Pressure of Urbanisation and a Sustainable Sanitation Infrastructure: Experiences with a Research-Driven Planning Method in Northern Namibia

Improvements in sanitation infrastructure in developing countries are of major importance. CuveWaters, a research project working in the north of Namibia, is piloting decentralised technologies for water and sanitation. Technologically sophisticated concepts can easily clash with users' needs and everyday behaviour. There is not always a shared understanding of planning and maintenance. A demand-responsive approach has therefore been developed. It aims to support the planning and implementation process and to include stakeholders prior to intervention, thus allowing mutual learning as a basis for a sustainable transformation process in urban areas. This paper discusses method development, empirical application and results.