Investing in the water-sanitation nexus: Lessons from Shinyanga

For years, inadequate sanitation in Shinyanga, a city in a lake region in Tanzania, quietly undermined its most critical asset: its water. Untreated wastewater polluted surface and groundwater, increasing health risks for households, raising treatment costs for utilities and the municipality, and constraining the city’s ability to grow sustainably.

“Back then,” explained Kuchibanda Kizito, Head of the Sanitation and Waste Management Unit at Shinyanga Municipal Council, “the Shinyanga Municipal Council did not have a designated place for wastewater disposal. Children from the surrounding village would come and play there, and some would even swim in it.”

In the city of Shinyanga, children often played in unfenced open spaces with watering holes. But this once came at a cost. Poorly managed waste contaminated water sources, leading to preventable illnesses, school absenteeism, and mounting financial pressure on families already living on the edge.

In 2021, the municipality of Shinyanga opened its first faecal sludge treatment plant with support from SNV and funding from the Netherlands through the WASH SDG programme. Nearly five years on, the plant remains fully operational and has expanded to meet growing demand. Today, the plant is a reference point for municipalities seeking to protect water quality while strengthening sanitation service delivery.

Shinyanga’s turning point was not simply technological. It was also institutional. City leaders shifted from working in silos to asking which actors needed to collaborate to solve a shared water and sanitation challenge.

This partnership bridged the traditional divide between sanitation, previously solely managed by the municipality, and water services, overseen by the utility. Crucially, community representatives were consulted on several issues, including the location where the plant should be built. Together, the partnership assessed treatment options and defined service models that balanced affordability, technical feasibility, and long-term operations.

“After visiting different areas and exploring many options, we found this technology the most affordable and technically suitable,” said Yusuf Katopola, Managing Director of SHUWASA.

In 2022, Shinyanga launched a 40 m³ per day plant, marking a significant milestone for the city as it ventured into professional faecal sludge treatment services for the very first time, through a carefully managed, cost-effective initiative. Rather than scaling up immediately, city leaders aimed first to demonstrate functionality, build demand, and test to enhance services before expanding. Alongside this, the city invested in increasing service demand and strengthening the professionalism of emptying and treatment services.

This cautious but determined approach paid off. Tipping fees covered a growing share of operational costs, demonstrating fiscal discipline and operational performance.

Since its launch, the plant has evolved into a scalable, climate-resilient model that has earned the confidence of development financiers.

By the end of 2022, Shinyanga was recognised as the highest-performing municipality for sanitation nationwide. The city subsequently secured a €76 million loan from the Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD) to expand sanitation infrastructure, setting in motion a broader wave of urban sanitation investments across Tanzania. Today, the plant, operates at full capacity, treating 100 m³ of sludge per day and protecting water resources for households, businesses, and ecosystems alike.

Safely managed sanitation, as demonstrated by the Shinyanga experience, is not a cost that competes with water investment; rather, it is a necessary prerequisite. Professional sanitation services help protect water quality, lower treatment costs for utilities, limit disruptions for industrial and commercial water users, and safeguard the health of the workforce and consumers on which economies rely.

When cities invest strategically, build cross-departmental capacity, and engage community members in decision-making and planning, sanitation systems can shift from crisis response to long-term economic services. This shift is increasingly urgent as global urbanisation accelerates at unprecedented rates, significantly increasing wastewater generation as well as environmental and public health risks in urban areas. Effective planning and management of this growth are therefore critical in advancing the global shift that is currently needed: moving water and sanitation from the periphery of public spending to the forefront of discussions on growth, resilience, and infrastructure finance.

As cities across emerging markets grapple with water security and climate risk, Shinyanga shows how collaboration in water and sanitation can deliver measurable returns for people, institutions, and investors alike. For decision-makers shaping the future of water and sanitation, Shinyanga offers a clear message: growth, resilience, and universal access can be achieved when water and sanitation are planned and financed as one integrated system.