Self-Help System of Provision of Communal Sanitation Facilities and Its Sustainability in a High-Density Slum Settlement

Slum proliferation has been acknowledged as the consequence of poor government capacity for planning and managing rapid urbanization. To provide sanitation, the residents created self-help sanitation facilities by coordinating their assets. This article aims to investigate the mechanism of providing self-help sanitation facilities and the attendant management system by employing a qualitative approach in the case of a slum settlement in the Manggarai subdistrict. The study shows that because it is a high-density area with low-income residents, the community self-help mechanism contributed toward the accessibility of safe water and basic sanitation. However, several challenges were also identified, such as lack of space, inadequate maintenance capability, and a crumbling infrastructure, in the search to deliver decent improvements for the growing population in the neighborhood. This indicates that the provision of selfhelp public facilities requires planning and technical knowledge to anticipate the growing needs in the future and prevent the degradation of the existing facilities.