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The Sustainable Development Goal for Urban Sanitation: Africa’s Statistical Tragedy Continues?

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Abstract

Sanitation delivery in the urban areas of sub-Saharan African countries has been a chronic issue, particularly difficult to tackle. Under the Millennium Development Goals, the sanitation target in urban sub-Saharan Africa was missed by a wide margin and witnessed almost no improvement. After 2 years of review, the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme published a new measure of access to sanitation as a baseline for the Sustainable Development Goals. There are a number of improvements in the new measure. However, despite the improvements, the new measure continues to be characterized by an important flaw: it continues to disregard how shared toilet facilities contribute towards the SDG sanitation target. As a result, the new measure does not indicate whether progress is being made in low-income urban areas where a large number of households rely on shared sanitation; nor does it provide a goal that can be achieved in cities of the poorest countries over the measurement period. But, its most egregious failing is that it directs resources towards investments which will often fail cost/benefit tests. In sum, it is not a surprise that a Working Group recommended that the measure should be changed to include some shared facilities. Following the Working Group’s recommendation would have avoided the adverse consequences of continued reliance on a key component of the methodology used for monitoring sanitation improvements under the Millennium Development Goals. The paper discusses the limitations of this methodology in the context of urban sub-Saharan Africa, where current sanitation conditions are seriously lacking, and the significant future urban population growth will add more pressure for the delivery of vital sanitation services.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Gates (Grant Number: 20315) and Rockefeller Foundations (Grant Number: 1434) and the New School International Field Program. Comments and suggestions by Tom Buckley, John Ermisch, Sharon Friel, Ole Fryd, Isabel Gunther, Shagun Mehrotra, Matthias Nohn, Richard Tomlinson, and an anonymous referee are appreciated without implicating them.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs, New York, NY, USA

    Robert M. Buckley

  2. The Urban Institute, Washington, D.C., USA

    Robert M. Buckley

  3. New York University Marron Institute of Urban Management, The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs, New York, NY, USA

    Achilles Kallergis

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Correspondence to Robert M. Buckley.

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Buckley, R.M., Kallergis, A. The Sustainable Development Goal for Urban Sanitation: Africa’s Statistical Tragedy Continues?. J Urban Health 96, 123–130 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-018-0267-1

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