Browsing by Author "Dube, Mmeli"

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    Comparative sanitation data from high-frequency phone surveys across 3 countries
    (Elsevier, 2024-06-26) Lewis, Amy R.; Bell, Andrew R.; Casas, Ana; Kupiec-Teahan, Beata; Mendoza Sanchez, José; Willcock, Simon; Anciano, Fiona; Barrington, Dani J.; Dube, Mmeli; Hutchings, Paul; Karani, Caroline; Llaxacondor, Arturo; López, Hellen; Mdee, Anna L.; Ofori, Alesia D.; Riungu, Joy N.; Russel, Kory C.; Parker, Alison H.
    With less than half of the worldʼs urban population having safely managed sanitation due to the high cost and difficulty of building sewers and treatment plants, many rely on off-grid options like pit latrines and septic tanks, which are hard to empty and often lead to illegal waste dumping; this research focuses on container-based sanitation (CBS) as an emerging off-grid solution. Off-grid sanitation refers to waste management systems that operate independently of centralized infrastructure and CBS is a service providing toilets that collect human waste in sealable containers, which are regularly emptied and safely disposed of. These data relate to a project investigating CBS in Kenya, Peru, and South Africa, focusing on how different user groups access and utilize sanitation – contrasting CBS with other types. Participants, acting as citizen scientists, collected confidential data through a dedicated smartphone app designed by the authors and external contractors. This project aimed to explore the effective scaling, management, and regulation of off-grid sanitation systems, relevant to academics in urban planning, water and sanitation services, institutional capability, policy and governance, and those addressing inequality and poverty reduction. The 12-month data collection period offered participants small incentives for weekly engagement, in a micro payment for micro tasks approach. Participants were randomly selected, attended a training workshop, and (where needed) were given a smartphone which they could keep at the end of the project. We conducted weekly smartphone surveys in over 300 households across informal settlements. These surveys aimed to understand human-environment interactions by capturing daily life, wellbeing, income, infrastructural service use, and socioeconomic variables at a weekly resolution, contributing to more informed analyses and decision-making. The smartphone-based approach offers efficient, cost-effective, and flexible data collection, enabling extensive geographical coverage, broad subject areas, and frequent engagement. The Open Data Kit (ODK) tools were used to support data collection in the resource-constrained environment with limited or intermittent connectivity.
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    On a journey to citywide inclusive sanitation (CWIS)? A political economy analysis of container-based sanitation (CBS) in the fragmented (in)formal city
    (Taylor and Francis, 2025) Mdee, Anna; Ofori, Alesia Dedaa; Barrington, Dani; Anciano, Fiona; Dube, Mmeli; Hutchings, Paul; Kramer, Sasha; López-Valladares, Hellen; Parker, Alison; Riungu, Joy Nyawira; Ward, Christopher
    Rapidly growing cities face the chronic challenge of access to safe, dignified and accessible sanitation, in contexts of inequality and informality. Technological and operational innovations, such as container-based sanitation (CBS), are promoted as relatively low-cost market-based circular economy off-grid solutions to deliver citywide inclusive sanitation (CWIS). However, in the absence of evidence that CBS is delivering on these promises, this paper asks: under what conditions can CBS services contribute to achieving CWIS goals? It applies a combined political economy and socio-technical regime analysis to examine multi-level governance in the sanitation sector and CBS service regimes in Cape Town, Lima, Nairobi and Cap-Haitien. Only Cape Town, a municipality-controlled system, demonstrates the necessary public authority that enables CBS to operate at scale. Yet, it is regarded by many residents in informal settlements as poor sanitation for poor people. This suggests that scaling CBS requires sustained public investment and strong coordinating authority.