Lusaka, Zambia

Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, has a population of approximately 1.2 million. The overall appearance is that of a generally well-planned and well-maintained city with mostly low-density housing and commercial centres well served by wide roads.

The city has a population of approximately 1.2 million with a growth rate of 3.6%. Since independence, the annual population growth rate in unplanned settlements has sometimes reached figures of 12 %.

The City is entirely urban with over 40% of the total population living in the peri-urban areas. A number of peri-urban settlements have severe water and sanitation problems. Approximately 90% of the peri-urban inhabitants rely on ordinary pit latrines, which they also use as bathing shelters.

This practice, combined with poor drainage and waste management leads to significant health hazards due to a high ground water table and periodic flooding during the rainy season (November – March). Once the pit latrine is filled up, residents are faced with the problem of space for locating new pits.

The target settlements of the Lusaka programme are Kayama and Chaisa with populations of 96 000 and 35 000 respectively. The programme seeks to address water and sanitation issues affecting these poor sectors of the urban communities in Lusaka.

The four main issues that will be addressed in the two communities are water supply, sanitation, solid waste management and drainage. However, WSUP will focus more on sanitation issues in the two communities. The communities are looking for effective long term solutions and are supported by the local authorities and water administrators.

Key Achievements to Date

Demonstrated models of service delivery to the urban poor

• Sustainable water service improvements for 204,000 urban poor, demonstrating replicable models for the city’s 1,000,000 low income consumers

• Strengthening of utility – Water Trusts contracts leading to better services for the poor

• Sanitation market strengthened through improved design of urine diversion toilets and drafting of legal provisions to legitimise the collection and transport of faecal sludge

Strengthened institutional capacity to sustain improvement process

• Scoping of capacity development requirements for all Commercial Utilities in Zambia initiated with SNV, GTZ and the Devolution Trust Fund

• Utility trained in management of international funding contracts targeting improved coverage

• Support provided to local service authorities to develop a climate proofing strategy

• City utility with strengthened capacity to deliver wide scale hygiene promotion programmes

Investment mobilised for scale up of models

• Substantial funding mobilised to assist city utility to extend the programme to new peri-urban communities

• City Utility providing co-financing and match funding for programmes

• WSUP supporting design of three large investment programmes (by EIB and MCC) in Lusaka and Copperbelt Province