Beyond the networked city: building innovative delivery systems for water, sanitation and energy in urban Africa

Completed

Not Energy Related
Other Power and Storage Technologies(Electricity transmission and distribution)
Other Cross-Cutting Technologies or Research(Environmental, social and economic impacts)

Basic and strategic applied research

SOCIAL SCIENCES (Politics and International Studies)
SOCIAL SCIENCES (Development Studies)
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Electrical and Electronic Engineering)
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Architecture and the Built Environment)

Sociological economical and environmental impact of energy (Policy and regulation)
Sociological economical and environmental impact of energy (Other sociological economical and environmental impact of energy)

Professor G Howard
Civil Engineering
University of Bristol

Standard

ESRC

01 April 2020

31 March 2023

36 months

£1,764,840

South West

ESRC - RCUK GCRF - Grants

Professor G Howard, Civil Engineering, University of Bristol

Dr J Agarwal, Civil Engineering, University of Bristol
Dr K Chmutina, Civil and Building Engineering, Loughborough University
Dr L R L Cirolia, African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Dr H Kasedde, College of Eng, Design, Art and Tech, Makerere University
Dr S Kayaga, Architecture, Building and Civil Eng, Loughborough University
Mr B Koroma, Head office, Sierra Leone Urban Resource Centre SLURC
Dr R Kulabako, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Makerere University
Professor Q Liang, Civil and Building Engineering, Loughborough University
Dr JM Macarthy, Head office, Sierra Leone Urban Resource Centre SLURC
Dr M Pregnolato, Civil Engineering, University of Bristol
Professor K Robson Brown, School of Arts, University of Bristol
Ms R Scott, Architecture, Building and Civil Eng, Loughborough University
Dr SJ Williamson, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Bristol
Dr X Xia, Architecture, Building and Civil Eng, Loughborough University

The aim of the Beyond the networked city project is to enhance the delivery of sustainable and resilient water, sanitation and energy services to marginalised communities inn Freetown, Sierra Leone, and Kampala, Uganda through high quality research that develops a mixed economy model of on-grid and off-grid systems. Central to our thinking is that both on-grid and off-grid systems should provide users with the same safety and adequacy of service. Our research has eight key objectives:1. To develop and implement new and effective methods of analysing service delivery across cities in low- and middle-income countries. This will allow the research team and its non-academic partners to determine the appropriate mix of on and off-grid delivery of water, sanitation and energy services to marginalised urban communities, and to develop dynamic plans for municipal authorities that incorporate spatial and temporal change in services.2. To identify and demonstrate the most effective ways to supporting marginalised communities, and the most marginalised people within communities, to be fully engaged and active participants in making decisions about how services can be improved over multiple time-scales and demonstrate to municipal authorities and policy makers the advantages of such active engagement.3. To co-develop and test local level improvements in water, sanitation and energy service delivery to marginalised communities in Freetown and Kampala that have the full support and active participation of communities, municipal authorities and service providers and which have the support of national policy makers.4. To co-develop with municipal authorities, national policy-makers, communities and development partners, city-wide plans for the development of services in Freetown and Kampala that incorporate both on-grid and off-grid systems and which promote spatial and temporal evolution of services within each city.5. To identify how to overcome the physical, technological, environmental, financial, economic, social and political barriers that constrain the expansion of formal on-grid services to marginalised communities in Freetown and Kampala.6. To test the use of big data in developing service delivery plans for cities and to assess the degree to which such data can compensate for scarce official data and the degree to which it can complement official data in developing municipal plans.7. To understand the role and business models of informal suppliers of water, sanitation and energy services in Freetown and Kampala and identify how these services can be improved and integrated as part of an overall mix of service delivery options operating in each city.8. To produce risk maps for water, sanitation and energy systems in Freetown and Kampala to support operational managers and policy makers take decisions on risk management and mitigation in relation to both current and future hazards.

Our research will develop and test improved systems to deliver water, sanitation and energy services to marginalised people living in urban areas. These services are selected because they represent the most fundamental needs of urban populations and are the focus of SDG 6 (water and sanitation) and SDG 7 (energy). Our work will support the achievement of SDG 11 (sustainable communities and cities).The research will be undertaken in Freetown, Sierra Leone and Kampala, Uganda. The population in both these cities is growing rapidly, with significant levels of poverty and significant numbers of informal settlements. Current rates of access to water supply, sanitation and energy are low in these cities, with striking inequalities in access to these services between wealthy and poor areas. The rapid increase in population has led to communities being established that are distant from existing infrastructure and difficult to serve. Households in marginalised communities therefore have to access water, sanitation and energy from informal and often 'off-grid' sources. This includes, for instance, using charcoal for energy, dug wells or protected springs for domestic water and basic on-site sanitation.Our research will combine social, economic and political analysis with insights from natural and engineering science to understand how the infrastructure, management, finance and governance can be developed to improve water, sanitation and energy services. Our research is designed in five inter-related work areas. We will first establish a thorough understanding of each city. We will analyse how the cities have developed to date and how they are likely to develop in the future; we will identify which areas have access to formal services and which have access to informal services; and will we map the hazards and risks in each city. We will use data collected from official statistics to analyse each city and in Freetown we will use remotely sensed data from NASA to map the city.We will then assess the formal on-grid services, using data key attributes of the infrastructure to develop risk maps. We will research the attitudes of suppliers, policy makers and city officials regarding the challenges and opportunities to extend services to people who don't currently have access. We will complement this by looking at how informal suppliers provide services, including the technologies they use and their business models. We will assess the resilience of the services and research the perceptions of the informal suppliers about how services can be improved and what they see as being their role in this. Next we will work in four marginalised communities to understand how and from where they currently access services, how much they pay and their perception of the quality of services. We will explore what people living communities think would be the best way to improve services and who they think should provide services.We will use all the data we have collected about the city, from suppliers of services and from communities to develop a set of options for improving services to marginalised communities. This will use a 'Delphi' method that uses discussions to build consensus on which are the best options. We will involve policy makers, service providers and members of marginalised communities to develop the preferred options. The final part of our research will be to test specific interventions in four communities. We will undertake a formal outcome evaluation to assess how well these options work and undertake a value for money assessment of each option. We will also develop city-wide plans for the development of services over time. Throughout our research we will engage with local people, decision-makers and funders to ensure that our research addresses the questions they think are most important and to maximise the potential for our research to influence service development in each city.

23/10/20