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Shit Meter (Increasing Political Will to Fix Broken Toilets)
Broken toilets need maintenance in South Africa. Even when municipalities know about them the political will to fix them immediately lacks.
Not enough action is being taken by municipalities to fix broken toilets, especially in informal settlements. Although janitors are have been deployed to maintain toilet cleanliness, this initiative is futile when toilets are non-functional. Toilets that need to be fixed have been reported multiple times by community members and civil society organizations, yet the the time for the city to respond is very slow despite having the capacity to fix the toilets immediately. Toilets remain broken and inaccessible for communities.
There needs to be a solution which applies public pressure for municipalities to take immediate action on broken toilets reported by community members. This has to be simple, easy to use for those reporting, easy to interpret fro those receiving the information, and easy to maintain.
If an application can be created which publishes the response rates of municipalities to the general public, this could put pressure on them to deploy employees to fix the issues. Toilets can become functional in a shorter amount of time and increase access to those in informal settlements.
