1.3 Introduction to Citywide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS)

Summary

The video discusses the complexity of global sanitation issues, highlighting the emergence of Citywide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS) as a holistic solution. CWIS addresses the inadequacies of traditional, infrastructure-focused approaches by considering equity, environmental and public health, diverse technologies, comprehensive planning, monitoring, and mixed business models. CWIS emphasizes inclusive access to affordable and appropriate sanitation services for all, aiming to close gaps in urban sanitation systems. The approach has gained momentum since 2016, aligning with the SDGs and providing a unified vision for sustainable urban sanitation.

Takeaways

• 🌍 Sanitation is a complex global issue, with half of the world still lacking safely managed sanitation despite ongoing international efforts.
• 🚽 CWIS (City-Wide Inclusive Sanitation) is a holistic approach to address the diverse and complex challenges of urban sanitation, developed in response to the failure of traditional methods.
• 🏙️ Cities in the global south face common sanitation challenges like inadequate infrastructure, but the root causes are varied and include inequity, poor planning, and inappropriate technologies.
• 💡 The CWIS approach emphasizes equity, ensuring that all city residents, including vulnerable groups, have access to sanitation services that are affordable, accessible, and acceptable.
• 🌿 CWIS addresses the entire sanitation service chain—from toilets to containment, transport, treatment, and end use—without contaminating the environment.
• 🔧 A mix of technologies is key in CWIS, as sanitation solutions must be tailored to different areas based on factors like population density, water availability, and financial constraints.
• ♻️ The approach advocates for resource recovery and circularity in sanitation systems, creating additional revenue streams and reducing waste.
• 📊 CWIS prioritizes comprehensive planning and monitoring, with accountability mechanisms to ensure long-term sustainability and effective management of services.
• 💼 CWIS incorporates diverse business models, including public-private partnerships, to expand resources and innovations in the sanitation sector.
• 🔄 The CWIS framework builds on previous development agendas but provides a unified vision that addresses all key aspects of urban sanitation for sustainable, equitable outcomes.

Q & A

What is Citywide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS)?

CWIS is an approach to urban sanitation where all members of a city have equitable access to improved sanitation services, both sewered and non-sewered, with no environmental contamination along the sanitation value chain. It emphasizes context-appropriate solutions and a service-based model rather than a traditional infrastructure-focused approach.

What are some of the key challenges in global sanitation mentioned in the script?

Key challenges in global sanitation include inequity, focus on toilets only, inappropriate technologies, inadequate planning, poor policies and regulations, and a lack of financial and human capacity. These issues are particularly prevalent in cities in the Global South.

How does CWIS differ from conventional sanitation approaches?

CWIS moves away from the conventional infrastructure-focused, sewers-only model to a more holistic, service-based approach. It recognizes the need for a mix of sanitation solutions (both sewered and non-sewered) based on local contexts, aiming for equitable, sustainable, and environmentally safe outcomes.

What role does equity play in the CWIS approach?

Equity is central to CWIS. It ensures that vulnerable communities—those marginalized by gender, geography, socioeconomic status, and other factors—are not left behind. It focuses on providing equal access to sanitation services in terms of availability, accessibility, affordability, and acceptability.

What are the Manila Principles in relation to CWIS?

The Manila Principles, launched in 2019, lay out the framework for CWIS. They focus on equitable sanitation services, environmental sustainability, a mix of technologies, comprehensive planning, monitoring and accountability, and diverse business models. These principles guide the implementation of CWIS projects worldwide.

Why is a 'mix of technologies' important in CWIS?

A mix of technologies is important because sanitation solutions need to be tailored to local contexts, such as population density, water availability, financial constraints, and sociocultural factors. Different areas in a city may require different sanitation systems, like centralized or decentralized models, to meet their specific needs.

How does CWIS incorporate environmental and public health concerns?

CWIS ensures that the entire sanitation service chain—from toilets to containment, transport, treatment, and end-use—is managed to prevent environmental contamination and protect public health. It addresses not only access to sanitation but also pollution management, linking to SDGs 6.2 and 6.3.

What are the benefits of integrating private sector involvement in CWIS?

Involving the private sector through models like public-private partnerships (PPPs) and build-operate-transfer (BOT) schemes brings in additional resources and innovation. This helps in delivering sanitation services in resource-constrained settings, fostering a sanitation economy and ensuring long-term sustainability.

Why is comprehensive planning essential in the CWIS approach?

Comprehensive planning is crucial in CWIS because urban sanitation is complex and requires addressing multiple interrelated aspects. It ensures long-term sustainability by involving both top-down technical planning and bottom-up community engagement, as well as integrating other services like water supply and solid waste management.

How does CWIS promote accountability and sustainability in sanitation services?

CWIS emphasizes monitoring and accountability by setting clear targets, tracking sanitation system performance, and ensuring proper operation and maintenance. It advocates for institutional frameworks with accountability mechanisms and dedicated funds to sustain long-term sanitation services.

Outlines

00:00

🚽 Tackling Global Sanitation Challenges

Sanitation is a complex issue that has been the focus of international development agendas since the late 60s. Despite efforts, nearly half the global population struggles with safely managed sanitation. Abishek Narayan, a researcher at Sandec, highlights the widespread issue of sanitation poverty in cities across the Global South, with examples like hanging toilets in Dhaka and flying toilets in Nairobi. The root causes are varied, including inequity, inadequate planning, and poor policies. The solution to this issue lies in a holistic approach, and this is where Citywide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS) comes into play. CWIS aims to address these diverse challenges by implementing a mix of sanitation solutions that focus on equity, inclusivity, and environmental sustainability. The concept was formalized in 2016, with a billion-dollar commitment following in 2018 and the Manila Principles on CWIS launched in 2019.

05:07

🌍 Holistic Urban Sanitation through CWIS

CWIS is an approach that ensures equitable access to adequate and affordable sanitation services for all city residents, using a mix of technologies—both sewered and non-sewered—without polluting the environment. It moves away from a sewer-centric infrastructure model to a service-based approach, tailored to the specific needs of different communities. CWIS takes into account the entire sanitation chain, from toilet access to waste treatment and resource recovery. The CWIS approach is designed to help meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly those focused on universal sanitation access and reducing pollution (SDG 6.2 and SDG 6.3). This paragraph also outlines the need for equity, planning across the entire city, and ensuring that sanitation services cater to all populations, including vulnerable groups.

10:13

💧 Environmental and Public Health through CWIS

The second paragraph stresses that sanitation doesn't end with access to toilets—it requires comprehensive management throughout the entire sanitation chain. Poor sanitation practices lead to public and environmental health risks, with untreated waste contaminating the environment. Addressing sanitation must involve both SDG 6.2 (access to sanitation) and SDG 6.3 (pollution control). Additionally, the text emphasizes that sanitation technologies must be context-specific, considering local factors such as population density and water availability. CWIS promotes a shift towards circular sanitation models, where waste is treated as a resource, enhancing sustainability and creating new revenue streams.

📋 Comprehensive Planning and Monitoring

The paragraph highlights the importance of comprehensive and long-term planning for urban sanitation, beyond immediate fixes. CWIS expands sanitation planning to include related areas like water supply, solid waste management, and stormwater drainage. To ensure sustainable sanitation services, cities must bridge top-down planning with bottom-up community involvement. Monitoring and accountability are key, with clear targets, performance tracking, and ring-fenced funding essential for long-term success. The role of institutions in maintaining sanitation services is critical, as is the involvement of private entities to support and innovate within resource-constrained settings.

📊 Diverse Business Models for Sanitation

This section outlines the importance of blending different business models to achieve effective sanitation services. While governments are responsible for public sanitation, partnerships with the private sector can help overcome resource and capacity constraints. Various models, such as public-private partnerships (PPPs) and build-operate-transfer (BOT) arrangements, are beneficial for both parties. Innovative financing mechanisms and resource recovery incentives can make sanitation more affordable, allowing diverse solutions like container-based or community-managed toilets to serve informal urban settlements. CWIS offers a holistic approach to urban sanitation, aiming to make services equitable, sustainable, and adaptable to local needs.

🍾 CWIS: Old Wine in a New Bottle?

While CWIS might seem like a repackaged version of long-standing sanitation principles, it offers the comprehensive, multi-faceted approach necessary for today's urban sanitation challenges. It addresses multiple leaks in the sanitation agenda, promoting holistic solutions for cities. If you want to dive deeper into CWIS, several key publications are available on the Sandec website for further reading.

Keywords

💡Citywide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS)

CWIS is an approach to urban sanitation that ensures equitable access to improved sanitation services for all members of a city, regardless of socioeconomic status. It emphasizes both sewered and non-sewered technologies and aims to prevent environmental contamination. The script highlights CWIS as a shift from traditional, infrastructure-focused sanitation solutions to a more service-based, context-appropriate model that addresses the complexity of urban sanitation.

💡Equity

Equity refers to ensuring that all individuals, especially vulnerable communities, have access to sanitation services. In the context of the video, equity is described as more than just providing equal infrastructure; it also means ensuring sanitation services are available, accessible, affordable, and acceptable to all, including marginalized groups based on gender, socioeconomic status, or location.

💡Manila Principles on CWIS

The Manila Principles were launched in 2019 as a set of guidelines for implementing CWIS. They emphasize the importance of equity, sustainability, and the inclusion of all stakeholders in the sanitation planning process. The video introduces these principles as a key milestone in the development and formalization of the CWIS approach.

💡Environmental and Public Health

This concept highlights the importance of managing the entire sanitation service chain— from toilets to waste treatment— to prevent public health risks and environmental contamination. The video stresses that sanitation doesn't end at providing toilets but involves addressing all stages, such as containment, transport, and treatment, to avoid displacement of the problem and its consequences on health and the environment.

💡Appropriate Technologies

The term refers to the use of sanitation solutions that are tailored to the local context, considering factors like population density, water availability, and financial constraints. The video explains that CWIS promotes a mix of technologies, including centralized and decentralized systems, to suit different needs within the same city, instead of applying one-size-fits-all solutions.

💡Resource Recovery

Resource recovery involves turning waste from sanitation systems into usable products, such as biogas or compost. This concept is part of the shift from a waste disposal model to a circular economy within the sanitation sector. The video describes resource recovery as a means of increasing circularity and creating new revenue streams, which can also improve affordability of sanitation services.

💡Comprehensive Planning

Comprehensive planning in CWIS refers to long-term, integrated planning that addresses multiple aspects of urban sanitation, including water supply, solid waste management, and stormwater drainage. The video emphasizes that such planning must involve collaboration between communities and technical experts, bridging top-down and bottom-up approaches to meet diverse needs and future challenges.

💡Monitoring and Accountability

Monitoring and accountability refer to the systems put in place to track the performance of sanitation services, ensuring they are maintained and improved over time. The video stresses the importance of clear targets, regular monitoring, and ring-fenced funds for sanitation, as well as institutional accountability to ensure the long-term sustainability of sanitation systems.

💡Public-Private Partnerships

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) involve collaboration between government and private entities in the delivery of sanitation services. The video highlights PPPs as an innovative business model that can help resource-constrained cities meet sanitation needs while encouraging private sector involvement, which can drive innovation and provide additional capacity.

💡Sanitation Economy

The sanitation economy refers to the emergence of business models and markets around sanitation services, including waste management, resource recovery, and service delivery. The video explains how the sanitation economy, supported by innovative financing mechanisms and public-private partnerships, can help maintain affordability and improve service provision in underserved areas.

Highlights

Sanitation is a complex issue, with almost half the world still struggling to achieve safely managed sanitation despite decades of international efforts.

Citywide inclusive sanitation (CWIS) offers a holistic approach to tackle the complexity of urban sanitation challenges in cities across the global south.

CWIS was developed in response to the realization that traditional, infrastructure-focused sanitation approaches were insufficient for addressing urban sanitation problems.

CWIS emphasizes equitable access to adequate and affordable sanitation services for all city members, regardless of socioeconomic status or geographic location.

Sanitation solutions under CWIS include both sewered and non-sewered technologies that prevent contamination to the environment along the entire sanitation value chain.

CWIS rejects a one-size-fits-all approach to sanitation and advocates for a mix of sanitation technologies tailored to the local context.

CWIS promotes comprehensive planning, which includes addressing sanitation needs not only in households but also in schools, healthcare facilities, and public spaces.

CWIS calls for the need to consider long-term environmental and public health outcomes in sanitation planning, extending beyond latrine access.

Sanitation planning under CWIS addresses both SDG 6.2 (access to sanitation) and SDG 6.3 (pollution management).

CWIS encourages moving from a waste creation model to a resource recovery model, increasing the circularity and sustainability of sanitation systems.

CWIS recognizes the need for comprehensive monitoring and accountability to ensure long-term sustainability of sanitation services.

CWIS principles promote the involvement of both top-down (government-led) and bottom-up (community-led) approaches in sanitation planning.

CWIS supports the use of public-private partnerships and innovative financing mechanisms to enhance resource recovery and improve service affordability.

CWIS acknowledges that vulnerable communities—such as those affected by gender, age, socioeconomic status, or geography—are often left out of traditional sanitation planning and advocates for their inclusion.

The Manila Principles on CWIS provide a unified framework for cities to adopt the CWIS approach and make sanitation more sustainable and equitable.

Transcripts

Sanitation: It is complex.

Since the late 60s there have been multiple international development agendas towards providing adequate sanitation. 

Despite these efforts, close to half the world is still struggling

with achieving safely managed sanitation.

My name is Abishek Narayan and I'm a researcher at Sandec.

Cities across the global south face this common challenge of sanitation poverty.

Whether it is the hanging toilets in Dhaka or the flying toilets in Nairobi.

However, the problems causing poor sanitation are often different.

They may be one or a combination of the following:

Inequity, focus on toilets only,  inappropriate technologies,

inadequate planning, poor policies and regulation, lack of financial and human capacity.

So if the problems are so complex and diverse,  how could the solutions be so simple and narrow?  

We need a holistic approach that can tackle  the complexity of these issues.

That is, simultaneously plugging these different leaks.

And that's what citywide inclusive  sanitation or CWIS is all about.

In this video, we will describe the emergence and  uptake of city-wide inclusive sanitation,

explain the CWIS approach, break down  the Manila principles on CWIS.

CWIS was conceived in a conference  on urban sanitation in 2016  

by a few experts who were convinced  that business as usual was not working.

In 2017 a call to action was released and  was followed by a billion-dollar commitment  

for the cause in 2018. In 2019 the Manila  principles on CWIS was launched, and in  

2020 academic literature on CWIS started  being published. In 2021, we can see a number  

of pilot and mainstream projects on CWIS being  commissioned and implemented all across the world.

CWIS is defined as an approach to urban  sanitation, where all members of the city  

have equitable access to adequate and  affordable improved sanitation services  

through appropriate systems of all scales, both sewered and non-sewered technologies.

And all this without any contamination to the environment  along the entire sanitation value chain.   

CWIS as an approach is simply a move away from conventional infrastructure-focused, sewers-only approach to a  

more service-based, context-appropriate approach  with a mix of different sanitation solutions.  

Just like how plugging one or two of these  holes the water leak cannot be stopped,

we need to simultaneously address the multiple  different aspects of urban sanitation in order to  

truly make progress in achieving the SDGs on  universal access to safely managed sanitation. 

Now let us look at how the CWIS approach  does all this by breaking down

the CWIS concept into more easily understandable principles.

Firstly, equity.

Sanitation needs to be equitable, which means no one is left behind.

But often, the vulnerable communities, those discriminated by gender,

age, geography, socioeconomic reasons, religion, caste, etc.

are not adequately considered when planning  and implementing sanitation solutions.

Equity does not only mean that everyone is given  an equal level of infrastructure, rather it means  

that they are given an equal access to service in terms of availability, accessibility, affordability,  and acceptability.

Sanitation needs to be planned for the whole city. Not just in households, but also  

in schools, healthcare facilities, commercial  and public spaces that cater to the needs of  

not just residents, but also visitors and migrant workers.

Secondly, Environmental and Public Health.

Sanitation does not end at the toilet, it merely  begins there. The whole sanitation service chain  

of toilet, containment, emptying, transport, treatment, and end use needs to be well planned. 

If we only look at latrine access, then  we are just displacing the problem,

not managing it. This puts both public  health and environmental health at risk. 

Sanitation and environmental health are closely  linked. Take a look at this recent study which  

shows the different pathways through which faecal  contamination can end up in the environment.

Therefore, we need to address not just SDG 6.2  on access, but also SDG 6.3 on managing pollution.

Thirdly, Mix of Technologies.

There are multiple factors that determine the appropriateness of sanitation technologies.

For example, population density, sociocultural behavior, water availability, financial and spatial constraints.

When these factors vary according to the local needs,

why should sanitation solutions be the same? Even within the same city, different neighborhoods

can have different types and scales of technologies. For example, in the same city, centralized  

decentralized, on-site, container-based sanitation, among others can co-exist.

But this combination has to be carefully  implemented according to the contextual needs.

Further, we need to move away  from a waste creation model  

to a resource recovery model. And in this  way we can increase the circularity

of the sanitation service chain, and  create additional revenue streams.

Next, we have Comprehensive Planning.

CWIS has laid bare the complexities of urban sanitation.

With more explicit targets, we need more comprehensive planning.

CWIS does not just look at short-term answers, but has plans for the long-term keeping future scenarios in mind.

CWIS does not just focus on the silo  of sanitation in cities, but expands to  

environmental sanitation that includes other areas such as water supply, solid waste management,

stormwater drainage, among others. This way, many  core benefits from these synergies could be gained.  

But for all this, we need to bridge top-down and  bottom-up planning approaches. One that involves  

the communities as much as it involves the  technocrats who design the technical solutions.

Next, we have Monitoring and Accountability.

There's a quote that says if you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.

Monitoring ensures that the performance of sanitation systems and services are tracked,

the operation and maintenance are  carried out for long-term sustainability.

The capacities of sanitation service providers  and regulators are essential for this.

Authorities need to keep clear targets, ring-fenced  funds for sanitation-related activities.

All this requires institutional arrangements that  have clear accountability mechanisms in place.

Finally, Mix of Business Models.

While sanitation is clearly a public service mandate and the governments and institutions are in charge,

support from the private sector is extremely valuable in resource and capacity constraint settings.

Various service and business models such as  private-public partnerships, or build-operate  

transfer models (BOT) already exist. Such models  are beneficial to both parties, and allow for  

a sanitation economy to emerge which also allows  for more innovations to take place in the sector.

This helps the needs of various people to be met through various modalities of service.

For example, a community which is present in an urban informal settlement could be served

by container-based sanitation or community managed toilets.

Innovative financing mechanisms and resource recovery incentives can help maintain the affordability in service delivery.

In summary, CWIS is a holistic approach  that has gained traction in the last few years  

and is possibly the future  direction of urban sanitation.

It is best understood through  the Manila Principles on CWIS.

There are slightly different versions of the  CWIS approach and its principles,

but they all come down to the basics of making urban sanitation sustainable and equitable.

You might have also noted that most of these principles of CWIS have always been around in the development agenda.  

But it is the first time that the sector has come  together with such a holistic and unified vision.

Therefore even though CWIS might seem like old  wine in a new bottle, it is exactly what we need today.

A way of plugging all six of these  leaks in the urban sanitation agenda.

If you would like to understand more about  CWIS, and understand it in greater depth,

here are three key publications that  you can find in the Sandec website.