Sanitation justice? The multiple dimensions of urban sanitation inequalities

摘要: The launch of the Water and Sanitation Decade (1980-1990) marked the first attempt to place urban sanitation within the development agendas of national governments and international organizations. Since then, the inclusion of sanitation within the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the Sustainable Development Goals, and global campaigns such as the UN Sanitation Year (2008), the End of Open Defecation Campaign, and World Toilet Day have institutionalised sanitation as one of the core development goals until 2030 and beyond. The results of many of these sanitation development initiatives are however disappointing. Regional statistics show alarming results for Sub-Saharan Africa, where urban population growth has outpaced gains in sanitation coverage since the 1990s; 14 out of 46 countries declined in sanitation coverage (UNICEF/WHO, 2015: 17). At the conclusion of the MDGs inequalities in access to sanitation between rich and poor urban dwellers persist in the majority of countries (UNICEF/WHO 2015).Depressing as this is, the MDGs have only focused on distributive outcomes (access to infrastructure), overlooking other dimensions of sanitation inequality. Failing to address these dimensions hampers development interventions which aim to reduce these inequalities: sub-surface flows of untreated wastewaters contaminating shallow groundwater sources of urban poor settlements displaces health risks onto the poorest, and reduces developmental opportunities for children and adults who themselves may already be using “improved” sanitation services (Graham and Polizzotto, 2013); construction of onsite sanitation …