Tools to Support Utilities Design and Operationalize Safe, Inclusive, and Sustainable Service Models in Sanitation

More often, the sanitation planning for public authorities starts with how much infrastructure assets can be built or created within the available financing envelope. This approach focuses on maximising the hardware/ infrastructure that can be provided within a given resource in context.

When we flip this assessment & planning to “How can we reach all, especially the poor & marginalised and the hardest communities to serve” we can combine technical assessment and financial planning creatively to maximise impact in sanitation delivery.

In this workshop session, we demonstrate how the EquiServe tool and tools from Toolbox by FSMA can be combined for system assessment and designing appropriate plans.

We start by market system interrogation using EquiServe, from the perspective of three stakeholders (service authority, customers and service providers). This is by mapping who has access to technology and service, what kind of service, who provides and at what cost (price to HHs and cost to service providers)

The assessment tools on the Toolbox by FSMA platform builds upon the globally available tools like SFD and CSDA. While SFD summarises the sanitation service outcomes in terms of the flows and state of faecal waste in the city, CSDA provides an overview of the enabling environment and highlights the reasons for the unsafe faecal waste flows shown in the SFD.

Both analysis points to gaps and allows to explore types of interventions needed to deliver safe and equitable sanitation services. Creative, iterative, and collaborative planning shows how it can be achieved well. Equiserve allows users to simulate a range of regulatory, technology, revenue model, and financing levers and test the impact on equity, safety & viability outcomes in cities. The FSM planning tools, “Infrastructure planning tool,” and the “FSM business models” can help formulate creative service models, including alternate technology options that can be tested in EquiServe.

Finally, the financial implications of a life cycle approach on Equity, Safety, and Sustainability for the inclusive sanitation service delivery of multiple scenarios are modelled and compared using EquiServe.

In summary, the session unpacks the process of using assessment and planning tools available and how they can be readily deployed to advance sanitation service delivery to do more with less for LMIC countries.