Better water and sanitation for the urban poor : good practice from Sub-Saharan Africa

This document describes water service delivery to low-income urban communities. It outlines the key principles that guide water and sanitation sector practitioners in the delivery of services to the urban poor, and provides tangible examples from a range of sub-Saharan African countries to illustrate these principles and challenges.
The document is structured in 3 parts covering the key thematic areas – water supply service delivery, sanitation service delivery and overall policy. Each part describes a series of different actions that can be taken to improve service delivery to low-income communities, outlines key lessons and challenges and identifies the principles of good practice. Each chapter is illustrated with Water Utility Partnership number 5 case study material and, where appropriate, selected good practice from other regions has been used to supplement the illustrative material from sub-Saharan Africa.
It is the opinion of the authors, that within each country context, the key to a successful strategy lies in the capacity of practitioners working in the water and sanitation sector to innovate and to adapt solutions in order to address local constraints and opportunities. This document therefore aims to provide the reader with information and examples to support this localized approach, enabling practitioners to draw up a suitable course of action, tailored to local circumstances but built on regional experience. As such, the document does not intend to recommend specific actions or to prescribe specific practice or policy to be implemented by practitioners and policy-makers, but to provide a source of information for consideration.