Sanitation needs govt investment

Sanitation is still a major problem in Indonesia and the government does not seem to devote enough attention to the issue. The World Bank gives assistance through its Total Sanitation and Sanitation Marketing (StoPs) program, which kicked off in East Java in September 2007 as the pilot project for the program. Regional team leader of the World Bank's Water and Sanitation Program Almud Weintz talked about the issue with The Jakarta Post's Irawaty Wardany recently.

Question: How do you see sanitation problems in Indonesia?

Answer: I do think it is quite a severe problem in the country right now. Let's be frank about it. In the past decades, there was not enough attention paid to it in Indonesia and I think not enough money invested in it.

There is some good progress on getting the community engaged. So at that level, the community is trying to do something about it and getting toilets into houses and drainage going. That is actually moving quite well but what had not happened is, especially in the urban area, you cannot deal only with the community-based solution and the community cannot be asked to solve everything.

The bottom line is without investment in sanitation from the city administration and then matching and pairing that with community investment, it won't really get very far.

What should the government do?

Definitely invest more. As the first instance it should be the public money, but then combine it with the private sector's money, with grants and community contributions. I think in a way, the reverse has been happening in Indonesia in the past.

The community and the private sector have been asked to contribute but the public investment has not come. If we start thinking that the money has to come from somewhere other than the public budget, that is not the right approach. I think it should be predominantly the public money, and the Indonesian government is actually in a better position than three or five years ago in terms of money. There is actually money available. So now it has become more of a question of priority at the local administration level.

I know it is not the only sector that is having a problem but in terms of how does a city move from where it does right now in five to 10 years' time, I don't think the planning has been made in a way that looks ahead.

What are the governments in other Asian countries doing to encourage investment in sanitation?

It is different from country to country. The most comparable country, because it is also a center of democracy, is probably the Philippines. I think one different with the Philippines is that in the Philippines the local government can get money from different sources. They have their own budget but they can also borrow from the national government because they have two banks that are kind of development banks and they can borrow money for investment project in their cities. It's not foreign money, it's local money, but it is there.

Here, you don't really have that. The city administration doesn't really have a chance to say, "This is my sanitation plan. This is how much I need for the next three years. This much I have and this much I need to borrow". They don't really know where to get the money from.

So what is the problem with Indonesia?

It's the regulatory problem. It is also a problem of the awareness of the provincial legislative council. They are like, "Why should we invest in the sector; why is that a problem?".

It is also the combination of the people working in the sector because it's not one minister's problem. It is related to many ministries. So nobody is really responsible. Everybody has his own responsibility but in the end nobody is taking the lead. Nobody is really standing up and saying "OK, my ministry will now be responsible for water and we will be the one primarily responsible for gathering everybody together".

It has not happened yet. So you don't really have an attempt yet, neither at the national level nor the local level. It would probably be good if there was more awareness-raising at the high-level politicians at the local levels that includes the councils, not only the mayor.

How do you see the government's effort so far?

I'm actually quite surprised about how much the government at the national level has taken it on. It is good to see how the government is trying to make this an Indonesian program. So rather than make this just a copy-and-paste from Bangladesh or India, clearly the ... people who work in the project have so much on how it can work here.

Some aspects of what happened in Bangladesh and India are quite compatible. There is also a strong community value here like the gotong royong that has been around for a long time and people have a strong sense of doing something together.

But then Indonesia is not India or Bangladesh. Something needs to be adapted or adjusted and I think the government's response has been quite positive. The only worry I have is if this is now becoming the one and only solution, it won't (work).

The Community-Led Total Sanitation and Total Sanitation and Sanitation Marketing programs will be good for rural area only. In urban areas I think unless they have big local government investment it will only mean that one community cleans up and all the dirty water will go to the next community. It is not going to work with community investment only because urban areas are so dense and crowded.

Post Date : 31 Maret 2008