Citywide Inclusive Sanitation Framework Training Course

Course overview

Citywide sanitation programmes often concentrate on sewer expansion while leaving on-site sanitation, faecal sludge management, public toilets, drainage interfaces and informal settlements outside a coordinated service model. The result is uneven access, unsafe emptying, untreated discharges, unclear institutional responsibilities and investments that cannot be justified with service-level evidence. This course addresses the practical task of planning sanitation as a public service chain for all residents, not as a collection of isolated infrastructure projects.

Participants learn to apply the Citywide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS) approach to diagnose service gaps, define equitable outcomes, map sanitation flows and prioritise interventions across containment, emptying, transport, treatment, reuse and disposal. The course covers the CWIS service outcomes framework, Shit Flow Diagrams, stakeholder and mandate mapping, inclusive customer segmentation, enabling-environment assessment, financing options and performance indicators. Participants gain the ability to turn household, operator and utility data into a phased sanitation improvement plan that addresses poor and vulnerable communities as well as citywide environmental protection.

Teaching combines instructor-led technical sessions with a running city case study. Teams work with sample household survey data, desludging records, treatment-capacity figures and institutional documents to prepare an SFD, identify service bottlenecks, compare intervention options and build an implementation roadmap. Each participant leaves with a CWIS Action Plan Pack: a service-chain diagnosis, stakeholder map, prioritised intervention matrix, draft indicator set and 90-day workplace application plan.

The course is designed for professionals responsible for urban sanitation planning, utility operations, municipal service delivery, donor-funded programmes and technical assistance. It is particularly valuable where sewered and non-sewered systems must be planned, regulated and financed together.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Apply the CWIS service outcomes framework to assess equity, safety, sustainability and institutional accountability
• Construct a Shit Flow Diagram using sanitation-chain data to identify unsafe containment, transport and disposal points
• Segment urban sanitation customers by settlement type, service level, affordability constraints and vulnerability factors
• Map institutional mandates, operator roles and accountability gaps across the sanitation service chain
• Prioritise sewered, non-sewered and hybrid sanitation interventions using a multicriteria decision matrix
• Define service-level indicators for containment, emptying, treatment, environmental discharge and inclusion
• Prepare a phased CWIS investment and implementation roadmap linked to municipal planning cycles
• Develop a CWIS Action Plan Pack containing a diagnosis, intervention matrix, indicator set and stakeholder engagement plan

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Municipal Sanitation Managers — who must coordinate sanitation services across formal and informal urban areas
• Water and Wastewater Utility Managers — who need to integrate non-sewered sanitation into utility planning and operations
• Urban Planners — who must align land-use, settlement upgrading and sanitation investment decisions
• Faecal Sludge Management Programme Officers — who need to strengthen the full chain from containment to treatment and reuse
• Development Project Managers — who design, supervise or evaluate donor-funded urban sanitation programmes
• Public Health and Environmental Health Officers — who need evidence-based controls for sanitation-related exposure and pollution

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have working experience in urban water, sanitation, public health, municipal planning, utility management or development programming. They should understand the basic sanitation chain—containment, emptying, transport, treatment and disposal—and be able to interpret simple tables, percentages and maps. Familiarity with household surveys, utility records or project planning is useful. Participants should bring a laptop capable of running Microsoft Excel; basic spreadsheet use is assumed. Prior GIS expertise, engineering design calculations, advanced statistics and prior use of the SFD Graphic Generator are not required, as the course introduces these applications through guided exercises.

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor-led briefings to establish CWIS concepts, followed by structured application to a realistic secondary-city case. Participants analyse sanitation-chain datasets in Microsoft Excel, draft flow assumptions for an SFD, map mandates and service providers, and assess options through facilitated team workshops. Case discussions examine the operational implications of informal settlements, private emptiers, treatment underuse and weak regulation. Each day closes with an applied output that feeds the final CWIS Action Plan Pack, followed on Day 5 by peer review and individual workplace application planning.

Course outline

Day 1: CWIS principles and city sanitation diagnosis

• Citywide Inclusive Sanitation principles and service outcomes
• Sanitation as a complete service chain
• Equity, safety, sustainability and institutional accountability
• Sewered, non-sewered and hybrid sanitation systems
• Urban sanitation conditions in informal and underserved settlements
• Baseline data sources for city sanitation assessment
• Problem-tree analysis for sanitation service failures

Workshop: Participants develop a sanitation problem tree for a case city and identify the evidence needed to validate its main service failures.

Day 2: Service-chain mapping and flow analysis

• Containment typologies and on-site sanitation performance
• Emptying practices and occupational safety risks
• Faecal sludge transport routes and transfer arrangements
• Treatment capacity, process performance and disposal pathways
• Shit Flow Diagram logic and mass-flow assumptions
• Household survey and operator-record data cleaning in Microsoft Excel
• Interpreting unsafe sanitation flows and data uncertainty

Workshop: Teams use a supplied city dataset to calculate sanitation-chain flows and produce a draft Shit Flow Diagram with documented assumptions.

Day 3: Institutions, inclusion and service delivery models

• Institutional mandate mapping across municipal sanitation functions
• Utility, regulator, health department and private operator roles
• Customer segmentation by settlement, income and tenure conditions
• Gender, disability and safety considerations in sanitation access
• Public toilet and shared sanitation service models
• Private emptier market assessment and operator engagement
• Accountability mechanisms, service charters and grievance channels

Workshop: Participants create a stakeholder-mandate map and inclusion risk register for priority customer groups in the case city.

Day 4: Intervention design, financing and performance management

• Intervention options across containment, collection, treatment and reuse
• Multicriteria analysis for sanitation investment prioritisation
• Capital expenditure and operating expenditure distinctions
• Tariffs, subsidies, municipal budgets and blended financing
• Service-level targets for non-sewered sanitation
• CWIS performance indicators and data collection responsibilities
• Risk-based sequencing of short-, medium- and long-term actions

Workshop: Teams score a set of sanitation interventions using a multicriteria matrix and produce a phased investment priority list.

Day 5: CWIS roadmap development and implementation governance

• CWIS Action Plan Pack structure and evidence requirements
• Linking sanitation actions to city development and climate plans
• Implementation roles, decision rights and coordination forums
• Procurement implications for sanitation service contracts
• Monitoring dashboard design and review cycles
• Communicating sanitation priorities to political leaders and partners
• Ninety-day workplace application planning

Workshop: Participants assemble and present a CWIS Action Plan Pack for their case city, receiving peer and instructor feedback on implementation feasibility.

Tools & standards covered

Microsoft Excel, QGIS, Shit Flow Diagram (SFD) Graphic Generator, ISO 24511:2017

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions