Learning from social assessments of innovative non-sewered sanitation in eThekwini

As non-sewered sanitation (NSS) is being designed, developed, tested and rolled out, there is widespread support for the integration of social science. Yet what, precisely, social science can and should do remains much less clear. This paper explains the specific approach of social assessments, a process for analysing the context in which NSS exists, and how this context might impact NSS. Social assessments can be more resource intensive than more narrow approaches, making it important to understand its contributions and why it might contribute to NSS. Here, we draw on data from six different social assessment processes on NSS in eThekwini Municipal Area, showing how the questions, methodology and contributions changed. What has resulted from our learnings is not a set process, but ongoing experimentation with and adoption of diverse methods that respond to the particular goals of research teams in specific sites. We explain five potential contributions of social assessment: a) it can improve technologies; b) it can enable users to better understand technologies and interventions, enabling a deeper form of participation; c) broadens the framing of what matters for NSS, showing the relevance and potential changes of factors such as governance arrangements, gender dynamics, and resource costs; d) it offers specialist analysis of technologies’ relationship with the wider context; and e) it impacts relationships, potentially shifting power and building trust. We conclude by urging more explicit attention to the diverse ways of undertaking social science how it can contribute to NSS.