The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a US$419.6 million loan for the Citywide Inclusive Sanitation Project, to help Indonesia expand access to climate-resilient, adequate, and safely managed sanitation services in the cities of Mataram, Pontianak, and Semarang.

While approximately 77% of Indonesian households have access to basic sanitation facilities (like septic tanks), just 7% have access to safely managed sanitation that ensures safe disposal of domestic waste to wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) for further processing. With so many households in the project cities facing inadequate sewerage and being prone to flooding, groundwater pollution and environmental and health risks are frequent.

The project aims to strengthen the sanitation systems for approximately 2.5 million people in the three cities. Its design is based on the citywide inclusive sanitation principle, which ensures that everyone has access to appropriately handled sanitation services by integrating both sewered and non-sewered systems.

“This project stands as one of the largest inclusive sanitation projects in Indonesia supported by ADB to date, aligning seamlessly with our comprehensive initiatives aimed at addressing climate change,” says ADB country director for Indonesia Jiro Tominaga.

The project will improve and expand existing sanitation systems by constructing WWTPs with a combined daily capacity of 57,000 cubic metres and approximately 200 kilometres of sewer networks.

Design features aimed at ensuring climate and disaster resilience have been incorporated, such as constructing elevated structures to guard the WWTPs against future flooding, implementing drainage systems at WWTP sites to manage stormwater volumes, and installing a breakwater to mitigate the impact of high tides and flooding.