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PCMA of Domestic Water and Latrine Market Systems in the Context of Flooding in Jakarta

Penjaringan and Kampung Melayu Village, Jakarta Province, Indonesia
December, 2016

More than 40% of the city of Jakarta is built on land that predominantly lies below sea level. Jakarta's low elevation, long rainy season and insufficient drainage of river channels make it highly prone to flooding. Increasing rural to urban economic migration puts more pressure on the city authorities to address the flooding issues. There are two main types of recurring flood in Jakarta. The first occurs annually, lasts for about a week and affects coastal and riverine areas. The second occurs approximately every five years and affects a larger portion of the city.

The city of Jakarta is served by a well-established, government-controlled Local Disaster Management Agency (LDMA), which has contingency plans and a budget to manage flooding. The LDMA has an ambition to improve its emergency response management in light of the increasing scale and scope of flooding. As such, this pre-crisis market analysis was seen as a potential opportunity for addressing some of these issues by potentially offering complementary market response activities for contingency planning that could be more effective locally and could spread the cost of the response within the market systems themselves. To inform the PCMA, a decision-making Taskforce was created consisting of key stakeholders from government, utilities, INGOs, local NGOs, and disaster management agencies in order to define the scope of the research. The two WASH market systems identified for the assessment were water supply and latrines. The target areas were Penjaringan and Kampung Melayu due to their increasing vulnerability to floods and their concentration of relatively poorer communities.

Within these communities, a complex system of local formal and informal service providers and retailers has arisen to address issues of accessibility, reliability and quality in water supplies from the local utility. However, during floods, all communities find their water supply is cut off due to power failure, with only those with stored water able to access it safely. In minor floods, retailers remain open and water carts, bottled water and water trucking are utilized. Costs for these goods and services rise by around 25 during floods, and the quality of water sold by trucking companies and water carts is variable, depending on the source. During major floods, most businesses close, and there is a greater dependency on use of stockpiled goods within places of shelter and movement of people to IDP centers.

During both minor and major floods, most latrines of all kinds become unusable.Critically, local Islamic cultural practices rely on a functional water supply so that latrines can be utilized appropriately for cleansing purposes. People are confined to the buildings in which they shelter and must find alternative means of defecation. As such, accessibility and use of latrines are dependent on the functionality of water supply market, and the two markets for this study are intrinsically connected.

For immediate risk mitigation, the report recommends mandating minimum emergency water storage within critical points in the value chain and integrating unregistered IDP camps into EPR plans and readying them through training, stockpiling and infrastructure upgrades. For emergency preparedness and response activities, the report recommends toilets operated by water and sanitation/waste management companies to provide services to affected people during floods; building flood defences around critical WASH infrastructure to maintain WASH services; improving WASH distribution; implementing financing mechanisms to reduce the cost to consumers; monitoring and maintaining drainage systems to mitigate risks of overflow due to blockages; and improving access and quality of water supply through partnerships between local informal and formal service providers. Finally, to support resilience building, the report recommends the establishment of PPPs between DPAM and local service providers (e.g. water stations) to increase reach and quality of water services; the establishment of quality standards within regulatory frameworks of already utilised filtration systems to legitimise local service provider operations; and the revision of urban planning regulations to mandate improvements in water storage and sanitation provisions of all buildings.

Report authors: 
WASH & Market Team - Oxfam in Indonesia
Download Report (922.89 KB pdf)