Safely Managed Sanitation in High-Density Rural Areas : Turning Fecal Sludge into a Resource through Innovative Waste Management
Safely managed sanitation is a focus of the SDGs and central to stunting reduction and early childhood survival, both identified by the World Bank's Human Capital Index as critical for humans to develop their full potential. In 2015, 4.5 billi...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/521281568380940320/Safely-Managed-Sanitation-in-High-Density-Rural-Areas-Turning-Fecal-Sludge-into-a-Resource-through-Innovative-Waste-Management http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32385 |
| Summary: | Safely managed sanitation is a focus of
the SDGs and central to stunting reduction and early
childhood survival, both identified by the World Bank's
Human Capital Index as critical for humans to develop their
full potential. In 2015, 4.5 billion people lacked access to
safely managed sanitation. This paper finds that hundreds of
millions more people are exposed to significant health risks
due to unsafely managed sanitation. This report explores the
challenges of fecal sludge management (FSM) in densely
populated rural areas and it presents some typical current
practices, examples of financially sustainable FSM services,
and global innovations in waste management with potential
replicability for FSM. Its aim is to promote dialogue on how
to move from the Millennium Development Goals' approach
to rural sanitation—effectively, building toilets—to the
Sustainable Development Goals' approach: safely managed
sanitation systems. The paper concludes that the sanitation
service chain spans both private and public goods, and
market mechanisms are not always adequate to mitigate the
safety risks. Public funding will be needed to cover the
affordability gap and address safely managed sanitation,
requiring a clear and long-term commitment and support from
government. The case is similar to that for networked
sanitation: without public support, improving the safety of
existing FSM services is likely to decrease profit margins
and potentially render businesses unviable. |
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