They spoke at a one-day Close-out and Validation Workshop organised by the Centre for Housing and Sustainable Development (CHSD), University of Lagos, on ‘The Hidden World of Lagos Sanitation Workers: Investigating Livelihood Vulnerabilities and Empowerment Opportunities’ in Lagos. The focus of the study was on public toilet operators, septic tank operators and waste dislodgers.
The stakeholders pointed out that the factors hampering sanitation activities include, insufficient equipment for waste workers, inadequate public funding and urban planning, as well as weak governmental institutions. Others are absence of enforcement and implementation of policies and a shortage of adequate facilities for collecting, storing, disposing and transportation of solid waste.
According to the Principal Investigator and Director, CHSD, Prof. Taibat Lawanson, the study aims to interrogate the role of urban sanitation workers in Lagos with a view to enhancing their livelihoods and accord formal recognition to their critical contributions in the attainment of sustainable development.
It also explores and documents the various institutionalised approaches for urban sanitation services in the state, identifies the various categories and socio-economic conditions of urban sanitation workers, and determines the range of services provided by each category of sanitation workers, including business structures, social support mechanisms and everyday practices.
The study also establishes the key constraints and enablers of sustainable livelihoods among sanitation workers, and explores the innovative practices inherent in their response to emergent challenges of health, economic precarity and COVID-19 pandemic.
Lawanson stated that lack of access to water and sanitation limits quality of life and contributes to the emergence and proliferation of diseases such as cholera, adding that water and sanitation are also a core component of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG).
She explained that policies tend to combine water and sanitation, but inadvertently, water provision issues mostly leave sanitation overshadowed in terms of details, targets and budgets. Lawanson noted that many policies do not address fecal sludge management or consider the entire sanitation value chain, from containment to safe disposal.
“A most critical component of the sanitation value-chain is the workforce, but in both literature and policy, the value of their work is not recognised in the sanitation service chain: Fecal waste containment, collection, transport, treatment and final disposal or reuse,” she said.
Lawanson also disclosed that sanitation workers perform tasks associated with the wellbeing of city dwellers, while contributing to aesthetics, cleanliness and optimal functioning of the city itself. Whether as biofil toilets installers, septic tank operators or entrepreneurs operating commercial public toilets, they are indispensable actors in municipal solid waste, or waste water management.
Co-Investigator, Dr. Basirat Oyalowo, said the study was carried out through field work, in-depth interview with toilet operators, covering 10 local councils in Lagos, focus group discussion (FGD) with government employed waste dislodgers, FGD with septage desludgers truck operators at the Lekki modular septage Pretreatment Plant (PPP) and engagement with state’s Waste Management Office (LSWMO) and Federation of Informal Workers Organisations of Nigeria (FIWON) to facilitate entry of association of sanitation workers into the federation.
The study revealed that there are three main types of toilets in Lagos: flush toilets, ventilated improved pit latrines, and open pit latrines. There is often no central sewerage system; hence human waste is disposed of on the plots upon which buildings were built (on site sanitation). In many coastal low income areas, waste is deposited directly into the water bodies.
“There are insufficient sanitation facilities for public use, hence the proliferation of road side urination and open defecation across many communities. This has increased groundwater pollution and attendant health and environmental consequences.
“As there is dependence on extraction from on-site systems, there is also an increased need for sanitation workers, who often are informal workers. The responsibility for sanitation is not always clear, but urban sanitation is a responsibility of state and/or local government,” Oyalowo said.
The study noted that desluge truck operators have been advocating policy changes that would improve working conditions and ensure their livelihoods, including better access to social protection and health services. Double taxation of owners by state, local councils reduces profitability and affects workers.
