Overcoming Institutional and Organisational Barriers to Sanitation: What's New?[Surmonter les barrières institutionnelles et organisationnelles à l'assainissement: quoi de neuf ?]

This technical report focuses on how to overcome institutional and organisational barriers to the development of sanitation. It compiles communications from researchers and operational staff on work that sheds new light on the issue. A consensus emerges on the recognition of the multiplicity of production modes of the sanitation service, sometimes collective, individual or unconventional, which increases the complexity of its management. The challenge is to build a public sanitation service integrating this diversity of infrastructures and stakeholders. Special agencies or multi-service operator? Local or national organisation? The question of organisational and management scales with the associated coordination issues illustrates one of the many debates discussed. A conceptual approach based on studies of the pathways of socio-technical systems is proposed to identify the obstacles to be lifted for action to be taken. These pathways of change, which relate to rules, beliefs, representations and organisational structures, are based on incremental processes that urgently need to be initiated in order to face contemporary challenges.