saNiTaTioN

AFFORDABLE HOUSING IN JINJA

Land is a crucial aspect in the development of any area, not only as a means of production. Everything is land based, particularly housing. Hence, if land is not regulated it can result in housing problems which is mostly the case in Uganda. Though in Jinja the land is regulated and is under control of the Municipality, there are still many issues because of no National Policy for Land. This poses greater problems while providing housing for low income earners especially in a place like Jinja where 80 percent of the population is poor. Though the government tried following the ‘enabling approach’ to provide affordable housing and improved living conditions for the poor, it has done so in a very passive way and hence failed to implement it successfully. Affordable housing can be defined in so many ways that we decided to develop a framework for understanding the concept, in the context of Jinja. It helped us understand the implications of the government’s actions on the community in general and provided us a path towards giving relevant recommendations.

It’s not our responsibility

INTRODUCING KAWAMA

When we went to Kawama, the housing project we worked on, we found that the project is almost at a standstill resulting from conflicts and misunderstandings between different stakeholders. Hence, it was important for us to understand the dynamics of the project first, before proceeding to giving out any suggestions. For this we looked into two case study housing projects for low income earners, in Masese and Mpumudde. They were relevant because of the fact that they all aimed at low cost affordable housing, had Savings Groups in each project and involved almost the same stakeholders apart from donor organisations. By doing this we dug deep into what made each community work. Though all the projects had unique characteristics, the case study method helped us generalise some concepts on affordable housing. By doing this we were able to foresee the future of Kawama if the ways of working of different stakeholders continued in the current pattern. In the course of our study we discovered that the housing in Kawama was not so affordable and suggested ways to improve this situation in the future.

Nati onal subsidies are essenti al

They can come under the form of land or fi nancial support on a demand driven base.

Services & infrastructure Water should be a resource, need to be designed to not a hazard

Electricity, sanitati on, roads, water, schools and health centers Rainwater can be used to harvest or for irrigati on

People need to own their house and the land

When it’s their private property, they want to take care of it..

M.T. Diniz (Informal Toolbox)

Let people parti cipate in the design of public space

This will lead to higher awareness & commitment

Garbage for life

Waste management can become livelihood

Clear contracts

MoU signed before anything starts Documented secure tenure human dignity

Open knowledge

Access to informati on can lead to selbuild and can sti mulate initi ati ve

Housing doesn’t stop when it’s built

Lack of maintenance and management can put the project to risk

Collect informati on

Good planning requires accurate informati on on the site (boundaries, topology,...)

Grow local

On site, small scale agriculture can lead to a diversity of crops and provide jobs and income

Importance of locati on

Locati on defi nes market opportuniti es. Transportati on means & proximity to services, jobs and shops. WHAT CAN BE DONE...

The best way to achieve aff ordable housing in the case of Kawama is Incremental housing. We have only reintroduced this concept because the local government has already tried working on it but failed because not much thought was put into it. In our recommendati ons the residents are free to extend their houses according to their fi nances and ti me. They have lesser dependence on each other which is not the case in current design. The most important factor in low cost housing is fl exibility in the house design and in site planning. The house should allow for individual choices to build, design and also to choose it’s purpose. For example, in our proposed designs, the houses can be extended at people’s convenience and they also provide opportunity to use the extended spaces as commercial spaces to generate employment. Flexibility should also refl ect in the site plan. It should allow for free movement and equal access for everyone, facilitate community interacti ons and be adaptable to people’s choices to generate income, be it farming on site or opening small shops. The current plan does not take into account the local topography or dimensions of site, which is an indispensable part of site planning. It could further trigger the expenditure for Municipality because of higher maintenance costs for various services which depend on topography. The training in constructi on skills that are currently given to the community will also be helpful to achieve incremental housing. Such skills should be integrated with current housing project to generate employment opportuniti es for the community. Our recommendati ons have been open and fl exible throughout. We looked into the dynamics of Kawama project and gave suggesti ons suitable for the site, unlike conventi onal planning approach. We felt that in order to make a project successful, it is important to identi fy its uniqueness but also to learn from the success stories of other projects. For us, a combinati on of both paved the way to recommend incremental housing for the ‘poorest of the poor’ in Jinja.

SANITATION JINJA

INTRODUCTION

Safe sanitati on is a universal, daily human need and basic right. With about 2.5 billion people across the world lacking access to safe sanitati on and the connecti on between poor sanitati on and waterborne disease, sanitati on is an essenti al, urgent challenge for development (UN).

An enumerati on report conducted by ACTogether (2012) found limited access to water and sanitati on in Jinja’s sett lements. Jinja Municipal Council (JMC) eff orts to improve sanitati on focus on expanding the centralized Nati onal Water and Sewerage Corporati on (NWSC) waterborne sewerage network. Although commonly adopted as the soluti on to sanitati on in urban centres of the developing world, centralized supply-driven piping networks are water and energy intensive, expensive and logisti cally diffi cult (UNESCAP). The TSUPU Programme (Transforming the Sett lements of the Urban Poor) has also recently initi ated projects in Jinja that include sanitati on units in four the city’s sett lements. TSUPU projects are funded by the World Bank and executed through a collaborati on between JMC and the Nati onal Slum Dwellers Federati on of Uganda (NSDFU).

HOW - METHODOLOGY

We started by evaluati ng sanitati on in Jinja today through case studies of sanitati on units and analysis of city-wide sanitati on practi ces and programmes. Our analysis was informed by site visits, discussions with savings’ groups and residents, meeti ngs with municipal offi cials and review of toilet design drawings, bills of quanti ti es and caretaker records. We then derived a set of seven criteria for success, that we believe must all be met to implement and sustain sanitati on projects in sett lement communiti es. 34

RUBAGA MASESE RIPON KISIMA LOCO E.WALUKUBA W.WALUKUBA KIMAKA

EXCISTING SANITATION

PROPOSED SITES

The criteria then drove our development of city and site level recommendations. We created site-specific designs and maintenance programmes for four of the TSUPU projects sites, which were also informed by discussions with community members and successful projects elsewhere in Uganda and the world. For each site we designed several different options with preliminary cost estimates to encourage a comparative discussion.

TODAY - CASE STUDIES & JINJA CONTEXT

There are a number of sanitation units recently constructed in Jinja by the NSDFU and other NGOs. Despite the large budget of the NSDFU toilets, they have largely failed to substantially improve access to sanitation. All have experienced a large discrepancy between expected and realized profits and users that can be attributed to poor location, limited sensitization, high pay-per use fees and the presence of alternative, if poor, toilet facilities. And a lack of evaluation of the unit in Masese enabled its almost exact replication in Ripon despite clear faults.

However, the project built with community contracting in Rubaga market shows that incorporating the community in the design and building process increases security and sense of ownership. The ecosan toilet on Kisima Island, also shows that cultural resistance to new technologies can be bridged with proper sensitization and communities are strong enough to collectively manage toilets. In general, the observed failures of these projects speaks to the limited scope of implementation that fails to see projects holistically with a long-term perspective and fails to acknowledge the importance of adapting to the socio-economic context into which projects are placed. The criteria we consequently developed were therefore not focused on the physical construction of the building, but highlight the importance of appropriate design for a given community and planning for post-construction management. Our criteria are as follows: location and scale, appropriate technology, economy, ownership, security, health and awareness and stakeholders and partnerships.

Our analysis and criteria also respond to the limitations of the existing procedures of project implementation. Currently, projects are initiated only when there is external funding and the process ends with physical construction. In general, stronger emphasis needs to be placed on community involvement and long-term management, demand-driven projects and monitoring and evaluation. Funding agencies need to allow more flexibility and time for participatory processes.

Million Ugandan Shilling

50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Expected annual pro t Construction Cost Realized pro t

[each stance is allocated to a housing unit]

[ecosan Kisima] [Rubaga sanitation]

[Masese sanitation] [drainage]

CITY LEVEL RECOMMENDATIONS

JMC and NWSC must acknowledge both their limited financial and managerial capacity and fundamental responsibility to provide basic sanitation to all of Jinja. This suggests a restructuring of municipal policies and financial planning to reduce dependency on donors and creatively use existing resources to extend basic safe sanitation to as much of the population as possible. Donor funds can then be used to strategically support ongoing programmes instead of replacing them.

This requires financial resourcefulness, accountability and partnerships with local organizations and experts to share responsibility and knowledge. Available money should be used creatively to support the entire process with emphasis on creating incentives for reusing waste as an economic resource and diversified waste treatment at different scales.

The NWSC network is arguably appropriate for the town center, but should be supplemented with clustered and decentralized sanitation solutions in outlying areas and poor settlements. It is imperative that JMC support exploration into low-cost, ecological alternatives to expensive waterborne toilets that are more financially, logistically and environmentally viable. Toilet waste not reused on site can be collected at regional points around the town and regularly transported to the existing fertilizer facility or NWSC lagoons. JMC could maintain organizational control, but share functional responsibility with the community and other stakeholders. SITE SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS

Our site-specific recommendations include designs and cost estimates for decentralized and waterborne units in four of the TSUPU proposed sites in: Loco Housing Estate, Walukuba West Market, Walukuba East Market and Kimaka Market. Decentralized alternatives to waterborne include: ventilated improved pit latrine, permanent double-pit composting toilet and temporary double-put composting toilet and biogas. Wateborne options include manual pour flush and waterborne connected to sewerage or septic.

Our cost estimates suggest higher initial costs with municipal contracting (33 percent compared to community contracting), cost savings with material choice and creative floorplans, lower running costs with composting toilets and prohibitively high running costs with waterborne toilets. Construction costs between different options vary only slightly compared to the large differences in annual costs and ten-year costs. This emphasizes the importance of choosing a technology that is cost-effective in the long-run and incorporating additional functionality to units to increase profits or reduce running costs. These additions include greywater reuse, rainwater collection, greywater gardens, kiosk and rentable storage space and community space.

Because many of the failures in our case studies occurred after construction, we developed frameworks for implementation and management in residential and market settings that include implementation and management plans, financial planning for long-term maintenance and shared stakeholder responsibilities. CONCLUSION

Existing sanitation policies and projects are failing to meet the basic need of Jinja’s poorest residents. It is essential for JMC to critically evaluate their existing focus on waterborne sewerage and consider supplementing the existing piping network with costeffective, decentralized alternatives appropriate for poor settlements. This demands redefining human “waste” as a resource, rethinking the convention of waterborne sanitation and re-engineering waste management into a cyclical resource management. We hope our work can inspire exploration and innovation towards a development path that is defined by and for the entire community of Jinja. superstructure plywood, papyrus, recycled jerrycans, ferrocement, canvas, etc. stretched on a wooden frame pit Burnt or interlocking brick with concrete slab unit size 5 stances, assumed 120 users per unit

(4 families per stance)

pit life 2 years pit depth 2,5 meters