Sustainable water and sanitation services for the urban poor in Nairobi

Slum dwellers in Nairobi constitute the majority of the city’s population, with an estimated 60 per cent of the official total population of 2.85 million people living in slums and informal settlements. This is a devastating statistic bearing in mind that this population lacks basic access to water supply and environmental sanitation services and has led to various environmental problems and high poverty levels. This paper draws the experiences of Maji na Ufanisi (Water & Development, a Kenyan NGO, in providing these basic services to slum dwellers in the city. This has been through facilitation of community organizations to undertake provision of these services, by innovative integration of water supply and environmental sanitation services provision and enterprise development. In experiences drawn from implementation of this project, it is arguably conclusive that established community groups can sustain provision of WES services as a way of widening their economic livelihoods.