UN Habitat in Jacobabad City

UN Habitat in Jacobabad City

Al-Bab Report

A lessons learnt ceremony has revealed that Jacobabad’s residents understand and are willing to address their water, sanitation and hygiene needs in a sustainable manner. This is evident from their willingness to pay for safe drinking water and other basic services after successful campaigning and the creation of City Forum which demands efficient provision of safe, reliable, and easily accessible WASH services to the communities in the city. However, capacity development of service providers remains an essential area to further work on. It was highlighted that behavior change campaigns, social mobilization, and extensive capacity building exercises, when combined in one project can serve as an effective formula to address the water, sanitation, and hygiene needs of a city’s residents. The findings were revealed after the successful completion of a project that seeks to mobilize communities to improve Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) services in Jacobabad city. It is a collaborative effort between UNICEF, UN-Habitat, and WaterAid, with funding from USAID, which aims to support the Government of Sindh in taking necessary steps to ensure the effective running of the Municipal Service Development Programme (MSDP) by taking public’s opinion into account in devising necessary actions. 

The project brought forth interesting recommendation that the base tariff for water charges should not be kept higher than PKR 500, while overall charges should be divided into three specific quartiles reflecting people’s willingness to pay. It further proposed that along with public sector efforts to provide solid waste management services, a public-private-partnership model should be developed to involve the community in this drive to improve lives in the city of Jacobabad. Capacity building of service providers to meet the increasing demands of residents in service delivery, basic services interventions, hygiene and sanitation products, and innovative approaches, however, is an area requiring further support.

As the program is aimed at strengthening and supporting the Government of Sindh through MSDP, the Program Director MSDP, Mr. Khalid Hyder Shah while commending the project’s efficacy stated that “The MSDP program aims to improve lives of the people of Sindh by developing and upgrading the water, sanitation, hygiene, and solid waste management structure. The initiative helped us not only strengthen our structure but also ensure that people’s opinion was taken into account. The findings of this project are critical to designing an effective and sustainable municipal services delivery mechanism.”

Bella Evidente, Country Programme Manager - UN-Habitat said in a press statement, “UN-Habitat takes pride in its people-centric approach in developing urban WASH initiatives such as this one which aims at sustainable, efficient and equitable management of WASH services through taking people’s opinions into account and developing responsible social mobilization and behavioral change communication campaign for the public while also focusing on building the capacity of the service providers to meet the ever-increasing needs of a city’s residents.”

Thewodros Mulugeta, OIC/ Chief of WASH UNICEF said that “rapid and unplanned urban growth threatens sustainable development when the necessary infrastructure is not developed or when policies are not implemented to ensure that the benefits of city life are equitably shared. We have made certain modifications while testing the urban variant of Pakistan’s Approach to Total Sanitation in Jacobabad ensuring community’s participation and thus ownership”. He added that the “Programme generated enough evidence and value to be replicated to achieve the desired results in other small towns in Sindh.”

Siddiq Ahmed Khan, Country Director WaterAid Pakistan said in a Press Statement, “we see value for money in complimenting installation of WASH facilities with soft interventions that includes social mobilization and behavior change campaigning”. People knowing their rights can hold service providers making accountable and at the same time the right holders also know their responsibilities, that is a major challenge for local municipalities. This initiative helped in presenting an urban WASH development model for medium to small towns for inclusive planning and implementation. I believe that learnings of this project would bring new dimensions in Urban WASH Improvement for its wider replication in other intermediate cities of Sindh province.