Kestävä Tulevaisus ry, August 2009 | Abel Terefe

CONCLUSIVE REPORT ON SANITATION

OF PUBLIC AND GROUP TOILETS IN
FOUR SELECTED KEBELES IN THE CITY
OF BAHIR DAR

INTRODUCTION

This report is based on a study conducted by Sustainable future association (KeTu ry) as part of a
three year pilot project in four selected Kebeles in the area of sanitation, energy and water. The
study was made by physically observing the sites and making simple questionnaires to the people
using the toilets. The kebeles namely Belay Zeleke, Sefene Selam, Fasilo and Gishabay are some of
the most populated parts of the city.

TOILETS DISTRIBUTION AND AVAILABILITY

The study shows that there is a serious shortage of toilets and toilet space in the areas. With over
20000 people living in each kebele, the distribution of toilets compared to the number of people is
unparalleled. This is mainly because a lot of people live in a small piece of land where the land isn’t
legally issued to them or by illegally expanding their block of land and with the lacking supervision
of the concerned organ from the kebele administration, every open space has been inhabited. This
in turn created a serious accessibility problem to the inner areas of the blocks and also made no
space for toilets.

In most cases, a single toilet room was used by around 5-6households where every household has
around 4-6 family members. In the entire project area, there are around 70 toilets that were built
over a long period of time ranging from 25years to 2 years. About 10 of these toilets are public
toilets and 2 of the public toilets were closed over a year ago.

The currently operating toilets were built by NGO’s such as the Amhara Development association in
collaboration with the Japanese Embassy, JeCDo (an NGO working in the area of children
development) and the government.

CONDITION OF EXISTING TOILETS

About 90% of the toilets are in extremely bad sanitation condition. All of the toilets don’t have
water tubs for hand washing after defecation and most of them aren’t clean. The floors are littered
and unclean and the interior has a pungent and stinking smell due to the unavailability of air
ventilation pipes. Besides, the surrounding of the toilets is filled with garbage. Often times, children
are playing around the toilets. Sometimes the toilets were also built very close to the houses in

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Kestävä Tulevaisus ry, August 2009 | Abel Terefe

which case children could contract gastro intestinal diseases very easily from the unclean
conditions. On top of that, due to the poor quality of the construction materials, the buildings are in

Current condition of toilets

10.1%
8.7%
Closed toilets
81.2%
In extermely bad condition

Functioning toilets

FIGURE 1SHOWS THE CURRENT CONDITION OF BOTH GROUP AND PUBLIC TOILETS

bad state. In most cases, the floor slabs, supporting frames and columns, roofs and doors are
deteriorating. This happens even to the youngest buildings in the area.Despite the fact that some
toilets are very old and in bad condition, they are still in use.

The public toilets have been outsourced to a small private company called Mesfin Gulilat Sanitation
plc in which the users pay 20 cents per use. However, some of the locals complain they cannot
afford to pay for such service since their family size is big and they have nosolid income.

Most of the group toilets are emptied in 3-4months on average whereas the public toilets are
emptied every 15 days. The users pay for the emptying of the septic tanks. A single carriage of a
vacuum sewage truck costs about 120Birr. Therefore the payment is done by equally dividing the
number of carriages with the number of households using the toilet without taking into account the
number of family members in the household.

On the other hand, the septic tanks of some toilets have never been emptied for a long time or even
after construction regardless of when they were built. The people told that the tanks are full during
the rainy season due to flood and empty during the dry season since the water trickles down to the
ground. This could be a concern as the sewage may have percolated to ground water depending on
the underlying geology.

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Kestävä Tulevaisus ry, August 2009 | Abel Terefe

KEY FACTORS AFFECTING SANITATION

 ABSENCE OF WATER: All of the group toilets didn’t have water. This is one of the reasons
that the toilet floors are unclean and fouling. Meanwhile, some of the public toilets have
water for cleaning the floor and for a hand wash and they were better than those that didn’t
have water.
 PROXIMITY TO LIVING AREAS: Some of the group toilets are built so close to the living
houses. We witnessed that some were even as close as 1m from the houses which caused a
health concern in some of the neighborhoods. For instance, in kebele Gishabay we came
across with one family whose mother and son were HIV positive and complained that the
toilet was built against their good will and said it negatively affected their life.
 ACCESSIBILITY PROBLEMS: This is another serious problem that affects sanitation. Often
times the areas were tightly built that it is utterly impossible for the vacuum sewage truck
to empty the toilets. There is also a case where a toilet was closed because there was no way
of emptying the septic tank.
 FLOODING: The city of Bahir dar is one of the flood prone areas in Ethiopia. During the rainy
season the septic tanks are filled with flood water and there is a chance where the sewage
overflows to the outside increasing the risk of health dangers. On the other hand, in some
areas during the dry season the tanks are empty suggesting that the water trickles down to
the ground which could be dangerous depending on the geology of the area.
 LACK OF SEWAGE NETWORK IN THE CITY: In spite of the fact, the Bahir dar city population
is over 200 000, the city has no sewage network. This in turn has caused a major sanitation
problem to the city. Some hotels and industries are simply discharging the waste water to
the lake and the river through the open drainage canals.
 TOPOGRAPHY: Bahir dar is known for its flat terrain. This is regarded as a complication to its
planned sewage network system since the waste water needs to be pumped to get to the
target place as opposed to flow by gravity.
 AWARENESS PROBLEM: One of the prominent problems is lack of awareness. Most of the
locals in the studied area aren’t educated or doesn’t have enough knowledge about how to
maintain a clean and safe environment with regard to toilets and sanitation. This is
particularly the case with low income people, old people and children. This gap of
information has created a big hole in the issue of sanitation which has to be addressed
accordingly by teaching the locals.

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

Public participation is a key component of community development. In the studied areas, we have
witnessed that there has been to a certain degree public participation. In few areas the public raised
money to dig the septic tanks and sometimes by physically doing the job they took part in the
construction of the toilets. There was also a case where the users had set up a schedule to clean the
toilets. Some of these endeavors had been successful ever so little.

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CONCLUSION

Institutions, NGOs, civil societies and governmental organs must work to raise awareness in the
area of sanitation. Very little could be achieved with out the awareness of the local users and only
then could sustainable sanitation be achieved.

On the other hand, actions must be taken on illegal settlers and local authorities need to make sure
that access roads are always open and unoccupied. Meanwhile, when allocating space for building
new toilets, one must take into account the interest of the local people. Constructions made without
proper surveying of public opinion will end up being hated by the locals and wouldn’t be useful.

To cause the users to keep the existing toilets clean by taking stricter actions could be another
alternative. In addition, making a committee that looks after the state of the toilets is also a good
way of control. The committee may work in making sure that the toilets are clean and safe, the
surrounding is safe to children and the rules are followed. People found going against the rules may
get fines.

Shifting to sustainable waste management techniques such as production of energy from human
manure is useful in many ways. The toilet sewage if managed properly could be used to produce gas
through a simple biogas plant and as a fertilizer afterwards. This must be taken seriously. Apart
from the safe disposal of the waste, the system could generate income to people in the areas
thereby reduce unemployment.

Outsourcing public toilets to private plcs and providing education on entrepreneurship and
sanitation may help small size local companies work efficiently and responsibly. This would cause
them to play a positive role in the effort to bring about change to the sanitation condition of the city
of Bahir dar and beyond.