This research examined water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) accessibility and opportunity in Kibera and Mathare during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021. Kibera and Mathare are two of the largest urban informal settlements in Nairobi (the capital city of Kenya) as well as Sub-Saharan Africa. Accessibility indicates how easily a person can reach WASH facilities from their home by walking. Opportunity represents how many WASH options a person has near their home.
The study utilized the data on water and toilet facilities collected by GroundTruth Initiative in partnership with Map Kibera Trust (local community partners) between February and April 2021 – amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The data collection process was supported by the Cities' COVID Mitigation Mapping (C2M2) Program of the U.S. Department of State. As part of the MapGive initiative directed by the U.S. Department of State's Humanitarian Information Unit, the C2M2 Program aims at building local capacity to utilize open-source geospatial technologies, strengthening international partnerships, and creating new information to inform data-driven decision making for policies that address COVID-19's second-order impacts.
By conducting quantitative geospatial analysis, the study illustrated WASH accessibility and related issues that were not evident in previous studies: (1) 77.4% of people living in Kibera have limited WASH facility accessibility or opportunity; (2) 60.6% of people living in Mathare have limited WASH facility accessibility or opportunity; (3) there is a clear geographic pattern in WASH facility accessibility and opportunity; and (4) overall accessibility and opportunity is better in Mathare than in Kibera.
This study is one of the first studies to examine WASH accessibility and opportunity in urban informal settlements during the COVID-19 pandemic by utilizing the current data and quantitative geospatial methods. Our results can significantly assist the public policy decision-makers by suggesting candidate locations where new WASH facilities can be located to improve WASH accessibility and opportunity. For example, our results revealed that overall WASH accessibility and opportunity are limited in the Kambi Muru, Lindi, and Soweto East villages in Kibera and the 3A, 4A, and Mabatini villages in Mathare. Thus, public health policymakers need to focus on improving those areas by providing proper WASH equipment, such as water kiosks and toilets that are reliable, affordable, safe, and clean.
Considering the limited policy resources of low- and middle-income countries, where improving public health in urban informal settlements is one of the key urban policy goals (e.g., United Nations Sustainable Development Goals #6: Clean Water and Sanitation), our results are significant as they allow public health policymakers to focus on specific locations that need help the most.
