Hamzah Harun Al'Rasyid

Huge numbers of people in Indonesian cities live in dangerously unsanitary conditions that threaten their health and pollute the environment. Neither their government nor private organizations have developed a sustainable system for providing basic sanitation services to these citizens. Hamzah Harun Al'Rasyid fills this gap by creating a maintenance system that sustains itself through well-maintained, affordable service fees.

Hamzah targets the problem of sustainable sanitation in Indonesia’s poor urban neighborhoods by founding citizen organizations to establish toilet and washing facilities, and maintaining service fees that poor residents can easily afford. His organizations put neighborhood representatives in charge of assessing their own needs and devising their own solutions; the facilities themselves are professionally designed and managed to guarantee their environmental safety. Because management and maintenance costs are covered by user fees, this system is sustainable over the long term and it creates new jobs.
Many people see slum dwellers as people to be pitied; Hamzah sees them as people with potential. His plan positions them as paying customers who deserve quality service. Because these new facilities are clean and attractive, people feel pride in using them and adopt healthier personal habits as a result. Hamzah trains residents to communicate their requests and complaints to his organizations as a first step toward getting involved in the revitalization of their communities.
As the migrant population in Indonesian cities increases, the nation’s civic leaders have increasingly pledged their support to a decade of urban reform. Hamzah’s plan taps into the momentum of these pledges to ensure the spread of his methods throughout the country. Currently, he is approaching municipal governments that have budgeted funds for service provision, many of whom are anxious to find the kind of proven solution that Hamzah has created.

Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world. As it grows, its cities experience a flood of millions of rural emigrants searching for work. Many end up living in overcrowded neighborhoods clustered around factories. They look for rental rooms that are as inexpensive as possible—often without running water or toilets. Today, out of the 93 million people who live in urban areas, almost 20 million live without private toilets in their homes.

There are not many public sanitation facilities available in Indonesian cities, so many people are forced to use rivers, canals, and ponds as both toilets and sources of water for bathing. As a result, many inhabitants of slum areas suffer from chronic diarrhea and water borne diseases. The small number of public toilets that are available tend to be filthy. They often do not have septic tanks, so human excrement is deposited in ditches and canals. Meanwhile, because of limitations in the municipal sewerage systems, nearly all urban sewage—an estimated 98 percent—is untreated, contaminating groundwater. National economic losses attributed to inadequate sanitation have been estimated at US$4.7 billion per year.

Government agencies at various levels have tried to create public sanitation facilities in Indonesia’s cities. These attempts have failed. The facilities have not been maintained, so people do not want to use them.

Citizen organizations have also tried to solve this problem, using a model of community participation and ownership that was developed in rural communities. This attempt failed as well, because it was not suited to the needs of urban communities. Most factory workers in cities endure long shifts and have little interest in or ability to become involved in the management or maintenance of shared public facilities. Furthermore, slum dwellers relocate often in search of better-paying jobs. And gangsters pose a unique threat in cities, threatening users, demanding bribes, and vandalizing the facilities.

Private and semi-private companies are showing interest in providing clean water and basic services in Indonesia’s cities; but they are not the answer. These companies seek a profit, and so are driven to demand fees that are likely beyond the means of most slum dwellers. Historically, for-profit ventures tend to be irresponsible about the safe processing and disposal of wastewater.

Hamzah developed his solution to Indonesia’s sanitary crisis after years of experience working in slums. He first put his ideas into practice in Tangerang, on the outskirts of Jakarta, the largest industrial region in Indonesia. He began by holding meetings in each neighborhood, surveying the needs of local residents and the benefits they hoped to gain from improvements to their sanitation system. He asked people to estimate how much they could afford for basic sanitation services; the price was eventually set at about half the price of a cigarette per use. These conversations also involved a discussion of health risks related to poor sanitation, to increase public awareness and encourage better hygiene.

Hamzah established the Institute for Integrated Economic and Social Development (BEST) to set up the facilities (known as community-based sanitation centers). Today, BEST’s 15-person staff includes experts in technical issues and community outreach. The facilities that BEST builds are attractive, clean and environmentally sound. They are equipped to process waste materials so that they do not pollute groundwater, and are regularly tested. BEST also employs local workers to construct these sanitation centers, and hires and trains a local caretaker to oversee routine cleaning and maintenance for each facility.

One of the greatest strengths of this system is its sustainability. BEST facilities are kept clean and maintained, not only by each site’s caretaker, but by BEST staff who visit each facility twice a week. There is also a 24-hour hotline, which residents can call to report problems to the nearest BEST office, located near the sanitation center. Operational costs and caretakers’ salaries are covered by user fees, and excess funds are saved for major repairs, such as drilling new wells or repairing pipes.

Hamzah has faced criticism from some citizen groups, who say he is running a business rather than empowering the community. But his heart is firmly in community development. He maintains transparency in his dealings with communities, and invites an external audit of BEST every year. He also regularly solicits customer feedback, through surveys and impact studies.

The benefits of these public facilities are not only experienced by their users. The entire community benefits from them. As neighborhoods grow cleaner, people show greater interest in paving pathways, renovating buildings, and other means to revitalize the community. Some of the sanitation centers have attractive lawns, offering a pleasant meeting spot in places where few others exist.

The improvements to public health are significant. In communities where BEST facilities have been established, chronic diarrhea has been significantly reduced: where once it affected 23 percent of the population, it now affects just 8 percent. And as people have become healthier, the factories that employ them have seen productivity increase. Hamzah plans to press the companies that supervise these factories to contribute to his work, fulfilling their corporate social responsibility.

Realizing initial funding for the sanitation centers cannot be generated by poor communities, Hamzah seeks support from local governments that have seen the positive results of his work. To date, BEST has established 27 sanitation centers in Tangerang and the municipal government contributed to the investment costs for seven of these. The organization built six more centers near the city of Surabaya, serving more than 14,000 people. Recently, Hamzah opened a new branch office in East Java to support further expansion. Building upon his work with BEST, he has also begun campaigns to encourage regular hand-washing and a new system for garbage collection in Indonesia’s cities.

Hamzah Harun Al'Rasyid was born in Jakarta in 1962. As a child, he learned from his mother, a religious instructor, that those who help the poor are forever blessed. He originally studied agriculture at university, but soon turned to economics and management training at the Entrepreneurship College in Jakarta. In 1989, after graduating from college, Hamzah took a job working in the slum of Luar Batang, near Jakarta’s harbor. He set up kindergartens, renovated homes and organized job-training programs, but focused his attention on improving the neighborhood’s system of public sanitation. He experienced firsthand how dangerous and demoralizing the lack of proper sanitation could be to a struggling community. To work full-time to solve this problem, he established BEST in 1995.