Community-led infrastructure development in informal areas in urban Egypt: A case study

Bremer, Jennifer; Bhuiyan, Shahjahan

doi:10.1016/j.habitatint.2014.07.004

Cited by 27 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…To ensure that government officials did not interfere with the process, the project leaders bribed security and municipal authorities (Interview, Haggana-based CBO staff, 2014). One such initiative, documented by Bremer and Bhuiyan (2014) [46] and Wahby (2013) [47], shows that the CBO members also bribed a parliamentary member who wanted to claim that the project was his own, as well as the local strongmen who had taken control of the standpipes and did not want to lose their opportunity for profit (Bremer and Bhuiyan, 2014) [46]. "Water entered my home in 2009, before that we used to purchase jerry cans.…”

Section: Self-help Infrastructurementioning

confidence: 99%

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The Flexible Governance of Water in Cairo’s Informal Areas

Khalil

2019

Water

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This article explores the relationship between informality and water infrastructure in informal areas in Egypt. I apply three concepts drawn from the wider literatures on state power and governance: Topological power, flexible governing, and the "statization" of urban space. I find that infrastructure has functioned as one of the main instruments through which the state is produced or "effected" in the daily lives of residents. Due to this, examining the governance of water infrastructure in informal areas exposes the Egyptian state's "flexibility" and the uneven nature of its power. I argue that this flexibility is a result of the ad hoc nature of power in governance and the uneven quality of the state's authority and reach. This flexibility creates a waterscape constituted by overlapping infrastructures, practices, and actors, making traditional binaries such as public-private and formal-informal meaningless. However, I find that in Egypt's post-Arab-Spring era, the state has been seeking ways to effect its presence more strongly within informal areas, and one of the ways in which it has been doing so is by incorporating "informal" users into the "formal" public water supply and allowing/forcing them to pay for water. I argue that this accommodation of informality is a way to increase the statization of informal areas, while also charging them for water usage. In this way, I find that the state's flexibility allows it to benefit from informality without having to actually "formalise" the neighbourhoods themselves or address the underlying causes of why they are labelled as informal.

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Section: Self-help Infrastructurementioning

confidence: 99%

“…strongmen who had taken control of the standpipes and did not want to lose their opportunity for profit (Bremer and Bhuiyan, 2014) [46]. "Water entered my home in 2009, before that we used to purchase jerry cans.…”

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confidence: 99%

The Flexible Governance of Water in Cairo’s Informal Areas

Khalil

2019

Water

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“…This can discourage those with different skill-sets, experiences, and knowledge from taking part or limit their contribution and commitment. Participation should be open to all (Bremer and Bhuiyan, 2014;Madzingamiri et al, 2015;Medema et al, 2015). Every effort should be made to accommodate as many stakeholders as possible, or at least give them the opportunity to participate, to avoid damaging the legitimacy of the process.…”

Section: Who Should Be Involved?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rather than the lack of funding spelling the end of a collaborative-innovation several papers insisted that this can stimulate stakeholders to work together. If the problem is big and urgent enough funding should not be a stumbling block as a strong impetus to solve it will take over (van Burren et al, 2015;Bremer and Bhuiyan, 2014). Over recent decades, universities have forged closer relationships with industry partners in response to changing funding patterns and to demonstrate research impact (Butcher and Jeffrey, 2005).…”

Section: Jj Porter K Birdi E N V Ir O N M E N T a L S C Ie N C E mentioning

confidence: 99%

22 reasons why collaborations fail: Lessons from water innovation research

Porter

Birdi

2018

Environmental Science & Policy

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ReuseThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence. This licence allows you to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon the work, even commercially, as long as you credit the authors for the original work. More information and the full terms of the licence here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing eprints@whiterose.ac.uk including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. Bold and inventive solutions are urgently needed to safeguard the future use of water. In response, collaborativeinnovation is increasingly championed. If stakeholders including water utilities, supply-chain companies, research institutions and local communities work together, share their experiences and pool ideas, meaningful change could happen, it's argued. But effective collaboration is far from easy. For every incentive that drives collaboration forward, another barrier blocks its path. Whilst the literature offers many possible factors that influence the success (or failure) of collaborative-innovations, it remains unclear which factors are most important, where the highest agreement and disagreement exists, and if accommodating one factor creates problems for another. This is important because its not always practical, nor necessary, to apply everything from the academic literature. In this paper, we report findings from an international systematic literature review that brings together a range of studies that cross the water collaboration and water innovation divide. We identify 22 broad themes that are spread (unevenly) across the entire collaborative-innovation process; highlight how the level of attention given to each theme varies greatly; and where disagreement exists. Our research provides practical insights on how to create more effective collaborative-innovations in water and where future research should be directed.

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“…On the other hand, members of newly urbanising peri-urban areas try to improve their access to water by organising themselves, pooling their resources together and collaborating with the formal service providers. This self-help approach to improving residents' access to basic urban services is becoming popular in the African setting due to the slow pace of service delivery by the formal governance structures (Andreasen & Møller-Jensen, 2016;Bremer & Bhuiyan, 2014;Daniel, 2014). An illustration of this initiative in a neighbourhood in Tamale is summarised below.…”

Section: Access To Water and Electricitymentioning

confidence: 99%