scholarly journals Informal settlement janitorial services: implementation of a municipal job creation initiative in Cape Town, South Africa

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 299-314
Author(s):  
Lina Taing
Keyword(s):  
Good Governance ◽  
Informal Settlement ◽  
Job Creation ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Informal Settlements ◽  
Multi Objective ◽  
Sanitation Services ◽  
Multi Objective Programming ◽  
Services Implementation ◽  
Dual Objectives

In 2011/12, the City of Cape Town announced that it would commence an on-site janitorial service for communal flush toilets in informal settlements throughout the metropolitan area. The dual objectives of the programme were to improve municipal sanitation services in informal settlements and to create new job opportunities in areas with high unemployment. This paper examines the janitorial programme’s development and administration in Cape Town’s largest township from 2011 to 2014, from the viewpoints of: (1) municipal sanitation officials; (2) civil society advocates; and (3) informal settlement residents employed as janitors. Interviews with key informants and observation of sanitation actors indicated that the implementation of the janitorial programme was mired in conflicting understandings of good governance and different prioritization of goals in multi-objective development initiatives. This case, in particular, points to a potential repercussion of including sanitation in multi-objective programming, for the administration of the job creation aspect took precedence and ultimately detracted from the janitorial programme’s servicing goal.

The MobiSan approach: informal settlements of Cape Town, South Africa

2010 ◽  
Vol 61 (12) ◽  
pp. 3078-3090 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Naranjo ◽  
D. Castellano ◽  
H. Kraaijvanger ◽  
B. Meulman ◽  
A. Mels ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
User Satisfaction ◽  
Informal Settlement ◽  
Operating Cost ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Shallow Groundwater ◽  
Informal Settlements ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Sanitation Services ◽  
Basic Sanitation ◽  
Reducing Costs

Pook se Bos informal settlement and the Cape Town Water & Sanitation Services Department are partnering on an urban sanitation project with a Dutch Consortium consisting of Lettinga Associates Foundation (LeAF), Landustrie Sneek and Vitens-Evides International. The aim of the project is to improve the basic sanitation services provided in informal settlements through the implementation of the MobiSan approach. The approach consists of a communal Urine-Diversion and Dehydration Toilet (UDDT) built in a former sea shipping container. The system is independent of water, electricity or sewerage connection and it is maintained by full-time community caretakers who also act as hygiene promoters. The project seeks to link sanitation services with hygiene promotion in informal settlements while enhancing user satisfaction and reducing costs in providing basic sanitation services. This paper describes the preliminary experiences and lessons learnt during the implementation and evaluation of the MobiSan prototype and discusses its potential for replication. The MobiSan has proved to be an appropriate option by means of dealing successfully with shallow groundwater table, land availability and high settlement densities. In addition it has been demonstrated to be cost-competitive in terms of operating cost compared to chemical toilets.

Sanitation services for the informal settlements of Cape Town, South Africa

Desalination ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 248 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 330-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Mels ◽  
D. Castellano ◽  
O. Braadbaart ◽  
S. Veenstra ◽  
I. Dijkstra ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Informal Settlements ◽  
Sanitation Services

scholarly journals Sanitation Upgrading as Climate Action: Lessons for Local Government from a Community Informal Settlement Project in Cape Town

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8598
Author(s):  
Alma Elisabeth Peirson ◽  
Gina Ziervogel
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Informal Settlement ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Informal Settlements ◽  
Extreme Weather Events ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

In light of the increasing call for climate action, there is a growing body of literature studying the ways in which informal settlements in the Global South are adapting to the impacts of climate change. In these particularly vulnerable communities where the existing infrastructural vulnerabilities faced by residents are exacerbated by the hazards of climate change, multi-level approaches involving more inclusive forms of governance are needed for the implementation of climate action. Drawing from the case of a sanitation upgrading project in the informal settlement of Murray, located in Philippi, Cape Town, this paper adds to current understandings of multi-level rapid climate action in informal settlements by endeavouring to address two gaps in this body of literature. Firstly, this paper demonstrates a link between climate change and sanitation which has received little attention by showing that improving sanitation infrastructure makes communities more resilient to extreme weather events associated with climate change. Secondly, the paper addresses how and by whom rapid climate action can be implemented in complex socio-institutional contexts such as informal settlements where the impacts of climate change are felt particularly strongly. This paper identifies what enabled and constrained climate action in the Murray informal settlement in an attempt to provide lessons for local government from the case of the sanitation upgrading project. Bottom-up initiation of multi-level climate action is dependent on fragile partnerships which require the support and involvement of a skilled and dedicated local government. Nevertheless, co-operative and transparent engagements across levels hold the potential to contribute to transformative adaptation through the establishment of new partnerships and forms of governance which recognise community groups as legitimate stakeholders and acknowledge the importance of lived experiences and mentalities.

scholarly journals Fire risk reduction on the margins of an urbanizing world

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 747-760 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Rush ◽  
Greg Bankoff ◽  
Sarah-Jane Cooper-Knock ◽  
Lesley Gibson ◽  
Laura Hirst ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Informal Settlement ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Informal Settlements ◽  
Fire Risk ◽  
New Delhi ◽  
Political Issue ◽  
Power Sources ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Technical Data

PurposeGlobally, over 95% of fire related deaths and injuries occur in low- and middle-income countries. Within informal settlements, the risk of fire resulting in injury or death is particularly high. This paper examines fire risks in informal settlements in New Delhi and Cape Town, and tented informal settlements in Lebanon.Design/methodology/approachOur analysis draws on primary sources, secondary literature, statistical data and qualitative interviews.FindingsThe distribution of fire risk across urban societies is a fundamentally political issue. Residential fire risk can be tackled by accessible, affordable, safety-compliant housing. That said, important interim measures can be taken to mitigate fire risk. Some of the risks requiring attention are similar across our case studies, driven by high population densities; flammable housing materials; unreliable or inaccessible access to safe power sources; and – in the case of Cape Town and New Delhi particularly – the inability of fire services to reach sites of fire. However, these common risks are embedded in distinct social, economic and political contexts that must be placed at the center of any intervention. Interventions must also be aware that the risk of fire is not spread evenly within informal settlements, intersecting as it does with factors like gender, age, health and disability.Originality/valueInformal settlement fires have been under-studied to date. The studies that do exist tend to operate within disciplinary silos. This paper represents an important interdisciplinary approach to fire within informal settlements, which grounds technical data, modeling and experiments in political, social and economic realities.

scholarly journals Low-income women’s right to sanitation services in city public spaces: a study of waste picker women in Pune

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 249-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nupur Joshi
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Informal Settlement ◽  
Informal Settlements ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Policy Discourse ◽  
Psychological Well Being ◽  
Sanitation Services ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City

While considerable existing literature has focused on the lack of sanitation services in informal settlements, this paper argues for the need for well-maintained sanitation services in city public spaces. Specifically, the paper describes the impact of a lack of sanitation facilities in public spaces and its linkages to waste picker women’s sense of safety and security. Drawing on the experiences of waste picker women residing in an informal settlement in Pune, it focuses on women’s everyday improvisations and negotiations to cope with the unavailability or inaccessibility of sanitation facilities while they traverse the city, picking and segregating waste, and the impact on their income, health and psychological well-being. The findings show that the policy discourse on sanitation needs to be expanded beyond a focus on informal settlements to include a public sanitation component.

scholarly journals Determination of Critical Separation Distance Between Dwellings in Informal Settlements Fire

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu Wang ◽  
Lesley Gibson ◽  
Mohamed Beshir ◽  
David Rush
Keyword(s):  
Heat Flux ◽  
Informal Settlement ◽  
Informal Settlements ◽  
Fire Risk ◽  
Fire Spread ◽  
Separation Distance ◽  
Flame Length ◽  
Critical Distance ◽  
Fire Disaster ◽  
Critical Separation

AbstractApproximately one billion people across the globe are living in informal settlements with a large potential fire risk. Due to the high dwelling density, a single informal settlement dwelling fire may result in a very serious fire disaster leaving thousands of people homeless. In this work, a simple physics-based theoretical model was employed to assess the critical fire separation distance between dwellings. The heat flux and ejected flame length were obtained from a full-scale dwelling tests with ISO 9705 dimension (3.6 m × 2.4 m × 2.4 m) to estimate the radiation decay coefficient of the radiation heat flux away from the open door. The ignition potential of combustible materials in adjacent dwellings are analyzed based on the critical heat flux from cone calorimeter tests. To verify the critical distance in real informal settlement fire, a parallel method using aerial photography within geographic information systems (GIS), was employed to determine the critical separation distances in four real informal settlement fires of 2014–2015 in Masiphumelele, Cape Town, South Africa. The fire-spread distances were obtained as well through the real fires. The probabilistic analysis was conducted by Weibull distribution and logistic regression, and the corresponding separation distances were given with different fire spread probabilities. From the experiments with the assumption of no interventions and open doors and windows, it was established that the heat flux would decay from around 36 kW/m2 within a distance of 1.0 m to a value smaller than 5 kW/m2 at a distance of 4.0 m. Both experiments and GIS results agree well and suggest the ignition probabilities at distances of 1.0 m, 2.0 m and 3.0 m are 97%, 52% and 5% respectively. While wind is not explicitly considered in the work, it is implicit within the GIS analyses of fire spread risk, therefore, it is reasonable to say that there is a relatively low fire spread risk at distances greater than 3 m. The distance of 1.0 m in GIS is verified to well and conservatively predict the fire spread risk in the informal settlements.

scholarly journals Fit-For-Purpose, Private-Sector Led Land Regularization and Financing of Informal Settlements in Brazil

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 797
Author(s):  
Malcolm Childress ◽  
Selina Carter ◽  
Edgard Barki
Keyword(s):  
Private Sector ◽  
Business Model ◽  
Social Enterprise ◽  
Informal Settlement ◽  
Property Values ◽  
Informal Settlements ◽  
Private Land ◽  
Operational Approach ◽  
Municipal Governments ◽  
Fit For Purpose

This paper aims to analyze the financial and operational approach to land regularization and financing used in Brazil by an innovative private social enterprise in order to demonstrate that the approach widens the concept fit-for-purpose land regularization to include fit-for-purpose land financing, with relevance for wider efforts in informal settlement regularization and upgrading. In this approach, the enterprise acts as a coordinator and broker to organize the residents of informal settlements to regularize their settlements by negotiating buyouts of the underlying private owners at discounted values, handling titling and registration of the occupants, and coordinating with municipal governments to provide infrastructure. The analysis of parcel-level repayment and price data provides evidence of the sustainability of the business model and increase of property values of the regularized parcels. The results presented from the enterprise’s own repayment data demonstrate that under (non-pandemic) historical conditions residents are largely able to pay an affordable monthly payment over 7–10 years to the enterprise for the service to purchase the plots and maintain the enterprise. In operation since 2001, the enterprise has regularized over 20,000 parcels in more than 30 settlements, primarily in the cities of Sao Paolo and Curitiba in Brazil. The approach suggests that it could be widely replicable and add to the set of options for regularizing informal settlements, especially when purchase of private land is required.

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