Constraints in providing water and sanitation services to the urban poor

The purpose of this report is to help programme development officers and policy-makers understand the constraints that make it especially difficult to bring water and sanitation to the urban poor. These constraints are considered under four sub-headings: physical and technical, economic and financial, institutional, and structural. Third world cities can be viewed as consisting of two distinct sectors: formal and informal, legal and illegal, or regular and irregular. When families discover that there is no way to live in the formal or legitimate part of the city, they opt to go underground to the informal/peri-urban communities. These peri-urban settlements represent the majority of urban neighbourhoods in developing countries. This report aims to help in clarifying urban sector constraints in addressing the needs of the urban poor, so as to stimulate additional activities to deal with these constraints, either in the context of individual projects, or in other wider sector initiatives aimed at policy and sector reform. The report also includes several case studies aiming to illustrate how various constraints can isolate the urban poor and prevent them from getting urban services. Among the examples given, are the experiences of specific projects which have managed to overcome the obstacles and have succeeded in providing water and sanitation services to peri-urban communities.