Deputy of Sragen Regent, Dedy Indriatno, opened the Workshop on Water and Sanitation held by Bappedalitbang of Sragen district and USAID IUWASH PLUS on March 5, 2020 at the hall of the regent’s official residence.
Present in the event were the Director of Urban, Housing, and Settlement of Bappenas, Tri Virgiyanti; the relevant local government working units, 20 heads of sub-districts, the heads of villages from more than 100 villages, and representatives from PKK (family welfare movement), PKH (Family Hope Program), and TKSK (District Social Workers).
The objective of the workshop was to increase the participants’ understanding of safely managed water and sanitation according to the 2020-2024 RPJMN and the role of villages to accelerate water and sanitation improvements, particularly using the village fund.
In his speech, the Deputy Regent said that Sragen district achieved open-defecation-free (ODF) status in 2018. However, many people in the district have yet to have toilets with septic tanks at their respective houses.
“The future challenge are changing community’s behavior and building toilets with septic tanks. Therefore, the district government, heads of sub-districts, heads of villages and urban villages should help build toilets with septic tanks, particularly for the community belongs to B40 group,” he said.
In addition, the Director of Urban, Housing, and Settlement of Bappenas, Tri Dewi Virgiyanti, mentioned,” according to the national socioeconomic survey conducted by Indonesia Statistics in 2018, Sragen the improved sanitation access in Sragen district reached 84%. The challenges are how to make the unimproved sanitation become improved sanitation and how to achieve the national safely managed sanitation target, which reaches 15 percent.”
In order to achieve safely managed sanitation, Sragen district requires two additional septage treatment plants, wastewater management operators, and funding source alternatives. Behavior change programs are also required to invoke community to build toilets with septic tanks, and to have septic tanks desludged periodically.
Following the workshop, the district government plans to seek alternative funding sources to build toilets with septic tanks for low-income communities. Similarly, the village governments also plan to allocate budget to improve water and sanitation of low-income families, especially those who have been registered in the BDT (Basis Data Terpadu).
