SANIMAS Approach and ISSDP's City-wide Sanitation Strategy (CSS)

Even tough decentralized wastewater treatment solutions have been initiated earlier by NGOs and individuals it was just around the year 2002 that it became a national program. It started with 7 pilot cities in Indonesia and is now (2010) expanded to more than 100 cities (kota) and regencies (kabupaten) in 22 provinces. This program is known as SANIMAS (Sanitasi oleh Masyarakat, or Sanitation by Communities). It can be considered as a response to the national policy for encouraging community involvement during planning and development of infrastructure facilities, including sanitation.

As demand for urban sanitation services development is increasing, the SANIMAS approach is considered as an option for a quick response to the need of providing sanitation services for low income communities in peri urban areas with population densities between 25 and 100 people/ha. In residential areas with higher population densities the SANIMAS approach would be a feasible first step towards the gradual implementation of community based simplified or condominium sewer networks. In rural and peri-urban areas (with population densities below 25 people/ha) more individual solutions would be applied. For the identification and subsequent implementation of these basic facilities the community lead total sanitation (CLTS) approach is often used.

The Indonesian Sanitation Sector Development Program (ISSDP) implemented in the period 2006 – 2010 established a framework for planning of sustainable poor-inclusive urban sanitation services in Indonesia through effective and coordinated policy-making, institutional reform, strategic planning and awareness building. The Citywide Sanitation Strategy (CSS) as prepared by the 12 cities involved in ISSDP takes into account lessons learned from the SANIMAS pilot cities and the results of the scaling-up of the SANIMAS program in recent years. In the context of PPSP (Percepatan Pembangunan Sanitasi Pemukiman – Acceleration of Sanitation Development for Human Settlements) in the period 2010 – 2014, the ISSDP approach for policy making, institutional reform, strategic planning and awareness building will be scaled-up at national level and implemented in 330 cities and regencies throughout Indonesia.

This paper provides a brief introduction to urban sanitation development trends in Indonesia, a concise description of SANIMAS and the CSS-planning approach and it outlines experiences gained so far with the incorporation of the SANIMAS concept and its guiding principles into Citywide Sanitation Strategies. Main approaches taken from SANIMAS and incorporated into strategic sanitation planning at city level include; i) selection of systems and technical options, ii) addressing health and environmental impacts, community participation, social and institutional issues. These aspects are found to be crucial to ensure social, financial and technical sustainability of the systems.