Analysing transition pathways in developing cities: The case of Nairobi's splintered sanitation regime

Welie, Mara J. van; Cherunya, Pauline Chepchirchir; Truffer, Bernhard; Murphy, James T.

doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2018.07.059

Cited by 77 publications

(46 citation statements)

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“…Here, the agenda paper rightly points to a need to further explore and explain the spatial variation in transition's social, economic and ecological impacts. We also fully agree that the euro-centric, linear spatial diffusion models that underlie many MLP-based studies should be replaced with more variegated models of transition pathways that explicitly include and account for innovation processes in non-Western countries and developing/emerging economies (Hansen et al, 2018;Van Welie et al, 2018).…”

Section: Spacesupporting

confidence: 57%

Geographies of transition—From topical concerns to theoretical engagement: A comment on the transitions research agenda

Binz

Coenen

Murphy

et al. 2020

Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions

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131

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This viewpoint takes stock with the 'geography of sustainability transitions' (GOST) as it is presented in the transitions research agenda. GOST has been a relatively recent addition to transition theorizing, addressing the need for greater sensitivity and attention to the scales, spatialities, and context-specific factors that shape transitions. In our view, the agenda represents a rather narrow perspective on GOST, which is geared to two empirical themes, namely urban transitions and transitions in developing countries. While these are relevant and topical issues, the section lacks sufficient acknowledgement of the increasing engagement of geographers with transitions studies and the theoretical approaches they have brought to bear on the field. This short commentary thus aims at complementing the agenda paper by outlining a theoretical research agenda that is emerging in this field, framed around the conceptualization of scales, places and spaces in which transitions unfold.

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Section: Spacesupporting

confidence: 57%

Geographies of transition—From topical concerns to theoretical engagement: A comment on the transitions research agenda

Binz

Coenen

Murphy

et al. 2020

Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions

Self Cite

131

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“…The annual costs calculated for sewage and FS in this study are within the same orders of magnitude as other sanitation cost studies. For example, von Munch and Mayaumbelo (2007) found that annual costs for FS management from VIP latrine and urine-diverting dry toilet systems, including processing, ranged from 36 to 45 USD per capita. Similarly, Mara (1996) found that annual costs for low-cost sewerage systems (exclusive treatment) were in the range of 35-390 USD per person.…”

Section: Annualized Costsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, most costing studies do not use primary data for their calculations, but rely on secondary data sources (e.g. Tilmans et al 2015), sometimes from other cities (Daudey 2018), and few studies break down costs between stakeholders. A World Bank study in three African countries compared household costs to donor inputs and total costs, but did not include costs for other stakeholders, such as the utility (World Bank 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infrastructure investments and operating costs for fecal sludge and sewage treatment systems in Kampala, Uganda

McConville

Kvarnström

Maiteki

et al. 2019

Urban Water Journal

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Like many low-income countries, Uganda is struggling to provide sanitation to its inhabitants. Meeting the Sustainable Development Goal related to sanitation (SDG6) will require major investments in sanitation. This study uses the concept of service regimes to analyze existing sanitation infrastructure and services and their respective costs. The service regimes investigated are the sewage regime and the fecal sludge (FS) regime. The results show that approximately 56% of the fecal flow in Kampala is estimated as 'safely managed'. The results also show that the annual per capita costs for the sewage regime (USD 186) are more than 13-fold those for the FS regime (USD 14). Additionally, there are large differences in subsidies between the regimes. When allocating public funds, decision-makers are advised to consider (i) number of customers within regimes, (ii) total capital and operating costs of services, (iii) cost allocation between stakeholders, and (iv) infrastructure performance.

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“…Instead, technology choices revolve around the same regime rationality in highly divergent regions. Examples comprise the global mushrooming of Bus Rapid Transfer Systems (Sengers and Raven, 2015), the implementation of the same 'modern city' architecture principles in cities as diverse as Dubai, Shanghai, Mumbai and St. Petersburg (Brook, 2013) or the case we discuss in more detail later -the diffusion of standard wastewater infrastructure into desert cities in China, Africa or the Arab peninsula (Monstadt and Schramm, 2017;van Welie et al, forthcoming).…”

Section: Towards a Global Regime Conceptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global socio-technical regimes

Fuenfschilling¹,

Binz

2018

Research Policy

183

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This paper addresses the question why socio-technical transitions follow similar trajectories in various parts of the world, even though the relevant material preconditions and institutional contexts vary greatly between different regions and countries. It takes a critical stance on the implicit methodological nationalism in transition studies' socio-technical regime concept and proposes an alternative 'global' regime perspective that embraces the increasingly multi-scalar actor networks and institutional rationalities, which influence transition dynamics beyond national or regional borders. By drawing on globalization theories from sociology and human geography, we show that socio-technical systems often develop institutional rationalities that are diffused via international networks and thus become influential in various places around the world. In so doing, we shed light on the multi-scalar interrelatedness of institutional structures and actors in socio-technical systems and elaborate on the implications for the conceptualization of transition dynamics. The paper illustrates this with the case study of an unsuccessful transition in the Chinese wastewater sector. Recent studies indicate that key decisions on wastewater infrastructure expansion were not only influenced by pathdependencies stemming from China's national context, but equally (or even more critically) by the dominant rationality of the water sector's global socio-technical regime. We conclude by discussing the contours of a new research agenda around the notion of global socio-technical regimes.

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Analysing transition pathways in developing cities: The case of Nairobi's splintered sanitation regime

Abstract: Analysing transition pathways in developing cities: The case of Nairobi's splintered sanitation regime.

Cited by 77 publications

References 50 publications

Geographies of transition—From topical concerns to theoretical engagement: A comment on the transitions research agenda

Geographies of transition—From topical concerns to theoretical engagement: A comment on the transitions research agenda

Infrastructure investments and operating costs for fecal sludge and sewage treatment systems in Kampala, Uganda

Global socio-technical regimes

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