‘Flying toilets’ are a new phenomenon in Kibera, Kenya’s largest slum, where women and girls are forced to use desperate measures to overcome inadequate sanitation. ‘We keep our business [faeces] for the evenings. In the dark we wrap it in plastic bags and throw it as far away as possible. These are our flying toilets and our neighbours do the same.”
Plastic bags of human waste are thrown on to the roofs of shacks in the slum because it takes two hours to queue for the public toilets, which are often unhygienic and overflowing with human waste. For most people living in the slum in the country’s capital city, the ‘flying toilets” are the only way of answering nature’s call: you simply use a plastic bag, and then fling it as far out of sight as possible.
This testimony from Halima, a Nubian girl who lives in Kibera, was heard by delegates attending the 12th Commission of Sustainable Development (CSD12) at the United Nations in New York during the last two weeks of April. Her testimony, read out by Kenyan civil engineering student Teshamulwa Okioga, brought to the fore the reality of how inadequate sanitation impacts on the safety and health of women in developing countries.
Halima said when it rains the ‘flying toilets” and their contents get washed along with the rainwater and accumulate on the doorstep. ‘The faeces stay there for days and my younger sisters play with it. We have no hope of leaving here,” she added in desperation.
Her story was a part of a session coordinated by UN-Habitat, called ‘Unheard voices of women at CSD12”. Women from India, Tanzania, Kenya and Jamaica shared tales of the impact of inadequate sanitation on the lives of women in slums.
The overriding message was that sanitation is not just about waste management or providing latrines, but is linked directly to issues of privacy, safety, convenience and above all human dignity. Delegates heard blunt, shocking testimonials of women from developing countries about issues like the lack of dignity involved when girls get their periods and they have no access to water or sanitation.
‘I will ensure that there is a toilet in the house where I marry my daughter because I know how important a toilet is for a blind person. Life is hell, and I would not let my daughter’s life become hell.” This was the testimony of an Indian mother who criticised governments for not consulting women when building toilets.
The commission – a review of progress on targets set at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) and by the UN Millennium Development Goals – provided a wake-up call for the global community when it reviewed progress of the past two years since WSSD.
It found that if the efforts of the international community are not scaled up, the targets that have been set for water, sanitation and human settlement will not be met. The inter- national community has pledged to provide 1,6-billion people with access to water and two billion people with access to sanitation by 2015. It has also promised that by 2020, the living conditions of 100-million slum dwellers will be substantially improved.
‘Achieving the targets is do-able,” said Børge Brende, Norwegian Minister of Environment and chairperson of CSD12. ‘The time-bound targets are specific, practical and realistic. They are technically feasible and financially affordable.”
The commission aimed to encourage dialogue between trade unions, UN agencies, women’s groups, youth groups and more than 100 government representatives. It was urged to be a ‘watchdog” on progress in reaching the millennium goals.
UN Secretary General Kofi Anan criticised global efforts, pointing out that ‘high-level political attention has been diverted from sustainable development by the recent emphasis given to terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and the war in Iraq”. He said currently R900-billion is being spent on arms while reaching the goals requires R50-billion, yet the world is finding it hard to reach the goals. ‘We need to overcome entrenched interests and economic short-sightedness that hinder progress.”
In his final summary, Brende said although there has been progress since WSSD towards reaching the goals, a large number of countries are not on track. ‘Achieving the goals will require high-level political commitment and a strengthening of governance at all levels, and substantial efforts at mobilising and effectively using resources.”
SA sets new trends
Throughout the two weeks that the three pillars of sustainable development were discussed, South Africa was constantly referred to by delegates as an example of where sustainable projects are in use.
On the issue of water, the country is setting a trend in combining a right to water with payment for water. Brende was just one of the delegates who referred to the innovative use of water meters with a tariff-based system for each household to receive 6 000 litres of free water each month. ‘Those who want to have long baths must pay for it,” he said.
The figure is calculated on the assumption that a family of eight can get by on 25 litres per person/per day (the World Health Organisation recommends a minimum of 50 litres per person/per day). But this system is still facing controversy locally around issues of privatisation of basic services.
Mike Muller, director general of Water Affairs and Forestry, gave a brief presentation at CSD12 where he discussed the water challenges faced by South Africa since the advent of democracy. He said the country has gone through radical water reform and the key focus has been to ‘confirm water as an indivisible national asset over which provincial and local governments have no jurisdiction”.
The department also had to end the link between the use of water and ownership of land by abolishing the riparian principle. ‘Determine that water is not owned but merely used and that its use can be regulated in the public interest,” he advised.
Muller attributed South Africa’s high profile at CSD 12 to the fact that the country was an important architect of a new approach to issues of sustainability introduced during the WSSD in Johannesburg and that people look to the country to provide some direction. ‘What is important from the discussions on sanitation during the first week is recognition that it is not just South Africa, and indeed not just developing countries, that have major challenges to face.”
Muller said it was clear that the problem lies not in finding technical solutions to sanitation challenges, but rather solutions that are acceptable to people. ‘In this regard, I found it encouraging that large European organisations are installing alternative sanitation technologies in their HQ buildings.”
A pilot project in South Africa using ecological sanitation was cited in a paper entitled ‘Ecological sanitation and re-use of wastewater”, by Professor Petter Deinboll Jenssens from the Agricultural University of Norway. In his ‘thinkpiece on ecological sanitation”, he cited different practices where communities do not use conventional water-flushing toilets.
The South African project has 3 000 inhabitants living in new, medium-income households in Kimberley equipped with ecological sanitation systems. Urine is collected and is used by the forestry department for silviculture. The faecal matter is collected for composting and grey water.
‘In developing countries 90% of this sewage is flushed into surface waters, polluting rivers – this has contributed to the spread of diseases among the poor,” said Dr Ken Gnanakan in the same paper.
Putting a face to problems
Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka, executive director of UN-Habitat, said issues of water and sanitation cannot be addressed without placing human settlements high on the agenda. ‘We all know that a business-as-usual approach will not be enough. We need a fundamental change in our approach – we need a strategy that is workable, realistic and will make a difference in the lives of people,” she said.
But non-governmental agencies attending the commission said human settlements and slums had not received ‘due attention” and they called for this failure to be redressed at CSD13, planned for February and March 2005.
Financing access to water and sanitation and improvements to human settlements was a key discussion topic at CSD12. Partnerships are still punted as the best option, especially by the European Union and the United States. But the NGOs challenged the focus on partnerships, saying they were not the only option and the international donor community still needs to invest in countries.
South Africa also stood out in human settlement practices at a session where representatives of the South African Homeless People’s Federation sat on a panel that discussed financing in human settlement.
‘Urban poverty is vividly manifested in slums,” said Tibaijuka. About 930-million people live in slums. ‘If the trends continue, 1,5-billion people will live in slums by the year 2020 — The finance gap is huge, and requires close partnerships of UN agencies with the international financing institutions to supplement domestic resources.”
The South African Homeless People’s Federation was established in 1990 and is a national network of autonomous local organisations that develop savings, credit schemes and develop their own housing schemes. It has earned a name for itself as an international pioneer in the field of tenure security and people’s housing.
It is made up of more than 1 500 active savings groups, whose size ranges from a minimum of 15 to a maximum of more than 500 members. The federation has a presence in all nine provinces of South Africa, and has set up and supports federations of savings groups in Namibia, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Zambia, Madagascar, Kenya, Uganda and Ghana.
One of the federation’s savings schemes, the Victoria Mxenge Housing Savings Scheme in the Western Cape, is an example of how financial responsibility is generated from community mobilisation. Formed in 1991 by Victoria Mxenge, it has managed to construct 140 good-quality houses by women.
‘In 1992, I heard about the federation. At the time, no one trusted it in Khayelitsha. They all said it was those crazy women. Then they did not like the fact they should make their own bricks. And it was all women,” said one member in a book called Empowering Squatter Citizen.
The book is a compilation of eight case studies where local and national initiatives seek to address the deprivations suffered by low-income urban populations. It was evident through the participation of some of these members from the case studies at CSD12 that the gathering in New York was aimed at including all role-players.
But ultimately CSD12 ended with the recognition that there is no silver bullet to reach the goals. A popular speaker at the commission was David Satterswaite, a senior fellow on the human settlements programme from the International Institute for Environment and Development, who did not shy away from critically assessing whether the global community is ‘hitting the target or missing the point”.
He said currently the goals are very output- and outcome-driven and are too focused on the role of international agencies and national governments. Goals neglect the investments and ingenuity that low-income groups can bring to problems, and the scale they can achieve working with local government.
‘We need to change the Millennium Development Goals’ focus on the poor from being ‘targets’ to being the agents for the achievement of the goals,” said Satterswaite.
The biggest issue involves the institutional difficulties donor agencies have supporting complex, diverse local processes in ways that often do not need much money. For Satterswaite, the investment should be directed at grassroots organisations like the eight case studies featured in Empowering Squatter Citizen, and not through the complex financial structures that international donor agencies generally use.
‘Much of the most important innovation in water and sanitation in urban areas has been locally driven. The importance of these [works] as ‘precedent setting’ for what local governments can and should do.” He said often problems arise because national governments do not want donor funding or aid allocated directly to local organisations that benefit poor groups. ‘Each locality has powerful interests that do not want pro-poor local processes.”