The Water and SanitationImprovingSetting Program Water up Utilityis pro-pooran Services units SeptemberFor 2009 international partnershipThe Poor forto Through improveimproving Delegated service water delivery and sanitation sectorManagement policies, practices, and capacities to serve poor people Field Note Serving the Urban Poor Setting up pro-poor units to improve service delivery Lessons from water utilities in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia This field note discusses proactive measures that utilities can take to serve the urban poor, particularly through the establishment of dedicated pro-poor departments or units. Water service delivery to poor people living in Africa’s large cities requires this special approach due to unclear land tenure, unplanned layout, overcrowding and lack of accurate data, among other challenges. Although water utility services should be at the center of water and sanitation delivery, many utilities do not yet have the mandate, organizational structure, incentives, or skills to adequately address these challenges. Summary The field note discusses how to reorient water and sanitation utilities to meet the needs of poor people in large urban settlements. It outlines the extent of the challenge in sub-Saharan Africa where enormous backlogs in service provision are building up as urban populations continue to grow at an average of 5 per cent annually (Kessides 2005). The approach taken here is that water and sanitation utilities, whether public or privately owned, should be the primary drivers of service provision to all segments of the population. However, given the fact that well over half of Africa’s urban residents are poor and without access to affordable water and sanitation services, utilities will need to adapt their approach and structure in order to viably supply services to a significantly greater percentage of poor urban residents. Service delivery to the poor in Africa’s large cities requires a special approach due to the challenges presented by unclear A Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company kiosk land tenure, unplanned layout, overcrowding, lack of accurate data, a historic lack of political water and sanitation expansion and The field note discusses proactive will to serve the poor and large cannot rely on non-governmental measures that utilities can take to distances to trunk infrastructure. organizations (NGOs) or the private achieve the necessary widespread The complexity of these challenges sector to serve the poor. However, impact, in particular setting up coupled with the magnitude of many utilities do not have the dedicated pro-poor departments or investment required and long-term mandate, organizational structure, units within water utility structures. maintenance needs means that incentives or skills to adequately utilities should be at the center of address these challenges. 2 ImprovingSetting Water up Utility pro-poor Services units For The Poorto Throughimprove Delegated service delivery Management The context Figure 1. Water coverage In sub-Saharan Africa most public and privately owned water and sanitation utilities in urban areas struggle to serve their poor consumers. And since poor urban residents make up 72 per cent of sub-Saharan Africa’s urban population (UN Habitat 2003) the challenge is acute. Clearly, an approach that meets the service needs of this huge and overlooked group of consumers is urgently needed. Source: Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) In 2006 only 35 per cent of urban residents in the region had a household water connection (see Figure 1). The sanitation situation (see Figure 2. Sanitation coverage Figure 2) is of even greater concern, with the number of urban residents using an unimproved source of sanitation or defecating in the open having increased from 59.6 million in 1990 to 76.6 million in 2006. With an average urban population growth rate of 5 per cent per year for Africa as a whole (Kessides 2005), the demand for both water and sanitation services is growing steadily. Available statistics (WHO and UNICEF 2006) suggest that the number of Source: Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) unserved people in sub-Saharan Africa – rural and urban – will grow by a further 47 million for water and into disrepair due to insufficient cost ‘Business as usual’ not 91 million for sanitation between recovery and inadequate allowances working 2004 and 2015. The majority of for maintenance. Cost recovery and the new, urban customers will be also innovative finance mechanisms Any expansion of water and sanitation poor households living in inner city for new capital investments is in the region faces enormous slums or peri-urban settlements. especially important with the current challenges, since few utilities currently Achieving the MDG targets will international financial crisis, which have the mandate, organizational require specific reforms and actions makes funding levels for the sector structure, incentives, and skills to to prevent infrastructure from falling uncertain. address the challenges of serving is invariably done on a piecemeal If governments and utilities continue the poor. To develop a vision and basis and without a link to the utility. to conduct their operations in the deal with underlying problems that In addition, the NGO commitment is traditional manner, services for impede delivery, utilities need stronger usually time-limited. poor people in the numbers that are political will and greater capacity, required are unlikely to materialize. and they should not have to rely on Community managers of kiosks and In the first place, most utilities do public toilets have limited technical, non-governmental organizations not have a government mandate to or the private sector to serve poor management and financial skills and serve the poor or to deal with on-site communities. may experience problems with social sanitation. Secondly, many utilities cohesion, or interference by interest As it stands, the approach to serving have neither the right skills nor groups, including local leaders or the poor by most governments and sufficient incentive to serve the poor. cartels (Dagdeviren & Robertson utilities is dysfunctional on both the By and large utility staff members are 2009). A link with the utility is crucial supply and the demand side. trained in a traditional (largely top- for both long-term maintenance and down) planning paradigm and are On the supply side, managers of ensuring that the poor benefit from the unaccustomed or unwilling to broker utilities are discouraged by the fact utility’s economies of scale. complex neighborhood agreements that the limited resources they expend or lead community discussions on serving the poor make little impact. (Connors et al. 2006). Utilities might Schemes for poor communities tend not understand their poor consumers to be economically unsustainable, The demography of urban or have the expertise to provide them communities are inadequately development with an appropriate range of services involved and long-term planning for such as public toilets, public taps, While the growth rate for expansion and maintenance is not shared yard taps, private connections, the Africa region has been generally factored into budgets and or sewerage systems suited to private averaging almost 5 per cent plans. Typically this situation is the homes in low-income areas. The annually over the past two result of a haphazard or project-by- pricing structures required to serve decades, the ‘take-off’ point project approach to serving low- a more inclusive range of market for growth in the urban income consumers, as opposed segments may not be sufficiently population is yet to come. to a mainstreamed, core-business researched or understood in relation approach. The continent is to connection fees and consumption approaching a demographic tariffs. On the demand side, the urban poor inflection point, with the are frustrated that utilities tend not to number of new urban see them as viable customers and do residents projected to rise Shift in perspective essential not provide services in a systematic sharply by over 300 million manner. Because the majority of poor Even if all utility managers, political between 2000 and 2030. people reside far from utility networks, planners, funding organizations and they generally resort to purchasing Already Africa’s population poor citizens agreed immediately water in small quantities at exorbitant is one third urbanized, that services should reach a much prices, or connecting to the network which is higher than South greater proportion of urban residents, illegally (Gulyani et al. 2005). Asia’s 28 per cent. the backlogs would continue to grow. Clearly a shift in perspective is Non-governmental organizations may needed, in particular a reconsideration provide communities with a borehole, Source: Kessides 2005 of the social and financial models water kiosk or public toilet, but this currently being used. ImprovingSetting Water up Utility pro-poor Services units For The Poorto Throughimprove Delegated service delivery Management The starting point should be al. 2008). Utilities should consider already in the pro-poor units operating acceptance of the reality that the poor incorporating a pro-poor unit into their in the Zambian capital Lusaka, and represent a huge untapped market in structure and corporate strategy. The Kampala in Uganda. most African cities. They pay more for purpose of such a unit would be to The appointment of dedicated, water than their richer counterparts improve coordination