Social Enterprise: the solution to urban sanitation in unrecognized slums?

During Tatiana's lecture a surprising fact caught my attention. Initially, I thought private apartment sanitation would be the obvious choice for safer sanitation due to piped water sources. However, despite access to piped water in apartments in Mathare, many people choose to walk to outdoor communal toilets because they are more sanitary (Gulyani 2008). I wondered how this could be, since the open system would be more prone to contaminated water sources and shared by many people with little supervision over cleaning. Somewhat predictably, it turns out to be in part because of the same political sources that prevent improvements in the area to begin with.

The "nicer" apartments are owned by politicians who use the profits off renting as a substitute for retirement pension that the government does not give them. Since it is a profit seeking venture, there is no regulation over safety conditions, and there is adequate demand for the present conditions so improvements are foregone. Because of this, the piped water sources are often unreliable or don't work at all. In addition to the lack of adequate piped systems to ensure water safety, physical safety in general is a greater concern than safe water in these developments. Just this past April, two six-story buildings of this nature collapsed within days of each other in Mathare, which confirms a concern over general safety (Kenya Today).

Consequently, this raises concerns over whether politicians have the best interest of all citizens in mind both when creating policies and also when making business decisions in the case of individual development ventures.

This presents a stark contrast to the positive improvements I explored last week. Ikotoilet and Shining Hope for Communities are making strides in sanitation and community engagement, and perhaps offer a longer term solution to problems of sanitation.

Traditionally, sanitation has been seen as a government issue. But what if the government has little to incentive to improve conditions in places like Kibera and Mathare? In this case, I would like to suggest that perhaps social enterprise is the answer to improving sanitary conditions, using Ikotoilet as one example.

The Mathare apartment developments exemplify how people are motivated by financial incentives. In the case of Ikotoilet, employees and executives alike are incentivized to improve conditions and work towards a sustainably successful business because their income depends on it. Areas that are most neglected by the government are potentially the most profitable because no other sanitation opportunities exist, eliminating competition (Santos 2012).

While non-profit groups are great, they depend on grants and donations so their bottom line isn't affected by slow or unproductive improvements. I do think they add a great benefit and should continue to contribute to the sanitation landscape, but might not be the solution to the problem, rather a temporary fix.

Surely there are enough socially and civilly minded entrepreneurs out there that this idea could catch on. While there is no way to say if it could be a permanent solution, I would be interested to see what kind of regeneration could take place if sanitation enterprises took root in previously ignored slums –admittedly widespread job creation, sanitation improvements, and a positive cycle that follows in the reverse of the status quo is idealistic, but I hold out hope that a solution exists, even if it is not on behalf of social enterprises in the end.