The Sanitation Station

As per the second part of this series in which I aim to break down the colonial overhang that persists within the water and sanitation sector, this post will reflect upon the ways in which these colonial legacies are entangled within the infrastructure, delivery and provision of water and sanitation within Mombasa, a coastal city in Kenya.  Water and sanitation issues can be traced back to the colonial era, where cities are seen to have been fragmented since their colonial origins . Urban waterscapes often  resemble archipelagos rather than continuous networks , existing as a consequence of the skewed distribution of water and sanitation services, where residents have no choice but to look  " beyond the network ". This approach subsequently encourages alternative, heterogenous forms of water supply to appear, particularly within low-income settlements. A Case-Study of Mombasa Mombasa is Kenya's second largest city after Nairobi, located on the edge of the Indian...

In my first post I made a conscious decision to take a de-colonial approach within my writing in order to fully dissect the ways in which water and sanitation are framed. In this post I aim to dismantle the WASH sector, which, like much of development practices, is  inherently political, and thus I hope that by unpacking the deep rooted manifestations of colonisation within Africa, I will be able  decolonise our minds and somewhat WASH away these lingering colonial legacies... Knowledge colonialism Despite the fact that the decolonisation of Africa took place from the mid 1950s to 1975, the reality is that "knowledge colonialism" still very much exists, where knowledge creation and dissemination is shaped by the Global North. In addition to this, a  theoretical vacuum  has long existed within much of the developing world, particularly Africa, where, just like the colonial economy, the extraction of knowledge, has long been  organised in such a way that it res...

Groundwater resources are the most important source of drinking water in Africa. In this weeks post, I will discuss Sub-Saharan Africa's poor waste management practices  and thus the contamination of groundwater in this region. Lets take a look... A Study of Kampala, Uganda  In 2007, a study was completed within the peri-urban site of Bwaise III, located in the northern part of Kampala city, with one of the highest population growth rates in the district . This research is effective in the ways that it synthesises the impacts of  land-use as well as the natural effects of its hydrogeological characteristics on the shallow groundwater storage. Figure 1: Map of the Kampala District showing the location of the Bwaise III Parish Bwaise III is a  typical poor, urban settlement that is largely unplanned , with many informal practices occurring to facilitate prosperity amongst a large and rapidly growing population. In areas where households are packed together i...