National Conference on Future Of Urban Sanitation In India - Localising Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Secondary Cities

Society for Participatory Research In Asia (PRIA) in partnership with National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) and Research and Information System (RIS) for Developing Countries is organising a two day National Conference on “Future Of Urban Sanitation In India - Localising Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Secondary Cities” on February 27-28, 2020, at Hotel The Royal Plaza, New Delhi. The conference is supported by The European Union.

PRIA has been implementing “Engaged Citizens Responsive City (ECRC)” project in Ajmer, Rajasthan; Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh; and Muzaffarpur, Bihar with the support from the European Union. The objective of the project was to enhance the participation of urban poor in planning, implementation and monitoring of urban sanitation services. Over the last four years, ECRC project has fostered numerous innovative practices to engage citizens with a particular focus on the urban poor in bottom-up participatory planning based on authentic data generated by the communities; it has extended critical support to the urban local bodies (ULBs) for effective implementation of Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) and Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) programmes; and generated valuable knowledge with regard to sustained behaviour changes in the communities.

Over the last six years the Indian cities with the support from the Central and State Governments on one hand, and the community based organisations, civil society, academic and research institutions, media and other stakeholders on the other hand, have made significant improvement in sanitation services including access to toilets, scientific treatment of solid and liquid waste management, and involving citizens in the operation chain of sanitation services.

This significant positive achievement is not without the share of its challenges. The biggest challenge is the sustainability of the positive gains from this massive programme. The sustainability of the enhanced urban sanitation services will be contingent upon sustained citizen participation and behaviour changes along with enhanced capacities of ULBs and the capacities of city-level institutional ecosystem in which these ULBs operate. The role of civil society to continue to raise awareness among communities, providing technical assistance to the ULBs, as well as holding the institutions accountable are crucial. Last but not least, the ability of ULBs to leverage and converge resources from various national programmes particularly, AMRUT, Smart City Mission, and Jal Shakti Mission.

The National Conference on Future of Urban Sanitation is an effort to identify solutions to the challenges of sustainable, inclusive and participatory management of urban sanitation services in the next decade.

The specific objectives of the Conference are:

- Showcasing scalable innovative solutions from across the country to address the challenges of inclusive urban sanitation services;
- Creating a learning and knowledge platform by bringing together policy makers, researchers, experts, and practitioners on inclusive urban sanitation services;
- Informing and influencing policies and institutions to enhance the impact of urban sanitation programmes.

A special objective of the National Conference is to develop consensus on a framework, methodology, and mechanism for localising Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Indian cities with a particular focus on SDG 11.

The National Conference will bring together policy makers, researchers and practitioners across governments, ULBs, parastatals, civil society organisations (CSOs), academia, media, corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes, resource providers and representatives from the communities to gain insights on future of urban sanitation in India which is inclusive, participatory, and sustainable. The Conference will address these topics through various planned sessions which are critical to the sustainability of urban sanitation in India.