Modernised Mixtures in Urban Sanitation

Services

Dr ir Bas van Vliet, Environmental Policy Group Wageningen University.

IRC, The Hague, 9-9-2015

Outline

Modernized Mixtures in urban environmental infrastructures

PROVIDE project dealing with urban sanitation in East Africa

Findings from sanitation studies in East Africa

Modernized Mixtures, alternative for classical

dichotomy on infrastructure development

Dichotomy with regard to the technology:

● High tech – Low tech

● Large-scale Grid Bound – Small-scale self-reliant

● Linear Material Flow – Closed Loops

Dichotomy with regard to governance, planning and management institutions:

● Top-down – Bottom-up Decision-making

● Central – Decentral Management

● Developmental state – Network governance

Modernized Mixtures

Combining technologies and modes of governance from

centralised and de-centralised systems

Adapted to specific local conditions

Variations in different dimensions

● scale

● involvement of end-users

● combination of flows

● organization

Creating a “fit” between options for infrastructures and socio-

economic, technological, political and ecological conditions

Four social and technical dimensions

Combined water and

waste flows

Low cost, flexible systems

Large scale,

fixed price systems

Low involvement of end-users

Decentralised organisation

Centralised organisation

High involvement of end-users

Separated water and

waste flows

“modernized mixtures”

centralised systems de-centralised systems

Diverse Modernised Mixtures

Modernized Mixtures Approach to

environmental infrastructures

These infrastructures are:

Multidimensional in terms of:

● Technology/infrastructure

● Management/modes of governance

● Services and flows

At multiple scales in terms of:

● Infrastructure lay-out

● Management responsibilities

Provide project on Sustainable Urban

Environmental Infrastructure Development

in East Africa

Improving Sanitation and solid waste management in East African urban centers, in dialogue with and responding to the needs of the urban poor

Thoroughly identify existing and potential (technical and governance) arrangements for sanitation and solid waste management

● policy arrangements involving different (novel) configurations of actors

● new technological configurations, institutional arrangements and systems

Technical, Institutional, Spatial Configurations

assessm

ent

Conventional

Traditional

Mixed

Evaluation on: • Environmental health • Accessibility • Flexibility

Assessing Sanitary Systems in East Africa

(Sammy Letema, PhD thesis 2012)

Assessment of large, small and mixed

systems in Kampala

General Findings

Neither the conventional large-scale, nor alternative small-scale environmental technologies will solve waste and sanitation problems in urban centers of East Africa

Social and technical diversity in waste and sanitation services is not the problem but rather the opening to tailor-made solutions and governance arrangements

Modernised Mixtures approach offers a framework for interdisciplinary sanitation research and new policy orientations

In terms of governance: Need for networked rather than neo-developmental state governance to support emergence of these mixtures

Thank you for

listening!

Bas.vanvliet@wur.nl

@basvanvliet2

www.wageningenur.nl/enp