Connecting the Unconnected : Approaches for Getting Households to Connect to Sewerage Networks

Citywide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS) aims to shift the urban sanitation paradigm to focus on the whole sanitation service chain and access for all, especially the poor, and promotes a range of solutions-both onsite and sewered, centralized or decentralized-tailored to the realities of the world's burgeoning cities. CWIS focuses on service provision and its enabling environment rather than on just building infrastructure. Where sewers are indeed used as part of a city's response to urban sanitation, a reoccurring challenge is commonly found: despite their proximity to trunk sewerage infrastructure, too many households choose not to connect to the sewers for various social, economic, and/or related reasons. Fortunately, successful programs around the world have tackled this challenge and have managed to connect the unconnected using both conventional and nonconventional sewerage approaches. This guide documents those experiences and identifies key issues that require consideration and processes to be adopted when planning, designing, and implementing programs that focus on maximizing household connections to new or expanded sewerage networks and when undertaking post-investment activities to ensure that all households connect to existing sewerage networks. The guide focuses on households, but the outlined approach also applies to businesses, industries, and other nondomestic customers that discharge wastewater directly to the environment