Towards establishment of the Brown Drop - A Regulatory Platform in Managing Excreta Flows in South Africa

Abstract

The maintenance of sanitation infrastructure, sewered and non-sewered, remains a cause of concern and a hinderance to achieving universal sanitation coverage. The lack of planning and management tools, specifically in the non-sewered domain, has led to unintended and unfortunate consequences of dilapidated infrastructure and incidents of unhygienic and dangerous user conditions. While regulatory mechanisms are available for sewered systems via the Green Drop certification process , there is no such complementary mechanism for non-sewered sanitation systems , despite nearly 30% of South Africans served by such facilities. Recognising the gap, the Water Research Commission (WRC) introduced Shit Flow Diagrams (SFDs) to the South African water sector to assist municipalities understand the fate of excreta through the sanitation value chain . SFDs include both sewered and non-sewered systems. Municipalities have indicated the usefulness and benefits of SFDs in their sanitation planning.

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