ICTs Help Citizens Voice Concerns over Water – Or Do They?

Welle, Katharina; Williams, Jennifer S.; Pearce, Joseph

doi:10.19088/1968-2016.105

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…The data were subject to basic automated analysis and sent to centralised servers in near real time, allowing rapid responses to changing water source and service conditions over time. Recent work shows that where service providers (whether public, private or NGO) design streamlined fault reporting systems, such as those facilitated by smart sensors or mobile survey tools, accountability and responsiveness increase 55 . Furthermore, innovative information and communication technologies appear to have the greatest impact when coupled with a responsive operation and maintenance model 55 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent work shows that where service providers (whether public, private or NGO) design streamlined fault reporting systems, such as those facilitated by smart sensors or mobile survey tools, accountability and responsiveness increase 55 . Furthermore, innovative information and communication technologies appear to have the greatest impact when coupled with a responsive operation and maintenance model 55 . A service delivery model that accounts for the social, technical and programmatic aspects of monitoring, that is adaptive, and which clearly establishes how data and information should flow and be used, is most likely to be successful 56 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Comparative performance of rural water supplies during drought

et al. 2020

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As rural African communities experience more frequent and extreme droughts, it is increasingly important that water supplies are climate resilient. Using a unique temporal dataset we explore rural water supply (n = 5196) performance during the 2015-16 drought in Ethiopia. Mean functionality ranged from 60% for motorised boreholes to 75% for handpumped boreholes. Real-time monitoring and responsive operation and maintenance led to rapid increases in functionality of hand-pumped and, to a lesser extent, motorised boreholes. Increased demand was placed on motorised boreholes in lowland areas as springs, hand-dugwells and open sources failed. Most users travelled >1 h to access motorised boreholes but <30 min, increasing to 30-60 mins, for hand-pumped boreholes. Boreholes accessing deep (>30 m) groundwater performed best during the drought. Prioritising access to groundwater via multiple improved sources and a portfolio of technologies, such as hand-pumped and motorised boreholes, supported by responsive and proactive operation and maintenance, increases rural water supply resilience.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparative performance of rural water supplies during drought

et al. 2020

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“…They participate in the design and planning of rural water projects including the choice of affordable and suitable technology [7]. Citizens attract resources for the investment of water projects.…”

Section: Key Stakeholders Of Rural Water Supply and Main Actors In Semamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In their literature, Ndaw [24] and Welle [7] presented a number of ICT tools across various countries in the WASH and water sectors, respectively, in which experiences in the use of ICT solutions in the WASH sector are presented. We map the tools (Table 7) onto the elements of key services characterization matrix.…”

Section: Sema App In a Changed Rural Water Supply Information Infrastmentioning

confidence: 99%

Monitoring Rural Water Points in Tanzania with Mobile Phones: The Evolution of the SEMA App

Lemmens

Lungo

Georgiadou

et al. 2017

IJGI

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Development professionals have deployed several mobile phone-based ICT (Information and Communications Technology) platforms in the global South for improving water, health, and education services. In this paper, we focus on a mobile phone-based ICT platform for water services, called Sensors, Empowerment and Accountability in Tanzania (SEMA), developed by our team in the context of an action research project in Tanzania. Water users in villages and district water engineers in local governments may use it to monitor the functionality status of rural water points in the country. We describe the current architecture of the platform's front-end (the SEMA app) and back-end and elaborate on its deployment in four districts in Tanzania. To conceptualize the evolution of the SEMA app, we use three concepts: transaction-intensiveness, discretion and crowdsourcing. The SEMA app effectively digitized only transaction-intensive tasks in the information flow between water users in villages and district water engineers. Further, it resolved two tensions over time: the tension over what to report (by decreasing the discretion of reporters) and over who should report (by constraining the reporting "crowd").

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“… 15. Welle, K, J Williams and J Pearce (2016), “ICTs Help Citizens Voice Concerns over Water – Or Do They?”, IDS Bulletin , Vol 47, No 1, pages 41–51; also Fung, A (2011), “Why technology hasn’t revolutionized politics”, 3 March, Stanford Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, available at http://cddrl.fsi.stanford.edu/news/fung_on_why_technology_hasnt_revolutionized_politics_20110303. …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

If citizens protest, do water providers listen? Water woes in a Tanzanian town

Nganyanyuka¹,

Martínez²,

Lungo³

et al. 2018

Environment and Urbanization

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Tanzania's urban citizens are still insufficiently supplied with safe drinking water by their water utilities. However, instead of collectively clamouring for improvements, citizens channel their protests individually to water authorities. This paper aims to shed light on citizens' protest strategies and the responses they elicit from the water authorities. It draws on extensive fieldwork carried out in a Tanzanian town, which revealed four protest strategies employed by citizens: "stay and speak up", "speak up and leave", "resignation" and "leave and remain silent." The study reveals a substantial mismatch between citizens' protest strategies and the formal/informal complaint mechanisms of the water authority. This has negative implications for underprivileged citizens and for broadly defined "access to water".

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ICTs Help Citizens Voice Concerns over Water – Or Do They?

Cited by 9 publications

References 1 publication

Comparative performance of rural water supplies during drought

Comparative performance of rural water supplies during drought

Monitoring Rural Water Points in Tanzania with Mobile Phones: The Evolution of the SEMA App

If citizens protest, do water providers listen? Water woes in a Tanzanian town

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