BETTER PLANNING FOR THE BASIC NEEDS SERVICE
SANITATION MAPPING IS A “MUST-DO”

by Didin Jamaludin *

I am not surprised to see so many abandoned public facilities built by government and NGOs in the last decade in Indonesia. Do you know why?

Do you think is it because they built the facilities in the wrong area or lack of public awareness of them? Or do you think that the transfer of knowledge from the initiators to the end-user is misled? How about the people’s sense of belonging? Who’s to blame? Who is responsible?

In my personal opinion, it all goes back to the era when all the decisions came from top to bottom. Nowadays, every aspect has to come from the bottom to the top, involving community participation. Hearing people’s voices, observing their basic needs, and placing the right public facilities in the right areas are the basic keys to achieving a better standard of living.

You might have read about Sanitation Mapping (Sanmap) in the first article about it by my colleague Donny, September 2005, entitled “Sanitation Mapping Project by BORDA Indonesia and ESP/USAID.”

The main objective of Sanmap is to gather the information of current urban sanitation conditions to assist local governments in making strategic plans for the next 5 to 10 years.

Furthermore, by doing Sanmap, local governments will be able to;
1.    Know the existing sanitation conditions, identify sources of pollution and prioritize intervention and appropriate solutions in each area;
2.    Apply a holistic approach for policy, strategic planning and implementation of sanitation programs;
3.    Identify priority locations to propose centralized and decentralized sanitation programs; and
4.    Provide verifiable indicators to assess the city governments’ performance in managing environmental health issues.

So, at the end Sanmap is absolutely a “must-do” before building sanitation facilities or even budgeting and planning.

*Didin Jamaludin (DJ) – Sanitation Mapping Coordinator BORDA Indonesia

Picture: community participation in identifying the village boundaries during Sanmap work in Kepanjen, Malang, East Java (09/2006)