Sanitation financing models for the urban poor

The provision of sanitation services in low-income urban areas is one of the greatest challenges in development. Population growth in developing countries currently outpaces sanitation growth, especially in urban areas. Consequently, in urban areas where poor people reside, and where ‘formal’ sanitation services are not available to them, they experience the compounded effect of serious economic disadvantages such as high risk to public health; a dirty and contaminated environment; no basic human dignity and safety risk for a large part of the world’s population, especially for adolescent girls and women. The urban poor are detrimentally affected by the lack of access to proper sanitation facilities. However, this lack of access remains hidden, as urban sanitation statistics generally do not differentiate between access for the upper, middle, and lower or lowest socio-economic strata. Poverty is currently growing faster in urban areas than in rural areas. Urban areas are typically overcrowded, polluted, dangerous, and lack basic services such as water and sanitation. Aggregate statistics also underestimate the scale and depth of urban poverty hiding the deep inequalities between the poor and the ultra-poor, and the middle and upper income groups. The United Nations Population Fund states that officially, up to or over half of the urban population ranges between poor to ultra-poor in most developing countries. [authors abstract]

305.40, 305.42