'Let's talk about shit'

When starting this blog, I thought that I would solely be focusing on the relationship between water and food. However, I quickly came to find that there are greater issues at play which affect water and food insecurity. This post will be examining issues around sanitation and exploring how private sector management of defecation has been used to improve food production across Africa. 

I spent the best part of a year in Bangladesh in 2011, where I saw how serious the lack of sanitation is for Bangladeshis. The lack of clean and safe toilets in public areas has resulted in individuals creating pit latrines or engaging in the flying toilet practice. These issues are similar across Nairobi and Kampala. There is a noticeable paradox of modernity: more people have access to a mobile phone than access to a safe toilet. Let’s explore this issue…

Talking about shit is seen as a taboo topic; there is a need to destigmatise the world and talk about the unmentionable. By normalising human bodily waste, people are more likely to engage with the issue, rather than shying away from it. As argued by George (2008:203) ‘the irony of defecation is that it is a private business, yet its repercussions are plural and public’, connoting that defecation and toilet related issues are a public problem, thus there is a need for public solutions and engagement. Sanitation needs to be put on the map and the UN SDGs aim to improve an individual’s access to safe sanitary facilities. By sticking to the thematic topic of food and water, I have come to learn how sanitary solutions have been linked to improve not only sanitation management, but also to help improve agricultural yield.

Urban sanitation has become a concern, related to urban poverty and informal settlements across the Global South. Accessing a toilet has become a political and human right. The reality of this is that 340 million across East and South Africa have no access to basic sanitation, which is having detrimental impacts on health and livelihoods (UNICEF). Lack of facilities has the greatest impact on females. Girls across Kenya are dropping out of primary education due to the lack of sanitary facilities (Pearson and McPhedran 2008) and during menstruation, parents withdraw their daughters from school as they are forced to partake in open defecation (WSP 2004). Lack of sanitation is having a negative multiplier effect across these regions as illiteracy rates will increase and the number of girls entering into high skilled jobs will decrease.

So, what is the solution? Improving sanitation across slums is challenging because of the weak economic and institutional environment (O’Keefe et al 2015) which begs the question about community-led management. Urban community-led sanitation (UCLTS) aims to stop open defecation by engaging communities to build their own solutions. There are mechanisms of community walkabouts, in an attempt to find places where there has been open defecation to instil ‘fear, shame and disgust’. Though this has been successful in reducing open defecation, there is a need for top-down management or private sector influence to steer the movement in the right direction and to provide funding. 

Sanergy is a revolutionary sanitation management which has tackled two key issues with one solution. Sanergy aims to create sustainable sanitation systems by developing safe toilets. Across Nairobi, there are 600 toilets installed in six informal settlements, as shown in figure one, which has dramatically increased safe sanitation practices and reduction in sanitary diseases (O’Keefe et al 2015). An additional bonus, the faeces is converted into organic fertiliser, which has increased agricultural production and has generated an income stream for people across Nairobi (ibid.) Consequently, management of sanitation services has increased local food security, with a 30% increase in crop yield (Sanergy.com) and has improved standards of living across the city. However, Sanergy has some issues. It requires proof of land ownership before construction; however this is difficult as many Africans live in informal settlements (O’Keefe 2015). Moreover, it is not financially viable as it will require constant reinvestment, installations and patient capital. Though Sanergy is looking to improve access to toilets, they can only do this if they are breaking-even and in reality, they want to extract profit from this venture. Therefore, to ensure long-term sustainability, Sanergy will need support from the government. 

Figure 1 – Sanergy toilets (Sanergy.org) 

As we come to the end of the blogging series, we come to learn that issues around water and food security are much more complicated and entangled than initially anticipated.