Studies

Sanitation governance and its implications on environmental health in Nakuru City, Kenya

Bug, Marius / Maria Gerlspeck / Aline-Victoria Grassl / Saskia Metz / Johannes S. Vogel / Carolin Wicke / Saravanan Subramanian
Studies (108)

Bonn: German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23661/is108.2025

Sanitation and proper disposal of human waste are key to a dignified life. The importance of maintaining reasonable standards of sanitation is acknowledged in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG target 6.2) as well as in the Art. 43, I b from the Constitution of Kenya (Government of Kenya, 2010). However, the integration of sanitation policies, their associated legislations and lived practices, and their implications for the environment and human health remain opaque. Understanding is particularly limited regarding sanitation governance in Kenya’s fast-growing secondary cities, where responsibility for sanitation has only recently been devolved from the national to the county level. Our study examines these complex interactions, shedding light on how power relations constitute a determining factor in shaping the access to sanitation and its unequal socio-environmental hybridities. Empirically, we focus on three sub-locations in Nakuru City. Nakuru City has been described as a role model in the Kenyan context. Our research design combines both a quantitative, georeferenced household survey and qualitative, semi-structured interviews with actors at various levels. Our descriptive, regression and qualitative content analyses of the collected data reveal that levels of political interest vary considerably. Collaboration along the on-site sanitation service chain and with other sectors, such as solid waste management, presents numerous challenges, and a significant discrepancy exists in degrees of access to safe sanitation between and within sub-locations. As value-driven leadership at a time of heightened political attention has made Nakuru’s role as a “sanitation champion” possible, we believe that many of these challenges can be overcome with increased collective awareness and a more substantial political commitment to realise the constitutionally guaranteed right to sanitation.

Marius Bug, Maria Gerlspeck, Aline-Victoria Grassl, Saskia Metz, Johannes S. Vogel and Carolin Wicke were junior researchers and participants in the 58th Postgraduate Training Programme 2022/2023 of the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).