Health, hygiene and appropriate sanitation: experiences and perceptions of the urban poor
Open accessAbstract
“Don’t teach us what is sanitation and hygiene.” This quote from Maqbul, a middle-aged male resident in Modher Bosti, a slum in Dhaka city, summed up the frustration of many people living in urban poverty to ongoing sanitation and hygiene programmes. In the light of their experiences, such programmes provide “inappropriate sanitation”, or demand personal investments in situations of highly insecure tenure, and/or teach “hygiene practices” that relate neither to local beliefs nor to the ground realities of a complex urban poverty. A three-year ethnographic study in Chittagong, Dhaka, Nairobi and Hyderabad illustrated that excreta disposal systems, packaged and delivered as low-cost “safe sanitation”, do not match the sanitation needs of a very diverse group of urban men, women and children. It is of little surprise that the delivered systems are neither appropriate nor used, and are not sustained beyond the life of the projects. This mismatch, far more than an assumed lack of user demand for sanitation, contributes to the elusiveness of the goal of sanitation and health for all. The analysis indicates that unless and until the technical, financial and ethical discrepancies relating to sanitation for the urban poor are resolved, there is little reason to celebrate the recent global declaration on the human right to water and sanitation and health for all.
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- Authors
- Joshi, D., Fawcett, B., & Mannan, F.
- Affiliations
- Wageningen University & Research (NL)
- The University of Queensland (AU)
- University of Dhaka (BD)
- Venue
- Environment and Urbanization
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2011-04
- Volume
- 23
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 91-111
- ISSN
- 0956-2478 (ISSN-L)
- 1746-0301
- OpenAlex
- W2130643498
- Cited by
- 130
- References
- 16
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 10 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 37.23
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- Locations
- Environment and Urbanization (publishedVersion)
- Pure (Coventry University) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- Socio-Environmental Systems Modeling (acceptedVersion)
- Socio-Environmental Systems Modeling (submittedVersion)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- AGE-WELL
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Urban Studies › Urban and Rural Development Challenges
- Health Sciences › Nursing › Nutrition and Dietetics › Child Nutrition and Water Access
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Water Governance and Infrastructure
- Keywords
- sanitation, hygiene, urban poverty, slums, excreta disposal, sanitation programs, user perception, tenure insecurity, local beliefs, right to water and sanitation, health for all, Chittagong, Dhaka, Nairobi, Hyderabad
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