The case for high quality shared sanitation

Conventional sewerage cannot meet the urgent growing needs for sanitation in the rapidly expanding cities of the global South. New approaches for this critical infrastructure are needed, including scalable solutions with demonstrated potential for improving public health.

In many densely populated and low-income urban areas, factors such as land tenure insecurity, limited space, weak infrastructure and financial constraints make private household toilets unattainable. While private toilets remain the gold standard, MapSan proves that well-designed and properly maintained shared sanitation can offer a dignified solution with proven benefits to health and quality of life.

The number of people this could impact is huge. Over half a billion urban residents globally currently lack access to basic sanitation. Meanwhile, urbanisation rates in Sub-Saharan Africa, where 18% of the urban population rely on shared sanitation, continue to rise. By 2050, Africa’s cities will be home to an additional 950 million people. (UNICEF Data: Website).

As we explore below, for several years WSUP and other thought leaders in the urban WASH sector have argued that shared sanitation, when designed and managed to rigorous standards, can be both safe and sustainable. The MapSan Trial has now proven this beyond doubt. It moves shared sanitation from a reluctant compromise — “better than nothing” — to a scientifically validated, scalable public health solution. In contexts where space, tenure, and infrastructure constraints make private toilets impossible, shared sanitation offers an achievable, life-changing step forward. (OCED Report).