Building smart and sustainable societies through basic services provision

Abstract

This research introduces a Smart & Sustainable Societies (S3) Framework, based on what is necessary to achieve the UN agenda by 2030. The proposed model is based on the integration of three smart strategies: (1) water provision that consists of the use of greywater and rainwater; (2) sanitation provision that aims the nutrients recovery from excreta and organic solid waste and (3) resource-oriented agriculture that conceives the use of water from the water provision system to produce food using nutrients recovered from the sanitation system. Globally, the numerous efforts exerted toward providing basic sanitation services to people have not been sufficient to achieve universal coverage. In developing countries worldwide, many policies, strategies, initiatives, and projects on basic sanitation have failed, despite important investments. Of the several reasons explaining the failure, it is remarkable to note that such approaches have focused mainly on improving the technology of the sanitation system without considering the human aspects, such as user preferences. Moreover, there is not currently a comprehensive approach that ensures the provision of a sanitation service that users want or need to satisfy their needs. It is important to highlight that sanitation is fundamental to human development and well-being, and for developing countries, one of the greatest long-term challenges is to treat all the wastewater generated. Therefore, it is important to include the communities’ point of view on the development and decision making of projects and public policies, not just for sanitation but also for common well-being and other basic services provision. As part of the S3 proposal, an approach to identify user preferences was developed and the results suggests that assessing preferences could be an intrinsic part of the design, planning, and implementation process toward leading rural communities to achieve sustainable development goals on universal basic sanitation. The research points out the necessity of understanding how culture, preferences, practices, and socioeconomic conditions directly affect the possibilities for users to gain access to basic sustainable sanitation services. The S3 framework has the potential to increase societies’ well-being, human development, water availability, food safety, poverty alleviation and healthy environments through the provision of safely managed basic services, the recycling of nutrients and water to achieve sustainability at household and community levels.