ABSTRACT
Sanitation is a complex problem for empirical study. This chapter focuses on the secondary research question of: How does an understanding of the meaning and economic classification of sanitation, the drivers of poor domestic sanitation services, and the main technologies for domestic sanitation services affect the design of sanitation governance frameworks? I address the question through literature review and content analysis. Although the sanitation problem transcends households and permeates all spheres of life (Nygaard & Linder, 1997), this chapter focuses on personal and domestic sanitation and hygiene services as the unit of analysis. This approach is anchored on four main reasons: (a) this reflects the scope of the definition of sanitation in the development discourse (see 3.2) and the human rights framework (see 5.2.3); (b) although the human rights construct does not stipulate any economic model for sanitation service delivery, it imposes an obligation for affordability for domestic users which is affected by the economic classification of sanitation goods and services (see 3.3); (c) the human right to sanitation (HRS) is mainly focused on meeting personal and domestic sanitation needs and therefore needs to address the drivers of poor domestic sanitation services (see 3.4); (d) technologies for domestic sanitation services are not value neutral and may either hamper or improve access and therefore require further consideration (see 3.5). The chapter concludes with identifying linkages between sanitation technologies, the drivers of poor sanitation services, and inclusive development (ID) (see 3.6), and my inferences on the implications for realising the human right to sanitation (HRS) through a predominantly technocratic approach are presented in section 3.7.
