Going nationwide: spreading community based sanitation in Indonesia

Community Based Sanitation: A Part of the National Development Plan

In 2003 the Indonesian National Planning Authority initiated a project named SANIMAS (Sanitation by Communities) in cooperation with the Ministry of Public Works, the Water and Sanitation Program of the World Bank, and BORDA.

Since then, approximately 13,000 decentralised wastewater treatment systems (DEWATS) have been implemented in Indonesia under the framework of various investment programmes (government funds supplemented by contributions from the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and Islamic Development Bank).

Following the Indonesian National Medium-Term Development Plan 2015–2019, it is estimated that at least another 2,000 decentralised wastewater treatment systems will be implemented each year by different stakeholders.

To support the National Plan, BORDA Indonesia and its local partner organisations are facilitating the implementation of 200 to 300 DEWATS CBS (community based sanitation) projects each year throughout Indonesia, in particular in densely populated urban and peri-urban low-income areas.

Mitigating Risks, Meeting Challenges

BORDA and its partners put special emphasis on mitigating the risks and challenges associated with the dissemination of CBS on a nationwide scale by:

• facilitating the establishment of user groups in the form of community based organisations (CBOs) that are in charge of operation and maintenance (O&M) of the sanitation infrastructure, and
• establishing and applying monitoring & evaluation (M&E) and steering systems for the operation and maintenance of DEWATS CBS.

Supporting Community Based Organisations

AKSANSI (Association of Community Based Organisations in Indonesia), a BORDA Indonesia partner, focuses primarily on the post-construction phase to support quality management at the community level and thus improve sustainability of community sanitation systems.

A particular lesson learnt from AKSANSI’s work is that community based organisations face particular challenges related to operation and maintenance, especially for major repairs and desludging.

To overcome these challenges, AKSANSI facilitates a co-management approach that ensures O&M of the CBS infrastructure is shared between community based organisations and local governments.