Motion but no speed: Colonial to post-colonial status of water and sanitation service provision in Mombasa city

Abstract

Amidst climate change, coastal cities in Africa will face serious water and sanitation problems owing to the predicted flooding of coastal land and saltwater intrusion into freshwater aquifers. For cities such as Mombasa, the problems will be further compounded by high prevalence of informal economies and settlements superimposed on western style governance systems. Yet, right from colonisation to the present day, the water supply and sewage systems have been characterised by a series of inequalities in access. This review paper, discusses the water and sanitation backlogs in the coastal city of Mombasa, tracing them from the colonial times to the post-colonial period. Against this background, we overview the current situation of the water and sanitation sector in the city and discuss possible sustainable interventions. We argue that any analysis of the water and sanitation challenges must consider the motive of the development of the infrastructure during the colonial times. We conclude that sustainable water and sanitation services are likely to remain a mirage unless the issues of funding, cost recovery, data availability and overall governance are fully addressed. A good understanding of both historical inadequacies and current investments would help in designing sustainable interventions going forward.

A Hybrid Model for Achieving Universal Safe Drinking Water in the Medium-Sized City of Bangangté (Cameroon)

“…Accordingly, the magnitude of the challenges differs from case to case. In all African countries, occasional sectoral reforms and increased budgetary allocations to the water sector have not really improved the living standards of the poor residents with respect to access to clean drinking water and improved sanitation [3,[67][68][69][70]. The mistake has been to try to create city-wide, large-scale piped water systems.…”

The Element of Water in the Built Environment on the Precolonial Kenya Coast

“…In Mombasa, access to freshwater presents a serious problem today, and the supply of groundwater is supplemented by freshwater from rain, especially in the rainy seasons between April and July and October to December, when rainfall oscillates between 100-135 mm monthly on average [20]. Ethnographically, there is evidence that in this relatively arid environment it has been a common practice since the colonial era to depend on a number of wells situated across the towns [21], and on rainfall collected in open containers, which both provide freshwater. There is also historical evidence of this, for example in colonial Bagamoyo, Tanzania [22].…”

“…Compared with later colonial towns such as Mombasa, Kenya or Bagamoyo, Tanzania, the distribution of freshwater sources was fairly even across towns in the precolonial period. With later development, present-day towns become increasingly densely populated, exceeding the capacity of the coastal environment [21]. Although past practices of water management in a given area are out of proportion to present-day needs, they may provide hints about possible strategies that functioned in the past, and potentially inform better solutions for current urban development.…”

Developing an Understanding of Traditional Maasai Water Practices and Technologies

“…For example, to date, six decades after independence, it is still rare for a Tanzanian, Mozambican, or Malawian construction company to win a contract of a multimilliondollar road construction project. The curriculum at the engineering school the Tanzanian, Mozambican, or Malawian engineer has studied in is not directly tailored to their context, thus hindering effective practice (Blom et al, 2015;Kaplinsky & Kraemer-Mbula, 2022;Kithiia & Majambo, 2020;Sherratt & Aboagye-Nimo, 2022). In most cases, in sub-Saharan Africa, what people grow up learning in their local community is usually detached from what they come to learn later in school and university settings (Seehawer & Breidlid, 2021).…”