The aim of this chapter is to look at the integrated water resources management (IWRM)-related institutional shift in governance of water and sanitation in Durban and the extent to which class is considered in providing rural inhabitants with facilities they regard as sub-standard. The key finding is that rural communities remain uncomfortable with nearly 90,000 UD toilets constructed by eThekwini Municipality, despite current efforts being made to relieve them of the most hated chores of emptying vaults when they fill up. In a study conducted in rural areas of Durban through interviews with 70 households and focus group discussions, communities continue to reject UDs on the grounds of lack of equity, proximity to areas with flush toilets, lack of communication, and lack of sustainable institutional mechanisms associated with this project.
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Promoters of IWRM view decentralisation of water and sanitation services to local government (Mehta et al, 2016) and related cost saving mechanisms (Sutherland et al, 2014 and van Koppen, et al, 2016) as innovative approaches (Sutherland et al, 2014) to provision of sanitation solutions. A geographic scale which is socially reproduced and has class connotations is often overlooked in IWRM related multi-scaling and rescaling of sanitation provision which may result in contradictions and conflicts on hydrological boundaries (Mehta et al, 2016, Pelling, 1999, Walker, 2005). In Durban the provision of dry sanitation to poor rural households which manifested in spatial differentiation whereby households residing beyond the waterborne sanitation belt (Sutherland, et al, 2014) were served with facilities different from those given to their urban counterparts residing within the waterborne sanitation belt. In a country which experienced centuries of colonialism and apartheid where different race groups were served with different levels of amenities, the dawn of democracy in 1994 saw the continuation of further discrimination with a class connotation (Swyngedouw and Heynen, 2003).
The dominant narratives (Bryant and Goodman, 2004) of decentralisation promoted by the National Water Act of 1998 (Bourblanc, 2012, Bourblanc, 2015) which is based on the Dublin principles of IWRM (Mehta et al, 2016) together with the intention of the Durban local state to save costs of rolling out water infrastructure to previously under-served communities (Swyngedouw and Heynen, 2003, Escobar, 1998) is responsible for sanitation conflicts and contradictions (Walker, 2003, Hellberg, 2014).
These contradictions are reflected in two sides of the Durban rural sanitation story. The one side of the story is told by households that are unhappy with urine diversion (UD) toilets, and the other side of the story is told by the councillors who authorised the implementation and the municipal officials that actually carried out the implementation of such a controversial and dialectical project. The latter are supported by the fact that eThekwini Water and Sanitation received many water and sanitation awards for being one of the best performing municipalities and not only in South Africa, but the whole of Africa. As early as 2002 eThekwini Water and Sanitation Department was bestowed a National Geographic Award for Sanitation, followed by the 2003 Dubai International Award for Best Practices (for sewage disposal education), and in the same year also awarded the 2003 South African National ‘Excellence in Innovation’ Award, and the Ford Foundation’s 2003 Impumelelo Award. EThekwini Water and Sanitation was and continue to be one of the recipients of the ‘best municipal delivery award’ and ‘Blue Drop’ awards from the regulator, the Department of Water Affairs. One of the sponsors of eThekwini Water and Sanitation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (2010) wrote in a blog, that Durban’s Neil Macleod ‘has been a leader in thinking through how to improve sanitation for the poor in Durban’.