[[File:Susana logo.png|right|90px|Susana logo.png]]This article is based on a [http://www.susana.org/en/resources/library/details/102 factsheet] that deals with the planning of sustainable sanitation for urban and peri-urban areas of developing countries and its importance for achieving comprehensive and inclusive sanitation coverage in cities.
=== 1. Summary ===
The key messages of this factsheet are
This factsheet elaborates on the shortcomings of supply-driven planning and presents three demand-led approaches which recognise that stakeholder involvement is a prerequisite to effective planning. Based on past experiences we propose guiding principles for better sanitation planning in cities of developing countries.
=== 2. Introduction ===
[[File:Urban areas.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Urban areas.jpg]]The United Nation’s International Year of Sanitation 2008 highlighted the need for an enormous increase in the number and use of sanitation facilities in order to meet the MDG target on basic sanitation (to halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to basic sanitation). Although 1.3 billion people gained access to improved sanitation between 1990 and 2008, the world is still likely to miss the MDG target by one billion people. And even if the target was achieved, 1.7 billion would still remain unserved (UNICEF, 2010)
The full range of urban sanitation problems is not discussed here, as this is the focus of the thematic paper “Sustainable Sanitation for Cities” (Panesar et al., 2008).
=== 3. Shortcomings of conventional planning approaches ===
The principles of planning that continue to dominate the thinking of urban and infrastructure planners and political decision-makers in the South are based on the concept of “manageable towns”. Today, however, large parts of cities in developing countries are completely neglected by mainstream planning. The majority of urban populations live in informal, unplanned settlements which are often considered illegal or unauthorised and only tolerated at best. The combination of the pace and scale of urban population growth in developing countries is undermining the efforts of city and municipal administrations to plan and guide urban development.
In the past decade, several new multi-stakeholder and partnership approaches have been developed and tested. These will be focussed on in the following section.
=== 4. Innovations in sanitation planning ===
There are three important approaches to sanitation planning for urban and peri-urban areas of developing countries which recognise that stakeholder involvement is a prerequisite to effective planning, and seek to overcome the shortcomings of top-down and supply-driven approaches. Whilst the following paragraphs only provide an overview, the [http://www.susana.org/en/resources/library/details/1229 factsheet]goes more into detail (WG 6 pp 3).
The concepts presented in this factsheet have formed the basis for a more extensive book entitled “Sustainable sanitation in cities: a framework for action” by the same authors which was published in 2011 (Lüthi, 2011b).
=== 6. Acknowledgements ===
SuSanA factsheet: Planning of sustainable sanitation for cities. April 2012. [http://www.susana.org/en/ susana.org]
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