise constructed in 1906 and currently serves a third of the city’s population. Whereas the system actually covers most of the central city, many

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residents remain unconnected because of steep connections fees and anticipated high monthly sewerage bills.

In most developing country cities, municipally provided sanitation systems are based on conventional sewer systems. Most equipment and spare parts have to be imported; this, coupled with a lack of skilled technicians, typically results in sewers that are in poor condition and in sewage treatment plants that discharge effluents that are little better than raw sewage. Because sanitation is a service that depends for its effectiveness on a very high level of consistent and reliable coverage, providing service only to a select minority, or providing service that is intermittent, will not produce the anticipated public health and environmental benefits, and will not justify the investments that have been made.

The majority of residents of many Asian cities are served by septic tanks, which frequently overflow; moreover, desludging is infrequently or rarely performed. In Ho Chi Minh City, for example, where the sewerage system covers only about 12 per cent of the city’s population, nearly 80 per cent of the population uses septic tanks. Jakarta’s sewerage system covers less than 2 per cent of the population, mainly serving high-rise buildings; some 40 per cent of city residents use septic tanks, with another 20 per cent using pit latrines (Asian Development Bank, 2004). In Vientiane, a small bore sewer system in a limited area has not been working due to blockages; in areas of the city with onsite sanitation, septic tank effluents discharge into storm drains or into water courses; moreover, pit latrines are desludged irregularly.

Public toilets are important in many places, particularly in large cities in China and India. Chengdu, for example, is served by nearly 800 public toilets, whereas latrines remain very important in Shanghai, especially in the old city. In Delhi, slums are served primarily by mobile trailer-mounted latrines maintained by the Slum Wing of the Delhi Municipal Corporation. A large section of the population in many Indian cities defecate in the open, either because there is no provision for sanitation, or because the only options available are pay toilets that they cannot afford or public toilets that are so dirty that open defecation is preferred. Many public toilets in India charge one rupee per use, which would mean an expenditure of around 150 rupees a month for a family of five if each family member used the toilet only once a day (United Nations Human Settlements Programme, 2003). This would represent a significant proportion of the income of any low-income household. Pay-per-use communal latrines operate successfully in some places, although they can present maintenance problems unless responsibilities are clearly defined.

Supply- vs. demand-driven approaches:

A major obstacle to meeting sanitation needs, especially of the urban poor, has been the huge scale of projects addressing urban sanitation problems. Typically, the bulk of investment is used for trunk sewers or treatment plants that are often underutilized. Reliance on this supply-driven approach too often has led to investments by governments and donor agencies that were costly both in absolute terms and in relation to number of people served; the main beneficiaries were richer neighborhoods that could afford the

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high connection charges; moreover, institutional approaches were dominated by inappropriate models from industrial countries.

Because developing country mega-cities are growing so rapidly and in such an unregulated manner, their sewerage needs in the coming decades are likely to bear little resemblance to current needs. Conventional systems as presently constructed, with large interceptors discharging into centralized treatment plants, are extremely inflexible and require large front-end investments. Whereas the most economical and efficient way to provide urban water supply and sewerage services is with modern piped systems, because of the backlog of works and scarcity of investment funds, a large proportion of the urban population usually cannot be served with in-house piped services for many years.

To reach all segments of the urban population, including the urban poor, the traditional utility approach needs to be complemented with middle- and low-cost technologies. Ideally, a full range of technical options should be considered and matched to the circumstances of each particular case. On the one hand, cities need to use the most up-to-date management and technical tools available, including computer-based least-cost design of systems and computerized billing and collections systems. On the other hand, in most of the world’s mega-cities, it is unlikely that a single solution can address the needs of the entire population. Some parts of the region may have a conventional sewerage system, other parts could be served by simplified or small-bore sewers (which cost about 30 per cent less than conventional sewers) and others by pour-flush latrines.

Clearly, to meet the needs and capacities of different areas of a large city, an alternative planning process is required to the conventional master plan approach, which typically only considers completed sewerage. The multi-standard/multi-technology approach described above needs to be matched by a new approach to institutional development. The needed large-scale applications of the above kinds of appropriate technology will not take place until policymakers and engineers rethink their approach to urban and sanitation sector planning. Because the planning process generally operates from the assumption that the entire community will have a single service standard and be served by one central system, planners tend to focus mainly on issues affecting the rate at which the selected technology can be extended, rather than on how to extend at least minimum services to the maximum number of inhabitants.

More informal, community-based organizations need to be built up involving active user participation and cooperation in the design, operation and maintenance of the kinds of non-conventional systems described above. It is not a question of developing completely separate systems and institutional frameworks for the poorer and more affluent sections of a city; the need, rather, is for an imaginative and innovative mix of conventional new approaches, and hi-tech and low-tech solutions, based on a partnership between people, non-governmental organizations and utilities.

Urban sanitation programs can be “unbundled” so that smaller-scale projects can bring benefits at an affordable cost to those in greatest need (Wright, 1997). This does not mean that the macro picture should not be considered. On the contrary, the unbundling

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should take place after an adaptable strategic macro framework has been defined to sketch out the overall direction for sanitation service provision in the project area. It is within such an overall flexible sketch of the future that the unbundling should take place, with sequencing and details of investments in different service zones driven by demand. There are two forms of unbundling: horizontal and vertical. In horizontal unbundling, services are subdivided geographically. A large city may be divided into two or more zones, each with its own self-contained sanitation services.

In vertical unbundling, programs are divided according to the scale and cost of the components. A good example is that of condominial sewerage schemes now being widely used in Brazil. Items such as trunk sewers, which have high sunk costs, are financed separately from lower-cost neighborhood feeder sewers. In contrast, past approaches to urban sanitation were usually based on citywide, donor-financed mega-projects that attempted to address all the problems at once. The result, more often than not, was unsustainable programs achieving only minimal increases in coverage.

The demand-driven approach to sanitation provides a way to think through how the costs of sanitation can best be shared. Households pay the bulk of the costs incurred in providing on-site facilities such as bathrooms, toilets, septic tanks, and on-site sewer connections. Residents of a block collectively pay the additional cost incurred in collecting the wastes from individual houses and transporting them to the boundary of the block. Residents of a neighborhood collectively pay the additional cost incurred in collecting the wastes from blocks and transporting these to the boundary of the neighborhood, and so on.

Orangi Pilot Project:

Despite its name, the Orangi Pilot Project (OPP) is not a pilot project, but rather a more than 20 year-old program through which hundreds of thousands of residents of Karachi have obtained good quality sanitation. Now a world-famous example of empowerment of local communities, Orangi sprang up beginning around 1965 and currently houses some 1.2 million inhabitants. Although most residents built their own houses over the years and were eventually granted title, no public provision was made for sanitation as the settlement developed. Most residents used bucket latrines, which were emptied every few days, usually onto the unpaved lanes between the houses.

Beginning in 1980, research undertaken by OPP staff showed that residents of the area were aware of the consequences of poor sanitation for their health, but could not afford conventional systems, and did not have the technical or organizational skills to explore alternative options. With help of an innovative community organizer, Akhtar Hameed Khan, OPP began to work with residents to plan and finance their own latrines and house drains. OPP organized meetings in lanes that comprised 20-25 adjacent houses, explaining the benefits of improved sanitation and offering technical assistance. Local leaders kept their groups informed and collected money to pay for the work. Aided by OPP architects and engineers, and with their own labor, residents installed in-house sanitary latrines, house drains, and shallow sewers in the lanes and streets at an average

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cost of about US$25 per household – less than one quarter of contractors’ rates (partly because profits were eliminated). Gradually, after seeing the results, residents of other lanes sought OPP’s assistance. As in the case of small-scale water providers being overlooked by local government and water utilities in many Asian cities, the Orangi Pilot Project, although internationally recognized, took a long time to be fully accepted in Pakistan. Over the years, however, the concept of component-sharing between residents and local government gradually evolved. Residents continued to finance, construct, manage and maintain latrines, lane sewers and small secondary sewers, whereas local government took responsibility for financing, managing and maintaining the large secondary sewers.

To date, nearly 6,000 lanes have developed their own sewer system linked to sanitary pour-flush latrines, using their own funds and under their own management. Moreover, the program is now being replicated in 8 cities in Pakistan by local NGOs. OPPs main relevance is its potential as a model partnership between communities and local government. Indeed, OPP helped to demonstrate to the provincial government that it didn’t need to take out a large external loan to improve the trunk sewers because there were much cheaper, more effective ways of doing so.

Community toilets:

There are also instances of highly successful collaboration between communities and local authorities in constructing community toilets, particularly in a number of Indian cities. In recent decades, few city governments in India have invested much in extending sanitation to the slums; moreover, in some instances, funds allocated for such programs went unspent. There are a variety of reasons for this. A major reason is that the large health burdens associated with inadequate sanitation no longer affect most middle- and higher-income groups in Indian cities (Chaplin, 1999). Another explanation is that many Indian politicians have opposed community-managed processes, which remove from their control a key part of the patron-client relationships with slum populations through which they sustain their political careers (Burra and others, 2003). In one of the most successful programs, in Pune, a partnership between the municipal government, NGOs and community-based organizations built more than 400 community toilet blocks between 1999 and 2001, which greatly improved sanitation for half a million people. Other successful projects have been undertaken in Mumbai under the aegis of the Indian NGO SPARC, along with the National Slum Dwellers Federation.

Such programs not only have reached hundred of thousands of poor urban dwellers, but also have demonstrated to city authorities the capacity and competence of urban poor organizations and helped change the relationship between the residents of slums and local government agencies. Moreover, as Burra and others have noted:

“For organizations of the poor, the demand for sanitation is strategic; city government and civil society can easily see the relationship between the sanitation needs of the poor and their own health and well-being. The

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demand for sanitation is less threatening than any demand for land tenure. Of all the basic services that the poor have begun to demand, sanitation, in recent years, has begun to be less contested than others. This is especially so when the sensibilities of upwardly mobile middle-class citizens are affected by seeing people defecate in the open. It takes longer to make the connection between housing and the sense of security that the urban poor need for their well-being and quality of life” (p. 29).

Solid waste management:

Solid waste is an emerging crisis in the developing world. In most cities, both large and small, a significant portion of the population does not have access to waste collection services, and only a fraction of the waste that is produced is actually collected. Solid waste is commonly dumped on nearby open sites, along main roads or railroad tracks, or into drains and waterways.

Solid waste management is one of the most critically important urban systems because, if poor, it impacts negatively on so many other sectors. Improper solid waste management causes all types of pollution, including water, air, soil and cross media pollution. Using water polluted by solid waste for bathing, food irrigation and drinking water can expose individuals to disease organisms and other contaminants. Solid waste also clogs drains, creating stagnant water for insect breeding and floods during rainy seasons. Uncontrolled burning of wastes and improper incineration contributes significantly to urban air pollution. Moreover, untreated leachate pollutes surrounding soil and water bodies.

Given the combined impact of massive urbanization and the rising incomes of increasingly consumer-oriented urban residents, Asia’s cities will face considerable challenges in coming years in regard to solid waste. Currently, Asia’s major cities have a daily waste generation of about 760,000 tons; by 2025, this will increase to about 1.8 million tons per day. These estimates are very conservative, with the real values probably being double this amount (Hornweeg, 1999). Most Asian cities, particularly in the low- and middle-income countries, will have to deal with enormous quantities and a changing composition of urban waste. Currently, low-income Asian cities, which have a larger percentage of high-density organic matter and ash residues in their waste stream, produce the highest quantity of waste on a mass basis. As cities in countries such as China and India become more prosperous and move away from coal as the traditional fuel, the ash composition of the waste stream will greatly decrease and higher-volume wastes, such as discarded packaging materials and household goods (e.g., paper, plastic and glass), will become more predominant.

Increases in disposable incomes in many Asian cities will have significant impacts on waste generation, with growing amounts of waste from such sources as the now ubiquitous fast-food restaurants, supermarkets selling more packaged foods (Shanghai, for example, now has more than 1,000 supermarkets), and so forth. Moreover, as lifestyles change rapidly, the related conveniences and products – mobile phones,

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electronics, polyvinyl chloride plastic, disposable diapers, and other mass-produced products – will pose special waste disposal challenges (Hornweeg, 1999).

The role of local government in solid waste management:

In most low- and middle-income Asian cities, development of waste management systems lags woefully behind the realities of a quickly changing waste stream.Municipal governments are usually the responsible agency for solid waste collection and disposal, which typically consumes between 20 and 50 per cent of municipal budgets. Waste management is a vitally important municipal service, which requires high-caliber managers able to make complex decisions if good quality services are to be provided and maintained. However, in many Asian cities, the waste management staff has a low professional status.

For a variety of reasons, there are typically fewer resources available for solid waste management than for other urban services. In low-income residential areas where most services are unsatisfactory, residents normally give priority to water supply, electricity, roads and so forth. Pressure to improve solid waste collection arises as other services become available and awareness mounts regarding the environmental and health impacts of poor waste collection services. Residential households are mainly interested in receiving effective and dependable waste collection services at a reasonable price. Disposal is not normally a priority demand of service users, as long as the quality of their own living environment is not affected by dumpsites.

Municipal government performance in the collection of waste service fees is often quite poor. Some cities charge only a flat rate per month or year, whereas other cities do not collect any fees at all. Improved fee collection can usually be achieved by attaching waste collection charges to the billing of another service such as water supply or electricity. Such systems may be made progressive, in that large users would pay a higher rate per volume of collected waste than small users – a system that has worked very well in Seoul and in most cities in Japan. In general, urban residents are reluctant to pay for waste collection services that are perceived to be unsatisfactory. However, poor payment performance leads to a further deterioration of service quality, and a vicious circle may arise.

Waste management is a complex task that depends as much upon organization and cooperation between households, communities, private enterprises and municipal authorities as it does upon the selection and application of appropriate technical solutions for waste collection, transfer, recycling and disposal.

Governments and NGOs are increasingly espousing the mantra of the “3 R’s” – reduction, recycling and re-use – to achieve improvements in regard to solid waste management. Waste minimization prior to collection is a highly desirable goal, ideally promoted through user fees. In Seoul, following on the heels of Japan, the municipal authorities have instituted waste volume minimization and take-back programs.

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Preventing littering and improper dumping is another desirable goal. Here, the range of experience varies widely. In Singapore, for example, one of Asia’s cleanest cities, littering is subject to stiff fines and “corrective work orders”, whereby the litterer has his/her name published in the newspaper and must perform community service. The authorities in Seoul also impose heavy fines for improper dumping. In most developing country cities, the design and placement of litter containers has an important impact on municipal cleansing, as there is a direct relationship between the opportunity to dispose of materials in public places and the amount of litter and garbage that ends up on public streets and requires disposal.

Solid waste collection:

Collection is very labor and energy- intensive and can easily reach half of a municipality’s total waste management budget. Again, there is a wide range of experience, with collection in some cases being very orderly and in others being quite haphazard. Rapidly growing, informally constructed low-income residential areas present a particular challenge for solid waste collection. Besides the physical constraints of dense, low-income settlements, the access of collection vehicles or pushcarts may be difficult where roads and footpaths remain unpaved.

To improve solid waste collection services, cities have adopted a variety of participatory approaches. There are an increasing number of private sector initiatives in organized waste collection, segregation and recycling. These are mainly through the efforts of such groups as SEWA and Civic Exnora in India, Women Balikatan Movement in the Philippines, the Environmental and Community Development Association in Thailand, and the Urban Poor Consortium in Indonesia. In Chennai, for example, Civic Exnora units, which are formed from households on neighboring streets, provide waste collection services for half a million people. One person (called the “street beautifier”) is appointed and trained and is responsible for collecting the neighborhood waste. Often a tricycle or waste collection cart is purchased with a bank loan or funds from private sponsors. Wastes are collected from each household once a day and then taken to a municipal bin or, increasingly, to a municipal corporation transfer station. Each household contributes a monthly fee, from which a salary is paid to the street beautifier, with the remainder being used to repay the loan for purchase of the tricycle. A number of other cities in India have been using the same concept. One problem is that the units only operate in the core city. Indeed, whereas Civic Exnora has won international acclaim (and was identified as one of the 100 “best practices” at the 1996 Habitat Conference), 53 per cent of Chennai residents had never heard of it. Moreover, 84 per cent of residents were unaware of how wastes were ultimately disposed.

Recycling:

Recycling has turned out to be a much more volatile business than originally predicted. Prices are unstable; quality is never assured; and markets are often finicky (Brady and others, 1999). Cities in developing countries should be able to gain significant economic advantage through recycling, in that they have ample cheap labor (although successful

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manual processing may require significant training). Experience has shown that how the waste is collected affects what can be done with it upon delivery. For example, if part of the waste stream would best be managed on the city’s outskirts – such as organic content destined for composting – then it makes little sense to lump it in with wastes that would require substantial labor to process, such as recyclable, non-degradable, materials. In many Asian cities, lower labor costs would suggest that a fairly complicated collection system would, in fact, be cost-effective (Brady and others, 1999). It might be possible to employ collection “specialists”, who would separately collect classes of materials, such as biodegradable materials, friable materials (glass, ceramics), and non-friable recyclables.

An interesting pilot project was conducted in recent years in several villages in Nonthaburi municipality in Thailand. In the first phase, meetings were held in the villages to inform residents about the problem of solid waste management and to select the appropriate model to reduce their solid waste, incorporating suggestions from the local residents and community committees. In addition to meeting with the villagers, the municipality provided a refuse truck for the villages twice a week for refuse and once a week for recycling material; brochures on recycling and how to reduce solid waste, along with plastic bags and a recycling bin were then distributed to individual households. The municipality also set up a sorting and re-sale center, where recycling materials were sorted into different categories and subsequently sold to wholesale buyers. Earnings were then equally distributed between the municipal workers and the communities. One of the more interesting aspects of this project is that, instead of an NGO, the local government, including the mayor, led the public awareness campaign. This increased the pace of public awareness, as communities saw their elected members arranging meetings, distributing posters and showing interest in the project (Kictham, 2002).

Composting:

Even when waste minimization and recycling are actively practiced, there is always a large quantity of waste remaining for disposal in an environmentally sound manner. Composting can serve developing country cities by processing their organic food waste and animal manures into a useable product while saving space in traditional landfills. There is considerable interest in composting and a long history of experiments in composting technology in Asian cities. In the past, many large cities in Asia installed imported mechanical composting plants. However, most are now defunct and the remaining ones are not operating at full capacity. This may be explained by high operating and maintenance costs compared to open land-filling; the fact that the cost of compost is higher than commercial fertilizers; and that incomplete separation of materials such as plastics and glass make the compost poor for agricultural application. Indeed, large-scale composting operations have seldom been financially viable. Small-scale community-based composting using simplified systems has shown far more success.

In Dhaka, Waste Concerns, an NGO, undertook a highly successful project to promote community-based composting. Using the slogan “Waste is not waste, waste is a resource” to motivate communities in Dhaka, Waste Concern studied the potential of

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composting in Dhaka, where some 87,000 informal sector workers collect recyclable materials, leaving behind a large amount of organic waste. By means of posters and training programs, Waste Concerns undertook a public awareness campaign to promote the separation of organic waste at the source, along with payment of TK 15 to 60 per month for door-to-door collection. Among the project’s innovations, Waste Concerns significantly improved the quality of the compost with the help of scientists from the local university. Moreover, they then signed a partnership agreement with a large commercial fertilizer company to purchase the community-generated compost in bulk, enrich it further and then sell it locally, reducing the demand for chemical fertilizer (Memon, 2002).

Incineration:

Due to the composition of wastes in many developing countries (high organic and moisture content) and the high investment and operating costs of the sophisticated technology, incineration is rarely a viable option in most Asian cities. Incineration is mainly practiced in cities of the more industrialized Asian countries (Japan, Singapore, and the Republic of Korea), as well as in Taiwan and Hong Kong. In Japan, for example, nearly three-quarters of waste is incinerated, and 65 per cent in Singapore, compared to only 5 per cent in Thailand and Malaysia (Hornweeg, 1999).

The lack of knowledge and experience in solid waste management in many developing countries leads to a tendency to support the technologies available in the donor countries regardless of their applicability to the local context. In some cases, solid waste management equipment and facilities that are obsolete and outdated in the donor country have been provided as foreign aid to the recipient country. In most instances, incineration has had limited use for municipal solid waste and has not experienced much success. In Delhi, for example, an incinerator built by the Delhi Municipal Corporation became idle after trial runs, as it was not able to process wastes because the calorific value of the waste was too low to burn (thereby requiring a large amount of fuel to maintain a satisfactory temperature).

Landfills:

In most developing country cities, land disposal is the preferred method for solid waste disposal. Most sites are only slightly better than open dumping grounds, however, and nowhere close to sanitary landfills. No measures are taken to prevent pollution of underground and surface waters; the waste is not covered; and smoke from continuously smoldering fires, allegedly caused by scavengers collecting recyclable materials, is a serious problem. As cities grow and produce more waste, open dumping becomes increasingly intolerable. Hence the conversion of open dumps to controlled, sanitary landfills is a critical step for protecting public health and the environment.

While the technology is fairly simple, landfills involve complex organic processes. To ensure their efficient operation and to limit disturbances and environmental pollution, landfills need to be carefully sited, correctly designed and well operated. Although,

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ideally, sanitary landfills are sites where waste is isolated from the environment until it has completely degraded biologically, chemically and physically, such an expensive, high level of isolation may not be technically necessary to protect public health. Rather, small incremental improvements in landfill design and operation over several years are more likely to succeed than attempts to make a single, large leap in engineering expectations (Rushbrook and Pugh, 1998).

The development of an upgraded landfill should neither be too difficult nor too expensive, even for low-income countries. Some formal engineering preparations are required, with designs developed from local geological and hydro-geological investigations. A waste disposal plan and a final restoration plan also need to be developed. Moreover, trained staff should be based at the landfill to supervise site preparation and construction, the depositing of waste and the regular operation and maintenance.

Selecting a site on which to develop a landfill is one of the most important decisions to be made by a municipality in developing and implementing its waste management plan. Unnecessary transport costs, as well as higher than necessary expenditures on site development, operations and environmental protection measures may be incurred. Moreover, making the wrong decision may be expensive and may also cause long-term problems resulting from public opposition. Developing waste disposal facilities such as landfills and incinerators often generates tremendous concern, both warranted and reactionary (Rushbrook and Pugh, 1998). However, it is possible to reduce opposition to new facilities by involving the community and following a technically sound and transparent site selection process.

To ensure that appropriate site is chosen, a systematic site selection process should be followed. Selection criteria should be prioritized according to local circumstances, including climate, and political and cultural conditions. After preliminary studies, more detailed site investigations need to be carried out on the preferred site, or short-listed sites, to confirm a site’s characteristics, develop designs and establish likely costs. Once the decision has been taken to seek a suitable site for developing a landfill, a municipality should actively encourage participation in the process by communities and organizations with an interest in the choice of site. Overcoming the NIMBY (Not in my back yard) attitude requires general public understanding of the requirements of waste management, effective communication and participation of the concerned community in decisions regarding landfill sites (Rushbrook and Pugh, 1998). Moreover, in the wake of metropolitan growth, waste management tasks often extend across several local government units, calling for “horizontal” cooperation between the municipalities concerned.

Conclusion:

As a recent study by the United Nations Center for Human Settlements concluded: “over-simplified accounts of the global water crisis can reinforce the misleading notion that the water and sanitation problems in deprived neighborhoods reflect city-wide or

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regional water scarcity, which is never the complete story, and in many cases is simply untrue. Perhaps the only generalization concerning improved water management that is valid across all cities is the need for good local governance, as the most effective and appropriate solutions are always site-specific” (United Nations Center for Human Settlements, 2003).

As noted in the preceding paper, there are numerous new actors in the water supply sector throughout Asia’s cities. The most significant change, of course, has been the devolution of responsibilities in regard to water and sanitation to local governments, which has had mixed results (World Bank, 2004). Whereas the jury is still out on the efficacy and long-term viability of projects in the water supply sector mounted by the formal private sector, it is abundantly clear that small-scale private providers are making major headway in many Asian cities – whether as vendors or water re-sellers, or even as owners of private small-scale distribution networks or water bottling facilities. Since these small-scale providers not only serve a fairly significant proportion of many cities’ population, but, more importantly, are often the sole providers for poor urban neighborhoods and households, it is extremely important to maximize their efficiency and assist them to scale up their activities. Certainly, putting them on the map in regard to the municipal government and local water utility, and exploring ways to help them to legitimize their activities and increase access to financing would be an important step. How municipal governments engage with these private providers will, of course, differ greatly from city to city. But it is important for municipal governments to at least recognize them and to see them as part of the solution, rather than part of the problem.

Likewise, it is clear from the above paper that successes in the sanitation sector have common elements, including unbundling sanitation services into discrete parts (such as household services and trunk services); and involving the creative use of both non-formal institutions (such as neighborhood associations) and formal institutions (such as municipalities and utilities) in co-producing services, with each institution providing that part of the service for which it has a comparative advantage. Again, there is no formula to achieve this and some of the “successes” such as the Orangi Pilot Project have taken many years for the municipality and the communities to really work together.

Increasing involvement of communities and the private sector with municipal governments is also extremely important in regard to solid waste. Unfortunately, whereas many communities have mounted successful programs to remove waste from their communities, in some instances, the process breaks down at the next level, with waste removed from the community but then left uncollected at transfer stations, or waste swept from the streets and then left to burn in smoldering heaps along the roadside. Many municipal governments throughout Asia are clearly overwhelmed by the task of solid waste collection, which, as noted, can consume as much as 20 to 50 per cent of municipal budgets. Involving communities by engaging them in neighborhood waste collection, recycling activities, community composting, and so forth, will greatly assist local governments in managing the waste stream while, ideally, creating employment for many of the urban poor.

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If the process of successful community engagement in providing urban services is to move forward in future years, it is greatly important for donors to be able to better engage with bottom-up processes. As is well known, large international organizations such as the World Bank are structured so as to make big loans to national governments to mount large-scale infrastructure projects in, for example, the water and sanitation sectors. In some instances, small loans to community groups could make an enormous difference, but the mechanism to do this currently does not exist.

Likewise, there are currently many constraints to greater community involvement stemming from existing municipal systems and procedures. Typically, municipalities are accustomed to working within the limits of well-established in-house or governmental procedures for the delivery of services. Bringing about change to these procedures may require formal waivers or legislative amendments, or it may simply require an attitudinal change on the part of those responsible for executing the processes (Plummer, 2002). In most cases, however, municipalities can facilitate change if they so desire.

Today, virtually every self-respecting development NGO or social action group throughout the developing world promotes the participation of poor and marginalized people in decisions and programs affecting their lives. Empowerment is the word of choice. This change in orientation over the past decades from authoritarian, top-down urban governance styles has not come easily, but rather stems from decades of determined community organizing among the urban poor, aided by NGOs and other civil society groups (Racelis, 2003). How communities or clusters of poor urban households gained the capacity to move from a passive to an active stance is still not sufficiently understood – a lacuna that stems in part from the relatively low priority given by NGOs and people’s groups to documenting and disseminating information on their activities (Racelis, 2003). However, it is probably fair to say that the other side of the coin – the experience of municipal governments in dealing with poor communities is probably even less well documented.

References:

Asian Development Bank (2004). Water in Asian Cities: Utilities’ Performance and Civil Society Views. Manila: Asian Development Bank.

Bastemeijer, Teun, Madeleen Wegelin and François Brikké (1999). “Sustainable Urban Water Management Strategies.” City Development Strategies Initiative. Online Issue. http://www.citydev.org/journal/oct99/journal_pfe08.html Biswas, Asit K. (2000). “Water for urban areas of the developing world in the twenty-first century.” In Juha I. Uitto and Asit K. Biswas (eds.). Water for Urban Areas: Challenges and Perspectives. Tokyo: United Nations University Press.

Budds, Jessica and Gordon McGranahan (2003). “Are the debates on water privatization missing the point?” Environment and Urbanization (15(2), 87-114.

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Burra, Sundar, Sheela Patel and Thomas Kerr (2003). “Community-designed, built and managed toilet blocks in Indian cities.” Environment and Urbanization 15(2), 11-32.

Brady, Mark H., M. Sasha Mackler and Richard Ian Stessal (1999). “Waste Management in Developing Countries.” City Development Strategies Initiative. Online Issue. http://www.citydev.org/journal/oct99/journal_pfe)6.html

Chaplin, S. (1999). “Cities, sewers and poverty: India’s politics of sanitation.” Environment and Urbanization 11(1), 146-158.

Conan, Hervé (2003). Role of SSIPWPs for serving the poor: first findings in Asia. Manila: Asian Development Bank.

Devas, Nick (ed.). (2001). Urban Governance and Poverty: Lessons from a Study of Ten Cities of the South. Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham.

Hornweeg, Daniel (1999). What a Waste: Solid Waste Management in Asia. Urban and Local Government Working Paper Series. Washington, DC: The World Bank.

Kictham, Pornsi (2003). Community Awareness in Recycling and Solid Waste Management in Nonthaburi (Thailand): Summary of the Practice. Seminar on Urban Environmental Management and International Cooperation in Asia. IGES-KEI, 11 March, Seoul.

Memon, M.A. (2002). Solid Waste Management in Dhaka, Bangladesh: Innovation in Community Driven Composting, 19-20 September, Kitakyushu.

Mitlin, Diana and David Satterthwaite (2004). “The Role of Local and Extra-Local Organizations.” In Diana Mitlin and David Satterthwaite (eds.). Empowering Squatter Citizen: Local Government, Civil Society and Urban Poverty Reduction. London: Earthscan. Nirju, Cyrus (2000). “Reducing Unaccounted for Water in Distribution Systems.” City Development Strategies Initiative. Online Issue. http://www.citydev.org/journal/sep00/journal_f08.html

Plummer, Janelle (2002). Focusing Partnerships: A Sourcebook for Municipal Capacity Building in Public-Private Partnerships. London: Earthscan. Racelis, Mary (2003). “Begging, Requesting, Demanding, Negotiating: Moving Toward Urban Poor Partnerships in Governance.” Paper presented at World Bank Urban Research Symposium, Washington, DC, 15-17 December 2003.

Rushbrook, P.E. and M.P. Pugh (1998). Solid Waste Landfills in Middle- and Lower-Income Countries: A Technical Guide to Planning, Design, and Operation. Washington, DC: The World Bank.

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Sagane, Rajendra (2000). “Water management in mega-cities in India: Mumbai, Delhi, Calcutta and Chennai.” In Juha I. Uitto and Asit K. Biswas (eds.). Water for Urban Areas: Challenges and Perspectives. Tokyo: United Nations University Press.

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Wright, Albert M. (1997). Toward a Strategic Sanitation Approach: Improving the Sustainability of Urban Sanitation in Developing Countries. Washington, DC: The World Bank.

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