The New Idea

David is the first individual to successfully construct and manage hygienic public sanitation facilities in Kenyan slums and other informal settlements. He engages urban communities in the design and construction of his “IKO toilet,” coined from the word “eco,” meaning environmentally-friendly. David has made sanitation facilities a profitable venture for the urban poor as well as the business community, by collecting dues and providing for innovative financing schemes in collaboration with local and international financial institutions and funding partners.

The time is ripe for David’s initiative, with an increasing focus on improving the living conditions of urban communities in all the major cities of East Africa. City councils are eager to have new and effective mechanisms of service delivery, and donors are willing to provide alternative financing for David’s sanitation facilities. This opportunity represents a significant shift towards a long-term creative collaboration between urban communities, city authorities, and business communities in the region. David is poised to influence and transform public health practices for many communities.

The Problem

Approximately 60 percent of Kenyans in major cities live in 199 slums across the country, in dehumanizing conditions. Houses are no more than ten square meters, and often shelter large families. Because there is little space between and within homes, there are no effective and efficient waste disposal mechanisms.

One such community that attracted David’s attention is Kibera. Although built on land owned by the Nairobi City Council, Kibera is an illegal settlement. In the 1920s the British colonial government allowed a group of Nubian soldiers to settle on a piece of land in Nairobi. The Nubians—an ethnic group from neighboring Sudan—had been fighting on the side of the Allies in World War I, as part of the King’s African Rifles, but, because the British did not give the land titles to the Sudanese, the Nubians who built homes and businesses there had no legal rights over the land. Since then many other tribes have joined them, but the Kenyan government still does not recognize Kibera as a legal settlement—explaining the absence of government water and sanitation services.

Kibera is the biggest slum in Nairobi and, after Soweto, the second largest in Africa. It is home to 800,000 people, approximately one-third of the population of Nairobi, squeezed into one square mile of land. Without government services, Kibera relied on an inadequate and privately owned water supply. The residents shared only 600 toilets. The result was overcrowded and unhealthy living conditions caused by indiscriminate disposal of waste, out of date latrines, open sewers, improper drainage, lack of rubbish collection, and widespread disease.

Prior to David’s work, efforts to improve sanitations have been largely ineffective. In the last twenty years, many local and international citizen organizations (COs) have concentrated their resources on installing improved ventilation in the pit latrines located in informal settlements. However, such improvements have not been permanent and have not helped such settlements as Kibera. While the Kenyan government commissioned several housing projects with quality sanitation facilities, water and drainage systems on its outskirts, Kibera itself, without recognized legal status, was not given such facilities. Moreover, these projects often resulted in even more squalid conditions for residents of Kibera, as their land was reduced by the construction of these large housing projects.

Slums such as Kibera are a long-standing problem in African cities. Colonial rulers introduced lucrative trade that replaced subsistence livelihoods, and cities emerged as centers of trade that attracted people from farmlands. In reality, cities could not provide sufficient income opportunities for all the migrating workers; thus, informal settlements grew to accommodate the growing population. Many African governments perceive slums as tangible evidence of their inability to protect their people. David was keenly aware of this reality and was determined to face it head on.

The Strategy

David knew that even in dehumanizing living conditions, it is essential that people retain their self-esteem and self-worth. By connecting sanitation with dignity, David began successfully equipping informal communities with the tools and skills required to manage their sanitation. He helped communities to identify local resources, to design and manage the sanitation facilities, and to make the toilets profitable investments for private investors. To ensure proper management of the facilities and to underscore the importance of hygiene, David provided public health education programs for all affected parties: slum and informal settlement communities; private investors; and city authorities.

David began by persuading the community of Kibera to donate some of their space to construct a public sanitation facility. His deep understanding of the power structure in the communities led to his persistence in persuading senior authorities to buy into the idea. This approach helped build community consensus for the program. Once a community agreed to participate, authorities donated land, often where former sanitation facilities were located, for the construction of the facilities. David successfully sold his program to three slums in Kenya.

David’s methods capture the enthusiasm of the community: He quickly implements community design workshops and taps into the creativity of the local population to generate architectural ideas for the facility. The theme of the workshops is, “Think beyond the toilet,” to encourage participants to develop their ideas. The participants first draw their ideal facilities. Then David’s extensive experience and advanced understanding of structural design allow him to advise the community about practical considerations for the space and the available resources. That the end result be determined by community consensus is vital to the next phase of the project. The community itself must willingly donate the resources and skills needed for the actual construction of the facility. Through his clinics, David manages to gather skilled labor, tools, construction materials, and funding. Even more importantly, members of the community will take ownership of the project.

Once a facility is completed, a committee is elected by the community to manage the facility, collecting user fees, keeping it clean, and doing repairs when necessary. David’s role at this stage is to provide technical support and management advice to the committee. When in 2003 David constructed his first three toilets in Kibera, each toilet was designed to serve 200 people; currently each serves 500. The facilities are popular because they are kept clean, so many residents have abandoned their old toilets, preferring to pay for the new facilities. Since these toilets have proved successful in improving the hygiene and sense of dignity of the residents of Kibera, David is keen to spread the facilities to the other 198 slums in Kenya. This enormous undertaking requires not only technical but also financial innovation.

However, because the construction cost of each toilet was high, communities where the facilities were built were hard-pressed to find the necessary resources, and thus charged user fees that were high for the average resident. David’s new structures—improvements on the design from the community workshops—tackle these challenges by turning all aspects of the toilets into sources of income. To attract external investors, the structures have space for advertisements, shoeshine booths, telephone booths, and newspaper stands. The revenue generated from these enterprises goes back to the management committee, and therefore reduces user fees. Even human waste is collected and turned into gas that is pumped back into the facility for light and hot water, and the urine harvested is donated to community groups engaged in composting.

In 2006 David registered IKO Toilet as a CO; through his organization, he promotes the toilets to private investors as a profitable venture. David’s plan is to enter into contracts with businessmen who will lease the toilets for five years. Private investors would construct and run the facilities, after which they hand them back to the management committee. Within this period, investors would have recovered their initial investments and have made a profit. Central to this strategy is putting together an attractive package for investors that convinces them that hygiene and sanitation are profitable.

David has convinced Safaricom—Kenya’s largest telecommunications company—and Royal Gate—a local real estate firm—to pay for advertising at the sanitation facilities. Kiwi—Kenya’s leading maker of shoe polish—has also bought into the idea, renting all of the shoeshine spots at the facility. With these income streams on top of user fees, the investment proposal is eye-catching.

However, raising the initial financing for the construction is still challenging. No bank in Kenya recognized sanitation, especially public toilets in slum areas, as a viable investment worthy of a loan. Although David’s investment plan presents a compelling business opportunity, he could not find a local bank to provide the initial loan for the facility. He took his case to international finance institutions and donors, where he attracted a range of support from banks and private investment funds. Eventually he did identify a local bank to provide attractive financing schemes to private investors willing to take on such investment opportunity.

David has negotiated free five-year leases with the municipality in Nakuru for land on which to construct the facilities. So far, the municipality has approved seven sites. After putting together the investment package, David meets with private investors to present them with the opportunity.

The Person

At the age of thirteen, David was already renting his own one-room house and managing his own finances. He was born into a tailoring family, and by fifteen, he was a qualified tailor, designing his school bags from scrap pieces of cloth. To raise extra money for school, David offered tailoring services to his classmates.

A qualified architect, David has worked in both the public and private sectors. He has designed new systems everywhere that continue to operate today. As an architect on the Nairobi City Council, he introduced computer programs and the internet to improve staff efficiency. While working for Practical Action, a private organization which develops simple technologies for poverty eradication, David was part of the team that developed a power-generating system for rural communities requiring only access to a stream. David’s real passion is working with slum development, which was fostered during his childhood while renting his house in a poor neighborhood without water or electricity. From that time on, David resolved to improve the lives of slum residents.