Post on 16-Apr-2017
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 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)
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