Follow these five steps to get started with making your SFD.

1. Location and context: The first thing you need to do is gain a broad understanding of the sanitation sector in the city (or urban area) your SFD is focused on. For instance, you will need to know the:

1. Boundary of the area that your SFD is representing. For instance, the city’s political and/or administrative boundaries may not be the same as the boundaries used by all the city’s sanitation service providers, so it is important to decide the area your SFD will cover. You may find that data availability will dictate your SFD boundary.
2. The population within that area. As a first step use national census data to identify city populations and then, depending on the context, adjust these appropriately by cross checking population figures from local administrative and service provider data sources.
3. Different types of sanitation systems in use by the population and understand how the systems operate.
4. Key physical and geographical features. For example, you will need data on groundwater levels, sources of drinking water and it will be helpful to understand the cities topography, climate and any seasonal variations that may affect service delivery.
5. Enabling environment for sanitation service delivery. Consider issues such as the policy, legislation, regulation and planning framework, as well as investment levels and equity issues; these might include the distribution of the population by wealth quintiles and any differences in the sanitation service level in these areas.

For more details on understanding the urban context and assessing the enabling environment see section 4 of the SFD Manual – Volume 1 – Assessing the enabling environment.

2. Data collection: To help gain an understanding of the type of data you will need to collect and analyse, try answering these questions. If you don’t know the answers, the right-hand column indicates possible sources of information you could use.

For more details on sanitation service chain analysis see section 5 of the SFD Manual – Volume 1 – Producing the SFD: Sanitation service chain analysis.

3. Stakeholder engagement: You may find it difficult to answer all the questions and will need help from other stakeholders. Stakeholder engagement is a critical part of the SFD production process in that it serves as a means of gaining wider acceptance and support for the process. Experience has proven that the better the level of stakeholder engagement, the more likely the SFD Report and accompanying SFD Graphic will be accepted and used by decision makers.

For more details on how to engage other stakeholders see section 7 of the SFD Manual – Volume 1 – Stakeholder engagement.

4. Graphic Generator: Once you have collected the data for your city, you can use the Graphic Generator to produce your first SFD Graphic. We recommend you then share and discuss your SFD Graphic with other stakeholders. As delivery of urban sanitation services can be complex, producing an SFD for a city is commonly an iterative process requiring the sharing and discussion of a number of versions before reaching an agreement with other stakeholders on a final version.

5. Reporting, reviewing, publishing: Once an agreement is reached, you can draft your SFD Report using the reporting templates, have it reviewed by the SFD Promotion Initiative and published on this webportal. 

For more details on Levels of SFD Report see section 3 of the SFD Manual – Volume 1 and for guidance on reporting see section 9 of the SFD Manual – Volume 1 – Reporting.

Good luck!