Community Challenges and Needs in Sanitation, Related to Flooding Disasters in Peri-Urban Areas: Case of Kanyama - Zambia

This study is motivated to characterize the emergent issues and needs in improvements of mechanisms, in peri-urban area disaster management, with the objective of alleviating epidemic water related disease outbreaks. This paper is a case of Kanyama compound in Zambia, with prevention, preparedness, and response mechanisms the focus of disaster management in this study. Peri-urban areas are hot spots for infectious disease cases and their peripheral with sanitation challenges plays a major role in the increased risk of the outbreak of diseases. A Grounded Theory approach was used in the study by firstly conducting a focused group discussion approach with the community and semi-structured interview for gaining a perspective from relevant authorities. Following this, open and axial coding was performed on qualitative data collected. The findings of this study indicated that key issues were related to service delivery, sanitation facilities, policy and procedures, community participation, community attitudes and behaviour, and informal settlement problems. Furthermore, there is need for a more specific policy to deal with sanitation issues in peri-urban areas, vis-a-vis, preparedness, prevention and response. The study also brought out the need for multi-level community inclusiveness in planning and implementation programs under disaster management.