Household-centred environmental sanitation : implementing the Bellagio principles in urban environmental sanitation : provisional guideline for decision-makers

This guideline challenges conventional thinking and proposes some guiding principles as the basis for future planning and implementation of environmental sanitation services, commonly known in the sector as the “Bellagio Principles”. The Household-Centred Environmental Sanitation (HCES) was conceived in the search for approaches which are based on these principles that are likely to help achieve the overall goal of water and sanitation for all. The HCES approach is based on a framework which balances the needs of people with those of the environment to support a healthy life on earth. Seen as radical departure from the central planning approaches of the past, it places the household and its neighbourhood at the core of the planning process. The guideline has been developed to give guidance on how to implement the “Bellagio Principles” by applying the HCES approach. It provides assistance to those who are willing to include and test this new approach in their urban environmental sanitation programmes. Since practical experience with the HCES approach is lacking, it is neither comprehensive nor final, but will be developed further on the basis of extensive field experience and feedback from the users