Sanitation Status of African Cities

This is a fully editable open-access reference source on the sanitation status of all major cities in sub-Saharan Africa. At this stage it should be considered an incomplete provisional draft, and contributions are actively requested from specialists with expert local knowledge of each specific city.

Contents

Background and objectives
Scope and design
Possible directions: information categories
Possible directions: widening scope
Applicability for knowledge sharing
Cities covered

Background and objectives

The start-up version of this resource was written by Guy Norman (University of Surrey, UK) under a Knowledge Transfer Fellowship (KTF) from the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). This resource was produced in preparation for a meeting held at the University of Surrey on 29 June 2010, entitled “Monitoring the Sanitation Status of African Cities”.

Scope and design

This resource considers the 40 urban agglomerations in sub-Saharan Africa with a current population of 1 million or more.[1] For each city, it compiles information under a series of sub-headings. This information is currently based on published sources only. Efforts have been made to ensure reasonably complete coverage, but at this stage the resource cannot claim to have exhaustively covered all useful published sources. Contributions are actively requested from specialists with expert local knowledge of each specific city.

Possible directions: information categories

Certain categories are at present not well-covered for most cities (e.g. Sanitation financing), and this needs to be resolved. Some additional categories may also be of value: for example, at present there is fairly detailed consideration of large-scale sanitation interventions funded by major donors (notably the World Bank and African Development Bank), but little consideration of local community-based organizations active in sanitation. Detailed consideration of specific small-scale projects is probably inappropriate: but it would be of interest to have information on active CBOs and their programmes.

Possible directions: widening scope

The current resource focuses specifically on sanitation. Potential expansions of coverage are as follows: a) expansion to include water supply (at present this is only briefly covered in covered in a short overview section); b) wider expansion to include other related areas such as stormwater drainage, solid waste management and slum upgrading; and c) expansion of scope to include smaller cities (e.g. population of 0.5 million or more). Evidently, wider scope = more work.

Applicability for knowledge sharing

This resource may prove useful for knowledge sharing: for example, allowing a sanitation planner in Cotonou to see what the situation is, and what is being done, in other major African cities. However, the format and style of the present document may not be the most appropriate for knowledge-sharing. The primary aim of this document is to collate available information, with clear identification of sources. For specific knowledge-sharing purposes, other styles and formats might be appropriate: this is an open-access document, so users are actively encouraged to make use of the information contained for any useful purpose. Translation to French would of course be very useful.

[1] According to Brinkhoff T (2010) City Population. http://www.citypopulation.de