Initiative description

Background and context

Around 60% of Zimbabwe’s urban households lack access to basic or safely managed sanitation facilities,[1] with greater deficits in low-income areas. Authorities’ efforts to plan and develop water and sanitation services take place with little involvement of low-income communities, lack data and have a poor understanding of needs, perceptions and coping strategies (Banana et al., 2015a). A clear link can be made between inadequate provision of sanitation (and other services) and limited state capabilities, particularly where services are not provided at scale (Ouma et al., 2024). In many urban contexts, weak or disrupted local governance has resulted in an explosion of informal service provision to address deficiencies (Masimba, 2021), creating parallel systems in both marginalised (informal) and more affluent (formal) settlements. Climate change further exacerbates problems linked to unmet demand for services, challenging efforts towards reliable, equitable service provision.

Fast-growing second tier cities accommodate most urban demographic growth in Africa (Matamanda et al., 2022; ICED, 2017), so their development is crucial. However, they often face additional burdens in financing service provision and infrastructure construction and maintenance (Adelina et al., 2020; Matamanda et al., 2022). In Chinhoyi, provincial capital of Mashonaland West in Zimbabwe, a combination of rapid local growth and national financial constraints has eroded municipal capacity to provide residents with water, sanitation and other basic services (Schwartz et al., 1999; Chinyama and Toma, 2013; Nhapi, 2015). Chinhoyi’s population has doubled since 2002, to 103,000 in 2022 (ZimStat, 2022), driven by natural increase and rural–urban migration linked to widespread loss of employment in surrounding mines and commercial farms.

In 2012, 35% of Chinhoyi’s population (then 80,000) lived without or with inadequate access to improved sanitation, including most of the 44% of municipal residents living in informal settlements (Banana et al., 2015b). Ageing, poorly maintained infrastructure in what were formally planned settlements (peripheral ex-mining towns and more central colonial-era worker hostels) cannot adapt to climate stresses or accommodate the far larger number of families now living there. Many households also face complex and insecure tenure.

Communities lack access to consistent water supplies. There are citywide concerns about maintenance of existing infrastructure and vulnerability to water shortages, with authorities reportedly able to supply only 35% of clean water needs (ZBC News, 2023). Many plots were occupied before bulk infrastructure could be installed and, in 2015, research found that 25% of Chinhoyi’s population lived in areas not connected to the municipal grid (Banana et al., 2015). Other challenges limiting the sustainability of interventions include the city’s centralised, sophisticated wastewater systems, which are expensive to maintain and regularly compromised by power cuts, and the mass exodus of skilled personnel from local authorities since Zimbabwe’s economic crisis started in 2000 (ZHPF and DoS, 2014).

Urban growth highlights the central role of infrastructure in achieving sustainable urbanisation and poverty reduction (ZHPF and DoS, 2016). Meeting sanitation needs in underserved areas can necessitate looking beyond classic individualised, waterborne trunk sewer solutions to seek pragmatic alternatives (Satterthwaite et al., 2015). The urban reform this case study describes took place under the Zimbabwean government’s new Strategy to Accelerate Access to Sanitation and Hygiene (2011-2015) which was developed in the aftermath of a devastating nationwide cholera outbreak linked to urban service deficiencies. This progressive policy prioritised innovative approaches to addressing needs and scaling up existing interventions (ZHPF and DoS, 2014), which meant local authorities were more open to new ideas, including the community-driven data collection and planning, coproduction partnerships, and innovative technology and financing mechanisms described below (Banana et al., 2015).

The initiative documented here took place under the Sanitation and Hygiene Applied Research Equity (SHARE) consortium (2010-18), funded by the UK Department of International Development (now FCDO) and led by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, with partner organisations International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and Slum Dwellers International (SDI), among others. In Chinhoyi, SHARE built on and amplified earlier collaborative interventions to address urban service deficiencies[2] that had been undertaken by the Zimbabwean SDI Alliance – an SDI-affiliated partnership between Dialogue on Shelter Trust (DoS), a non-governmental organisation, and Zimbabwe Homeless People’s Federation (ZHPF or Federation), a community-based network working to address service delivery and tenure challenges in Zimbabwean towns and cities.

Parallel SHARE action research projects led by SDI affiliates in Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania allowed for learning and reflection. This built on earlier efforts, notably a visit by the Zimbabwean Alliance to Blantyre, Malawi to learn from projects implementing ecological sanitation (ecosan) technology. The major driver for this learning exchange was Brundish, a 2002-12 greenfield housing project in Chinhoyi, where the Federation was negotiating with the local authority to waive standards and allow for quicker occupation of allocated plots (ZHPF and DoS, 2014). Authority standards stipulated expensive installation of waterborne sewer system infrastructure before occupation. Facing affordability challenges, the Federation negotiated a more incremental approach, allowing them to more gradually mobilise resources for staying on site and to install cheaper and more sustainable technologies to reduce water consumption, such as ecosan. Lessons from Malawi and elsewhere informed development in Brundish and were then picked up by other communities in Chinhoyi, including under SHARE (see below).

SHARE project locations were selected in part due to good existing relationships between SDI groups and local authorities, recognising the critical role of supportive local government for community-centric approaches to citywide sanitation (Banana et al., 2015b). In Chinhoyi, a 2012 Memorandum of Understanding between the Zimbabwean SDI Alliance and municipality had agreed on the importance of community-based responses to Chinhoyi’s housing and service crises and asserted a shared commitment to collaboratively address these issues (Banana et al., 2015a).

[1] That is, living with limited or unimproved access to sanitation facilities, or with open defecation. The comparable figure for across Africa is 48%. “Limited” access is defined as use of improved facilities that miss a “safely managed” criteria and are shared with other households. Source: WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene, 2024 (online resource, accessed 27 August 2024).

[2] For example, those documented in Homeless International and Reall (2016) and Masimba (2010).

Summary of initiative

This case study outlines a three-year action research project (2012-15) in Chinhoyi centred on collaboration between local authorities and organised groups of citizens to identify and map sanitation needs in low-income neighbourhoods, and then co-produce appropriate and affordable toilet facilities. Activities were led by the Zimbabwean SDI Alliance. Within SHARE (see above), IIED worked with SDI to conceptualise and manage this action research project.

The initiative is an example of how relations between communities and authorities can be strengthened through knowledge co-production, leading to both tangible improvements and evidence to inform effective policy. By challenging poor relationships between residents and local authorities, it demonstrates the utility that can be brought about by fixing the social contract. It also made some progress in challenging norms by introducing and implementing alternative approaches to sanitation technology, and in demonstrating the value of community contributions to financing and managing sanitation facilities in informal settlements.

Activities were implemented as a collaborative research process between the Zimbabwean SDI Alliance, Municipality of Chinhoyi and Chinhoyi residents, including many who were not Federation members. ZHPF and DoS provided technical support and community mobilisation. The municipality contributed in-kind resources (labour, waiving of fees, technical expertise, land for installing facilities) and mobilised political will by engaging local councillors (Banana et al., 2015). In later stages, resident contributions to constructing facilities were facilitated by loans from ZHPF’s national Gungano urban poor fund [3].

The research approach aimed at understanding dynamics affecting sanitation provision in Chinhoyi through four lenses: (1) affordability, for both residents and local authority; (2) choice of installed technology and its maintenance; (3) local authority capacity beyond financial; and (4) governance and decision making.

Project design was built around three phases. First, community-led profiling assessed existing provision by collecting data in 11 settlements chosen for the perceived magnitude and nature of their sanitation challenges. This involved GIS mapping existing water and sanitation facilities, such as toilets and boreholes. Local data teams, trained and supported by ZHPF and DoS, worked to develop data tools applied across all settlements, in a collaborative process involving representatives from each settlement as well as local authority planning and engineering professionals.

In the second phase, further data was collected in a smaller number of settlements using focus groups discussions and, where possible, enumerations (socioeconomic household-level surveys). These deepened the understanding of issues of maintenance, affordability, access and distance. Household enumerations and report-back meetings also served as a mobilization tool, enabling mobilization teams to explain the initiative and value of collective action.

Three settlements were then selected for an implementation phase, focused on co-designing and co-constructing solutions that could address immediate needs in a particular location and subsequently be scaled up after testing. Choice of precedent areas was based on extent of service deprivation, the potential for proposed solutions to be scaled up, and community interest in participating. A range of innovative sanitation interventions were developed, together with financing models covering construction and maintenance. Intervention choices were informed by data findings, community preferences and affordability, and considered individual, shared and communal options. This final phase was intended to catalyse longer-term collaborations with the municipality to plan for extending existing sanitation provision and securing more inclusive services.

During the implementation phase, the project successfully adapted interventions to the local economic context and was instrumental in bridging relations between authorities and communities, beyond the direct beneficiaries. This affected perceptions and revenue collection capacity. Its research design effectively tackled typical challenges of community-led upgrading, such as weak community ownership and organisation, absence of holistic thinking in terms of technical interventions, limited financial resources, a lack of will to invest through poor governance, and fragmented links between state institutions and urban dwellers (Mulenga, 2013; see also Learning section below). Crosscutting approaches included community capacity-building, supporting the creation of revolving savings groups, direct community involvement in service delivery, and building better collaborative practices with local authorities.

[3] The Gungano Urban Poor Fund (Shona for “gathering”) was set up by the ZHPF in 1999 and is managed by ZHPF in partnership with DoS. It works by combining collective savings of women-led local savings groups with donor funds to provide loans to secure land tenure, build low-income housing, make incremental improvements to services, and for income generation projects. It is now increasingly used to leverage resources with local authorities to respond to both upgrading needs and climate change impacts.

Target population, communities, constituents or "beneficiaries"

The project targeted low-income Chinhoyi residents living with inadequate access to water and sanitation facilities, including in remote former mining settlements, which, since mine closures after 2000 had experienced administrative overlaps and particularly poor municipal relations.

Interventions designed and delivered in three neighbourhoods are described below. By 2015, these had benefited 308 households (1,700 people) with improved sanitation: 248 with access to shared sanitation facilities between identified households; and 60 with access to improved communal sanitation. The significant ripple effect in Chinhoyi and elsewhere is more difficult to quantify (see Scaling section, below).

In addition to direct beneficiaries, 92 Federation members participated in city sanitation-related events during the project. Three hundred community members (Federation and non-Federation) trained and participated in data collection.

In Shackleton, a remote settlement (2012 population: 4,600 in 540 households), residents lived with high tenure insecurity and social cohesion was low. The project focused on shared toilets, usually between two families and, by 2015, 37 ecosan toilets serving 90 families had been built. Construction was funded through loans of USD 200-350 per toilet, provided as individual loans to two families and repayable over a two-year period at a 1% monthly interest rate. Once 75% of the first loan was repaid, sharing families were eligible for another loan to construct a second toilet.

In Gadzema (2012 population: 2,500 people in 700 households), widespread subletting within council rental units complicated issues of ownership and tenure and payment of user charges. The local authority was no longer cleaning and maintaining toilets that it managed, citing poor payment of rates. This led to a blame cycle, in which no party took responsibility for maintenance (Banana and ZHPF, 2015). The Federation supported the community to set up a toilet committee to negotiate with the authority. Project funds were used to construct two new communal toilet blocks serving 60 families (four households sharing a toilet and a bathroom). Cleaning and maintenance responsibilities were transferred from the council to beneficiary households, and the council agreed to a direct budget, derived from rates, to fund further construction of toilet blocks in the settlement, including at a nearby primary school.

In Mpata (2012 population: 5,000 people), the municipality had installed a waterborne sanitation grid in the area. Challenges of individualised tenure and a mix of land-owner residents and tenants with absentee landlords informed community preferences for addressing sanitation needs at the household level. Making solutions affordable was therefore a key concern. The Federation supported the community to set up a sanitation committee to engage with the local authority, and developed a process whereby groups of ten households could access a revolving loan fund to cover construction materials and plumbing. The authority agreed to approval and inspection concessions and to collecting connection fees over a number of payments, rather than up front. By 2015, 25 household-level flush toilets had been constructed in this way.