Abstract
D.Ing. (Civil Engineering)
The thesis investigates the whole life cycle of the community ablution facilities in the eThekwini
municipality, and aimed to identify the technical success factors in rolling out communal ablution
facilities as an interim measure in the upgrading of informal settlements throughout South Africa.
The eThekwini municipality is based on the east coast of South Africa. Approximately 12% of the 3.4
million inhabitants of eThekwini are housing informally in one of the 420 informal settlements
scattered around the urban and peri-urban areas. The municipality is responsible for the provision of
basic interim services to these informal settlements within their jurisdiction and is in the process of
rolling out containerised ablution facilities to all informal settlements as an interim measure. They
have successfully provided 302 communal ablution blocks from 2009.
The findings of this thesis were based on the rollout of these communal ablution blocks. The thesis is
structured in the life cycle of the community ablution blocks. The thesis required a broad set of data
from a number of stakeholders in order to understand each stage in the life cycle, using a number of
different data sources, such as (i) interviews with the municipality, professional service providers,
and the caretakers, (ii) municipal and project related documentation and data, (iii) surveys of the
existing community ablution blocks, and (iv) data logging of the water meters at the community
ablution blocks.
The pre-implementation stages of the community ablution blocks investigated the planning, design
and construction stages of the project. In the planning stage, the municipality prioritised each
settlement based on a set of technical criteria, such as location to existing infrastructure, transport
routes, bulk water and sanitation services, social infrastructure, the population of the settlement; to
ensure that all interim infrastructure are considered within an integrated framework in order to
reduce fruitless capital expenditure. Each settlement required community buy-in for both the
placement and provision of the ablution facility and the selection of the caretaker. The design stage
deals with the hydraulic design of the water supply and sewerage pipes as these were unknown
parameters. The ablution structure and the sanitary fittings were discussed, but these were not
significant in the design due to the space constraints within the containerised ablution facilities.
There were significant delays found in the construction phase, which increased the initial estimated
time required for construction by a factor of approximately three, which not only places a burden on
the municipality to maintain the momentum of the project at scale but also increases the budget
required for construction.
The post-implementation stages were not found to function as intended. The key success factors in
the post-implementation stages were dependent on the quality of the caretaker and the quality of
the support given to the caretaker. Furthermore, all maintenance work has to be performed rapidly
to ensure that the caretakers remain proactive in ensuring the facility remains operational. The
consequence of poor operation and maintenance has detrimental effects on the community, who
have to resort to open defecation and other unimproved forms of sanitation.
The thesis adds to the shared water and sanitation body of knowledge. The thesis provides both
quantitative and qualitative data on the post-implementation stage of the community ablution
blocks, an area which is often neglected in practice.