Rwanda, Kigali: more connections to sewerage system planned

Kigali Eco-Toilet. Photo: Eugene Dusingizumuremyi / SuSanA

The capital city of Rwanda has turned a delay in funding into an opportunity to revise its plans so that more areas get connected to a new centralised sewerage system. Construction of a US$ 70 million wastewater treatment plant in Giti Cyinyoni, Nyarugenge District, was due to start in 2012 but has been delayed by one year.

The lack of a centralised sewage system in Kigali (pop. 1 million) has been forcing real estate developers to provide onsite sewerage systems for new housing units. Schools, hospitals and other public buildings are already required by law to have their own sewerage systems. In future all these onsite systems will be connected to the new centralised system.

In 2008, according to a survey, 80% of the people in Kigali still used pit latrines [1]. These have proved to be not only hard to maintain, but also expensive to manage in the long run. That’s why the city council recently passed a bylaw that instructs developers to install flush toilets connected to septic tanks.

[1] Hohne, A., 2011. State and drivers of change of Kigali’s sanitation : a demand perspective : paper presented at the East Africa practioners workshop on pro-poor urban sanitation and hygiene, Laico Umbano Hotel, Kigali, Rwanda, March 29th – 31st 2011 . [online] The Hague, The Netherlands: IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre. Available at: <http://www.irc.nl/page/64586>

Related website: Kigali City – Water and Sanitation Programmes

Source:

• Susan Babijja, City Council reviews sewage management plan, New Times, 26 Oct 2012
• Rwanda: Kigali sewage system delayed by funds, Rwanda Express /  allAfrica.com, 14 Jun 2012
• Eric Didier Karinganire, Sewage in Kigali still an issue of concern, Rwanda Focus, 09 Apr 2012

Uganda, Kampala: marketing human excreta – a study of possible ways to dispose of urine and faeces

Marketing Human Excreta: A Study of Possible Ways to Dispose of Urine and Faeces from Slum Settlements in Kampala, Uganda, 2011. E Schroeder, Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

• (Full-text)

Some key findings include: High sociocultural barriers associated with handling and using human excreta as fertilizer exist; sensitization does change people’s perceptions and behaviors considerably; and economical tools like the incentives applied in this study are helping to change people’s perceptions and behaviors.

African Water Facility Call for Concept Notes on Sanitation Improvement for Urban Poor

The African Water Facility (AWF) has issued a Call for Concept Notes under the urban sanitation theme for the urban poor in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The AWF will fund up to ten projects that promise to address the needs and to sustainably improving the sanitation situation of a densely populated urban poor community, or of a small to medium size town relying mainly on latrines and septic tanks.

The funds allocated will vary from € 800 000 to € 1 200 000, for a duration of 24 to 36 months.

The submission deadline is September 30, 2011

The Toilet Named Nigeria

In his latest column, government critic and Professor of Creative Writing at Trinity College (USA) Okey Ndibe, voices his disgust at the practice of open defecation in his homeland Nigeria.

If you want to gauge how badly Nigerians have been animalized, then pay attention to how, and where, many of them defecate. Just recently, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that 33 million Nigerians have no access to decent toilets. As a consequence, said the report, these citizens of Africa’s most populous nation answer the call of nature in the open.

Is it really only 33 million Nigerians? One is afraid that here’s one occasion when statisticians have pegged the figure too low. Nigeria – as I wrote three years ago – may be described as one vast toilet. Anybody who has traveled from Lagos to Onitsha by road knows that there isn’t one single rest area with toilet facilities along the route. At stops in Ore or Benin City, pressed passengers must hurry off into the brushes, gingerly skating around others’ feces, in order to relieve themselves.

AfDB approves urban development strategy for African cities

In April 2011, the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group launched its new Urban Development Strategy. The Strategy is anchored on three pillars: infrastructure delivery, governance and private sector development.

The infrastructure development pillar emphasises delivery and expansion of basic infrastructure services, which includes water supply, sanitation, drainage and solid waste management services, and building capacity for maintenance of public infrastructure assets.

The Bank Group has since the 1960s allocated some 15-20% of its total cumulative operations financing directly or indirectly to urban development.

Most of the Bank‘s support for water supply and sanitation projects in major cities is currently in the form of traditional project loans or grants (in eligible countries). The Bank will continue to use all its private sector instruments (loans, guarantees and equity) to support private investments in water supply, sanitation and other urban services.

In water and sanitation schemes, where the ability to pay might be too low to ensure that a purely private scheme is financially viable, the Bank will explore the use of modified build-own-transfer (BOT) models. The Bank can help provide concessional financing to a water/wastewater treatment project and use its guarantee instrument to facilitate the mobilisation of commercial debt.

The AfDB’s target for 2010-2015 is to spend one-half of water and sanitation lending for urban systems.

Read the full strategy document:
The Bank Groups’s urban development strategy : transforming Africa’s cities and towns into engines of economic growth and social development. 22 p.

Source: AfDB, 29 Apr 2011

Zimbabwe and AfDB sign US$30 million agreement to improve water supply and sanitation

The African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Zimbabwean government have signed a US $30 million grant agreement in support of the urgent water supply and sanitation rehabilitation project (UWSSRP) in the country. The UWSSRP is financed from the Zimbabwe Multi-Donor Trust Fund (the Zim-Fund).

The agreement was signed on Friday June 10, 2011 in Lisbon, Portugal, by Zimbabwe’s Finance Minister, Tendai Biti and the AfDB’s Vice President for Operations, Aloysius Ordu.

Once implemented, the project will improve the state of the water and sanitation infrastructure in Harare, Masvingo, Mutare, Chegutu, Kwekwe and Chitungwiza, and benefit over 4.15 million people living in these cities.

The Zim-Fund was established in May 2010 and formally launched in Zimbabwe by the AfDB’s President, Donald Kaberuka, in March 2011. Contributors to the Zim-Fund include Australia, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the AfDB.

For more information see:
Urgent Water Supply and Sanitation Rehabilitation Project : project appraisal report, AfDB, Oct 2010. Download report

Related web site: AfDB – Zimbabwe Multi-Donor Trust Fund

Source: AfDB, 10 Jun 2011

South Africa: landmark ruling on right to sanitation ends Cape Town “toilet wars”

With a high court ruling supporting South Africa’s constitutional right to sanitation, Cape Town’s “brutal – and farcical – toilet wars” have come to an end. Protesters from the Makhaza neighbourhood of the black township Khalelitsha, that was at the centre of the dispute, greeted the court decision with cheers.

Activists queue outside the Cape Town mayor Dan Plato's office on Freedom Day, 27 April 2011 to demand better access to basic sanitation in Khayelitsha and other informal settlements. Photo: Nardus Engelbrecht / Sapa

On 29 April 2011, the Western Cape High Court ruled that the city government must build enclosures around government-provided toilets in Makhaza, ending a two-year dispute that had become a heated political issue between the country’s two largest political parties.

It might seem like a small matter, but with local elections planned for May 18 [2011] across the country, the court decision is likely to become a matter of national political discussion, if not significance. Cape Town is run by South Africa’s second-largest political party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), an opponent of the ruling African National Congress (ANC)

Côte d’Ivoire, Abidjan: cholera claims eight lives

Poor hygiene exacerbated by growing piles of rubbish and the current political crisis are all factors that haelth experts and residents say contributed to a dry-season cholera outbreak in Abidjan, the capital of Côte d’Ivoire. So far eight people out of 61 infected have died.

The first case – in Abidjan’s Adjamé District (a poor neighbourhood that has seen severe post-election violence in recent weeks) – was registered in mid-January [2011]; the major rains ended in November [2010]. Cholera has also affected the district of Williamsville.

“Across this region [West Africa] there are pockets of poverty where hygiene is poor and we see occasional outbreaks,” Mamadou D. Ball, WHO representative in Côte d’Ivoire, told IRIN. “The cholera bacterium is always present.”

Sandrine Touré, a health assistant in Williamsville, said she often sees children eating just after playing in rubbish. She added that many people, even in Abidjan, have no access to safe drinking water.

Since the political deadlock, household garbage is no longer being collected.

Even if families know that poor sanitation is linked to infectious disease, cholera was not much on people’s minds this time of year, said Soumaïla Traoré. “There is negligence in some communities. With the piles of rubbish people knew the threat of illness was real. But no one talked of cholera in this period.”

UNICEF and WHO are working with local health authorities to treat patients and promote better hygiene. advise communities on prevention. They are providing soap, cholera treatment kits and posters with prevention messages.

Source: IRIN, 31 Jan 2011

Ghana: Ashaiman Municipal Assembly inaugurates four projects

Ashaiman Municipal Assembly (ASHMA) on Tuesday 9 November 2010 inaugurated four completed projects at a total cost of GH 1.7 million.

The projects are a 10-seater water closet toilet facility for the Ashaiman Senior High School, sheds and pavement at the main market as well as street lights at Taabo Electoral Area.

Numo Adinortey Addison, Ashaiman Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) who inaugurated the projects, said the market sheds and the pavement cost GH 270,000, while a total of GH 52,000 went into the construction of the toilet facility.

Numo Addison added that the installation of the street lights which cost GH 139,000 was part of the implementation of the phase two of the Urban Environmental Sanitation Programme.

He said under that project, a total of about GH 1.9 million would be used to construct streets, drains as well as the installation of streetlights at 11 electoral areas.

The MCE indicated that the construction of the sheds was to enable many of the market women to get comfortable places to sell their wares.

He pleaded with the market women and other residents to honour their toll obligations, to enable the assembly to undertake more development projects.

Numo Addison said the installation of the street lights would also improve the lives of residents in the area, as well as bring a face-lift to urban poor communities and slums.

On the Ashaiman Senior High School toilet facility, he said the project was part of planned programmes of the assembly, to help upgrade the only public academic facility in the Municipality.

He said the municipal assembly is considering the building of an assembly hall and a Library facility for the school.

Source: Business Ghana /GNA, 10 November 2010

Monitoring the Sanitation Status of African Cities

A discussion workshop entitled “Monitoring the Sanitation Status of African Cities”, supported by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), was held at the University of Surrey (UK) on 29th June 2010, to discuss the accuracy of current estimates of sanitation status in African cities, and how monitoring procedures might be improved. Participants also discussed related issues of knowledge sharing within and between African cities.

Key conclusions were as follows:

1) Research is needed to identify improved metrics of urban sanitation quality, notably metrics that take into account the effectiveness of downstream systems (sewerage or faecal sludge management systems) for reducing disease burden.

2) The JMP might wish to consider the possibility of modifying its procedures for assessment of urban sanitation status, with the aim of adopting indicator sets that more accurately evaluate the effectiveness of the whole sanitation chain.

3) Knowledge-sharing initiatives like SWITCH Accra, in which a hub is created to collate and disseminate city-level watsan information resources, are very promising, and should be encouraged.

4) Drawing on the experience of the Indian Cities Sanitation Rating Scheme recently introduced by the Government of India, an analogous African Cities Sanitation Rating Scheme or schemes may be of value for stimulating urban sanitation progress.

For further information:

http://iwawaterwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/AfricanCities/

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See also: Sanitation Status of African Cities

This is a fully editable open-access reference resource on the sanitation status of African cities. It currently covers all 40 agglomerations in sub-Saharan Africa with a population of 1 million or more. Individuals and organizations with expert knowledge of specific cities are invited to edit and expand this resource as appropriate, so that it can evolve into a valuable knowledge-sharing resource. [This material is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, so can be freely distributed and re-used in any way.]