Launching SaniBook: A New Era for Kenya’s Sanitation

Miriam Njoroge of QUERCUS Group

Nairobi, Kenya. The launch of SaniBook marks a significant milestone in Kenya’s journey toward improved sanitation.

The opportunity

SaniBook is an innovative digital tool designed to strengthen coordination among stakeholders across the sanitation value chain, ensuring partners work together efficiently toward common goals.

Through a shared platform, SaniBook will streamline collaboration between government agencies, the private sector, and NGOs by enabling stronger information and resource sharing. By centralizing sanitation data, stakeholders will be better positioned to make informed decisions and track progress with clarity and consistency.

SaniBook will also help identify opportunities for innovation and investment in sanitation infrastructure, supporting a more dynamic and sustainable sanitation marketplace.

The challenge

Kenya remains at a pivotal turning point, with only $$36%$$ of the population currently accessing safely managed sanitation services.

SaniBook is designed to move the sector beyond “islands of success” and address a “leaky bucket” of institutional memory. This helps ensure what works is documented, retained, and scaled instead of being lost or repeated through trial and error.

Triple loop learning framework

SaniBook introduces a structured approach to organizational learning that can inform national strategy:

• Single loop: Documenting efficient technologies and proven solutions

• Double loop: Understanding why specific solutions work within different contexts

• Triple loop: Using evidence to dynamically shape national strategies and policies

It is positioned as a “common language” for the entire sanitation ecosystem:

• For government: Evidence based budget allocation and standardized regulation to improve resource efficiency and accountability

• For the private sector: Reduced investment risk through visibility into commercially viable, proven technologies and scalable business models

• For NGOs and civil society: A platform to capture grassroots innovations and elevate them to national visibility and influence

Stakeholder perspectives

Miriam Njoroge of QUERCUS Group shared the following on the platform’s potential:

Ecosystem alignment

SaniBook is positioned to strengthen and complement the annual Innovate for Water and Sanitation marketplace forums (I4WASH), enhancing ecosystem partnerships and accelerating sector wide innovation through coordinated action and shared learning.

The commitment

As the sector adopts SaniBook, a foundational principle guides the work:

“If we do not document our successes, we are destined to repeat our failures.”

By using SaniBook’s framework, stakeholders can build systems that are affordable, culturally acceptable, and environmentally sustainable for every Kenyan. Partners are urged to use this roadmap for peer to peer learning and synergy, ensuring that progress is not just recorded. It is accelerated.

About SaniBook

SaniBook is a strategic knowledge management tool designed to:

• Centralize sanitation data and evidence across the sector

• Strengthen stakeholder coordination and collaboration

• Support peer to peer learning and knowledge exchange

• Identify opportunities for innovation and investment in sanitation infrastructure

• Enable evidence based policy and budget decisions

Together, stakeholders are not just documenting progress. They are ensuring it.

Built collaboratively across Kenya’s water and sanitation sector to advance SDG $$6.2$$, universal access to safe, adequate sanitation.