Participatory planning approach

To be able to attain a high sanitation condition in a community, it is essential to select the most suitable sanitation option by involving the end users of the systems in all steps of the planning process. Participation of users is now thought to be a prerequisite for sustainable development. Working with a participatory planning approach improves motivation, learning and self-realization, feelings of ownership and self-esteem, and the possibility that the identified problems and solutions will truly reflect the felt needs of the stakeholders.

User involvement raises awareness and is particularly important to enable an “informed choice”, and for the proper operation of on-site systems, as neglecting their needs and preferences can result in the non-use of latrines with users reverting to open defecation. If users find their systems inconvenient or cumbersome to operate, or if they are not properly informed and trained, they may make private adaptations that cause environmental pollution and pose health risks.

Participatory planning approaches (PPA) are interactive and often visual methods, which encourage and facilitate the participation of individuals in a group learning and action planning process. A PPA generates constructive collaboration among stakeholders who may not be used to working together, often come from different backgrounds, and may have different values and interests.

To date, most participatory approaches applied in sanitation projects have been developed mainly with the densely populated urban areas in mind, meanwhile similar tools for the rural context are still lacking. As these approaches were developed for, or adapted to, programmes dealing with conventional systems of water supply and sanitation, they fail to address issues which are of vital importance in sustainable sanitation programmes, such as the hygienically sound reuse of recyclates from household sewage in agriculture.

While lacking the sustainable sanitation specific elements, these participatory tools have in many cases shown a great deal of success in water supply and sanitation programmes. They therefore have a proven track record that should not be neglected. These tools should be adapted wherever possible to the specific needs of sustainable sanitation programmes enabling them to address the philosophy of a closed loop approach to sanitation.

The following document presents an overview of some existing participatory sanitation planning tools (PSPTs), illustrating the scope of the steps and some of the common methodologies employed in the various frameworks. Click here to download it.