The Scaling-Up of the OPP’s Low Cost Sanitation Programme Through CBO-NGO-Local Government Partnerships in Pakistan

THE KARACHI CONTEXT

• Population                                                   13 million
• Annual housing demand                         80,000
• Formal sector supply                                27,800
• Supply through katchi abadis                32,000
• Number of katchi abadis                               702
• Katchi abadi population 1985                 2.6 million
• Katchi abadi population 2000                 5 million plus

ORANGI CONTEXT

• After local government reforms Karachi is a district consisting of 18 towns which are further subdivided into union councils (UCs)
• Orangi Town is one of the 18 towns and it is subdivided into 13 UCs
• Each town and UC has an elected nazim (mayor) and naib (deputy) nazim
• The population of Orangi Town is about 1.2 million
• The town consists of 86 katchi abadis which account for over 70 per cent of its population
• It has 104,917 houses in 7,256 lanes

THE ORANGI PILOT PROJECT

• The Orangi Pilot Project (OPP) was established by Akhtar Hameed Khan in 1980
• The objective of the project was to:
  • Understand the problems of Orangi and their causes
  • Through action research develop solutions that people can manage finance and build
  • Provide people with technical guidance and managerial support to implement the solutions
  • In the process overcome constraints that governments face in upgrading katchi abadis
• Participatory research identified four major problems
  • Sanitation
  • Employment
  • Health
  • Education
• Programmes have been developed around these four issues
• In 1988 the OPP was upgraded into four autonomous institutions
  1. OPP-Research and Training Institute (OPP-RTI)
     (Sanitation, Housing, Education, Research, Training)
  2. The Orangi Charitable Trust (OCT)
     (Micro credit programme)
  3. Karachi Health and Social Development Association (KHASDA)
  4. Rural Development Trust (RDT)

THE OPP-RTI LOW COST SANITATION PROGRAMME

• The OPP-RTI divides sanitation into “internal” and “external” development
• Internal development consists of:
  • Sanitary latrine in the house
  • Underground sewer in the lane
  • Collector sewers
• External development consists of:
  • Trunk sewers
  •  Treatment plants
• Results in Orangi and in 175 other locations in Pakistan have demonstrated that
  • communities can finance, manage and build internal development provided they are organised and are provided with technical support and managerial guidance
  • local governments can support the process by building external development provided they accept the concept and train their staff in OPP-RTI methodology and in working with communities

Download a PDF version of the full paper (36KB)