WASHin' Africa

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Shitty Businesses in Nairobi, Kenya

January 08, 2023

The topic of water and sanitation brings together not only in theory but also in practice people from both private and public sectors. Urban sanitation and its challenges are extremely complex. Poor and inadequate sanitation causes an annual economic loss between 1 percent and 2.5 percent of GDP for 18 African countries (World Bank, 2022 ). This shows governments that these costs must be addressed for the country to grow sustainably, hence, it proves how inextricably tied water and sanitation challenges are to political and socio-economic factors. Poo power & Sani-preneurs 'Flying toilets' are bags of human feces that fill the streets of Nairobi's slums. They are the products of a serious shortage of sanitation services and proper sewage systems. In recent years, these sanitation problems have gained attention in private sectors attracting entrepreneurial approaches to solutions and birthed 'sani-preneur' initiatives (EY, 2020) . Dealing with Kibera's flying

Gendered Sanitation

January 08, 2023

UN SDG 6 which focuses on ensuring access to water and sanitation for all has been mentioned a few times in my previous blogs. Target 6.2 specifically says 'by 2030, achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations. In many societies across the world, women have primary responsibilities in household management which include the management of household water supply and sanitation (UN, 2006) . Despite women being very knowledgeable and important in the actions revolving around water and sanitation management, they are often under-represented in decision-making roles ( Kameri-Mbote, 2006 ; ADB, 2006 ). In the case of Kenya, only an average of 37% of top-level staff were women across six national and county sanitation-related institutions (WSUP, 2020) . WaterAid Explains: What has water got to do with gender equality? Feminine realities of WASH

Politicising Water and Sanitation

January 07, 2023

In the last blog, I explored the challenges Physical Landscape brings to WASH. Today, I will explore an equally important determinant of successful WASH conditions: Human Landscape. Both the politics of water and sanitation are important and must be seen together because they are closely linked. The supply of water directly affects the level of sanitation, and the level of sanitation determines the amount of uncontaminated water (WHO, 2022) . The inequalities of WASH Unsurprisingly, not only are there uneven distributions of water in terms of quantity but there are also inequalities in the quality of water because of marginalization in the management of water. A case study done on the inequalities in microbial contamination of drinking water supplies in urban areas in Lilongwe, Malawi reveals that there is a stark difference in water quality between higher-income (planned areas) and low-income neighborhoods (unplanned areas) (Boakye-Ansh et al. 2016) . A statistically significant resu

What challenges does geography bring to WASH?

January 06, 2023

There are 5 main challenges of WASH, and today we will delve into one very important one: Physical Landscape. As mentioned in my previous blog, a safe WASH condition is essential for human health and plays a key role in building up livelihoods including adequate sanitation and creating sustainable economies and healthy environments. Physical Landscape Fig 1. Annual movement of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) Africa is the world's second-driest continent besides Australia (UN, 2014) . The distribution of freshwater in Africa is highly uneven across regions, mostly because of the variability of rainfall in different climatic zones. Precipitation patterns are directly linked to the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) . The ITCZ's position changes throughout the year and in Africa, it migrates latitudinally on a seasonal basis creating the annual alteration of wet and dry seasons in Africa. Watch this video: Explaining the ITCZ in Africa Physical water scarcity in Afri

Introducing Water & Sanitation in Africa

November 10, 2022

Hello everyone. Welcome to my blog on water and sanitation in Africa! Why water and sanitation? For most of us living in developed countries such as the UK, access to water is so convenient that we never really have to think about how to acquire it. Water supply issues and challenges seem distant. However, not everyone has the luxury of a constant and undisrupted water supply. In Mitlin et al. (2019) , findings show that although UNICEF and the World Health Organization reported back in 2015 that more than 90% of the world's population used improved drinking water sources, more recent research suggests a much lower percentage, especially in the Global South. The research paper shows that access amongst cities in Sub-Saharan Africa were among the lowest with 22% of households having access to piped water. Fig 1. % of the world's population with access to safely managed drinking water in comparison to different regions of Africa What is 'water and sanitation'? We will beg

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