Financial and Market-Based Solutions for Improving Sanitation in the Informal Settlements of East Africa.

Throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, the population in urban areas is increasing rapidly, often exceeding the capacity and the resources of cities to accommodate the people. The majority of urban dwellers live in informal settlements which suffer from increasing sanitation problems and lack access to funding for hygienic sanitation facilities. The thesis attempts to answer the following overall question: How can financial and market-based solutions contribute to improving sanitation in informal settlements of East Africa? In order to answer the question, this thesis draws on data collected for a larger study of the 3K-SAN Project which aims to develop and evaluate strategies for catalysing self-sustaining sanitation chains in informal settlements of Kigali (Rwanda), Kampala (Uganda) and Kisumu (Kenya). The informal settlements were chosen purposively to be representative of the most deprived communities in the three case study cities with the poorest levels of service delivery including sanitation. Two communities were selected in Kigali and three in each of Kampala and Kisumu. The research was informed by participatory and mixed methods approaches. The results show that there is a need in all three case study cities to improve access to sanitation because most residents do not have hygienic sanitation facilities. There is a complex relationship between composition, place and finance for improving sanitation. The residents of Kampala and Kisumu, the very poorest, and tenants are significantly (χ2 < 0.005) less likely to have improved sanitation than the residents of Kigali, the better-off and the owner-occupiers. The results reveal similarities and strong differences between the cities in terms of sanitation markets and finance. While construction and emptying services are more available in Kampala and to lesser extent in Kisumu, organic solutions are mostly available in Kigali. It is also found that service providers are generally available, but there was no evidence of the state regulating sanitation and actively organising a functioning sanitation market in any of the settlements of Kampala and Kisumu. By contrast, in Rwanda, the state has clearly set in place and implemented strategies to promote a pro-poor service delivery through citizen participation. However, bottom-up demand and engagement are not expected to arise spontaneously; the role of the state (top-down) has been critical in this process