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Regulation advocacy raised at Kenya Sanitation Conference

The Kenya Sanitation Conference 2019, brought together various stakeholders including sanitation experts, academicians, researchers, innovators, National and County governments, children, youth and the general public under the theme Sanitation for ALL.

This was an opportunity for WASREB and ESAWAS to raise the advocacy agenda for inclusive sanitation regulation. WASREB and ESAWAS had a joint exhibition booth on the benefits of regulation and the new sanitation regulatory framework developed by ESAWAS.

Eng. Anselmo Munhequete of AURA,IP-Mozambique gave a presentation on behalf of ESAWAS on the Inclusive Urban Sanitation Service Provision Regulatory Framework and Strategy. The Framework outlines recommendations for Policy, Legal Framework, Stakeholder Roles and Responsibilities as well as regulatory instruments to cover the full sanitation value chain (both sewered and non-sewered). 

After the presentation, the representative of the Kenya Ministry of Health contributed on the role of the Ministry in the sanitation value chain and spoke about the challenges of poor data, open defecation and the reality of the existence of manual emptiers, monitoring and evaluation and PPPs.

 Some  questions arose on how the Private Sector can participate in the design of legal tools (legislation) and Legal Frameworks in Kenya. 

One of the major challenges to improving non-sewered sanitation service delivery in the member countries is the absence of a regulatory framework to address the full sanitation value chain (containment, emptying, transport, treatment, and disposal/reuse). The sanitation value chain has been neglected both in the quality of service delivery as well as in regulation, hence the development and implementation of the inclusive sanitation regulatory framework.