Sanitation

Abstract With an estimated 60 percent of its urban residents lacking access to good sanitation, sub‐Saharan Africa is at the center of the global sanitation crisis. This entry describes the challenges of and prospects for solving urban sanitation problems in the region and highlights the factors that have contributed to the problems, including rapid population growth, colonial legacies of urban sanitation provision, and neoliberal restructuring. The entry also shows how the view, among sanitation advocates, that the provision of clean and safe shared facilities should be central to urban sanitation interventions in developing countries is reflected in some of the sanitation systems in sub‐Saharan Africa. How the adoption of appropriate technologies and the implementation of management regimes that employ tri‐sector partnerships – involving government, private, and voluntary sectors – are part of the solution to urban sanitation in the region is also examined.