This document summarizes a study on access to water and sanitation fault reporting systems in Cape Town, South Africa. The study found that access to information and communication technology is unequal between different demographic groups. As a result, using SMS systems to report faults does not help combat unequal access to services. It recommends enforcing disability laws, developing remote sensing systems, and integrating data collection with government grants to improve equality of access. The global relevance is that many developing areas face issues of unequal access to water as populations grow, but mobile technologies could help if accessibility barriers are addressed.
Sharing the Road, Sharing the Bike by Jennifer McGrathRail~Volution
Has bike share come up in planning as a solution to your first- and last-mile gaps? As a mode of transportation? Or just the latest thing? Hear what it takes to be bike-share ready and learn from two of the nation's more successful programs. Lessons learned? Nuances of multijurisdictional programs? Bike share as part of a larger transportation network? Ready or not? Find the answers here!
Moderator: Laura Cornejo, Director, Transit Corridors & Active Transportation, Metro, Los Angeles, California
Cara Ferrentio, Manager of Strategic Initiatives, Mayor's Office of Transportation and Utilities, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Matt Benjamin, Principal, Fehr and Peers, Los Angeles, California
Jennifer McGrath, Strategic Planner III, Utah Transit Authority, Salt Lake City, Utah
Pecha Kucha Slam
Your day isn't over until you Pecha Kucha! Fast-paced is an understatement. 20 slides x 20 seconds each per topic. It's a favorite, so get there early. Grab a drink and hold on - the ideas and fun will be flying!
Emcee: Art Pearce, Division Manager, Policy, Planning and Projects, Bureau of Transportation, City of Portland, Oregon
Cara Lee, Communications Manager, Richardson, Richter & Associates, Inc., Saint Paul, Minnesota
Christina Morrison, Senior Planner, BRT/Small Starts Project Office, Metro Transit, Saint Paul, Minnesota
Ashley Ver Burg, Senior Strategic Communications Specialist, HDR, Saint Paul, Minnesota
Kirk Hovenkotter, Program Analyst, TransitCenter, New York, New York
Kari Turner, Principal, PIVOT Architecture PC, Eugene, Oregon
Alex Dupey, AICP, Director of Planning Services, MIG, Inc., Portland, Oregon
Max Richter, Associate, Perkins + Will, Vancouver, British Columbia
Derek Benedict, Project Manager - Transit Rail, AECOM, Austin, Texas
Joseph Kopser, Chief Executive Officer, RideScout, Austin, Texas
Dan Reed, Planner, Nelson/Nygaard Consulting Associates, Washington, DC
Jacob Splan, Construction and Engineering Planner, Utah Transit Authority, Salt Lake City, Utah
Claudia Preciado, Transportation Planner, Remix, San Francisco, California
Heidi Guenin, MURP, MPH, Executive Director, Sustainable Transportation Council, Portland, Oregon
GB Arrington, Principal, GB place making, Portland, Oregon
Multi-Modal Transportation in North Texas: Increasing Connectivity Between Jo...Rail~Volution
Where are living wage jobs? Where is high-quality, affordable workforce housing? What are the most pressing health issues and where are they concentrated? How well does the region’s transportation system connect the income, housing and health needs of individuals and families? How can multi-modal transportation make the region healthier, stronger and more resilient?
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Moderator: Regina Montoya, Chair, Mayor’s Task Force on Poverty, Dallas, Texas
Jeffrey Tumlin, Principal, Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates, Inc., San Francisco, California
Craig Adelman, Director of Transit Oriented Development, Low Income Investment Fund, San Francisco, California
Melinda Pollack, AICP, Vice President, Enterprise Community Partners, Denver, Colorado
Dan Burden, Director of Inspiration and Innovation, Blue Zones, Minneapolis, Minnesota
John Fregonese, President, Fregonese Associates, Portland, Oregon
Karla Weaver, AICP, Program Manager, North Central Texas Council of Governments, Arlington, Texas
Elizabeth Sobel Blum, Senior Community Development Advisor, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Dallas, Texas
Michael Sorrell, Esq., President, Paul Quinn College, Dallas, Texas
Dr. Ruben Amarashingham, MD, MBA, President and Chief Executive Officer, Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation, Dallas, Texas
Walter Bialas, Vice President, Director of Research Dallas, JLL, Dallas, Texas
Larry Tubb, Senior Vice President, System Planning, Cook Children's , The Center for Children's Health, Fort Worth, Texas
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Moderator: Laura Cornejo, Director, Transit Corridors & Active Transportation, Metro, Los Angeles, California
Cara Ferrentio, Manager of Strategic Initiatives, Mayor's Office of Transportation and Utilities, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Matt Benjamin, Principal, Fehr and Peers, Los Angeles, California
Jennifer McGrath, Strategic Planner III, Utah Transit Authority, Salt Lake City, Utah
Pecha Kucha Slam
Your day isn't over until you Pecha Kucha! Fast-paced is an understatement. 20 slides x 20 seconds each per topic. It's a favorite, so get there early. Grab a drink and hold on - the ideas and fun will be flying!
Emcee: Art Pearce, Division Manager, Policy, Planning and Projects, Bureau of Transportation, City of Portland, Oregon
Cara Lee, Communications Manager, Richardson, Richter & Associates, Inc., Saint Paul, Minnesota
Christina Morrison, Senior Planner, BRT/Small Starts Project Office, Metro Transit, Saint Paul, Minnesota
Ashley Ver Burg, Senior Strategic Communications Specialist, HDR, Saint Paul, Minnesota
Kirk Hovenkotter, Program Analyst, TransitCenter, New York, New York
Kari Turner, Principal, PIVOT Architecture PC, Eugene, Oregon
Alex Dupey, AICP, Director of Planning Services, MIG, Inc., Portland, Oregon
Max Richter, Associate, Perkins + Will, Vancouver, British Columbia
Derek Benedict, Project Manager - Transit Rail, AECOM, Austin, Texas
Joseph Kopser, Chief Executive Officer, RideScout, Austin, Texas
Dan Reed, Planner, Nelson/Nygaard Consulting Associates, Washington, DC
Jacob Splan, Construction and Engineering Planner, Utah Transit Authority, Salt Lake City, Utah
Claudia Preciado, Transportation Planner, Remix, San Francisco, California
Heidi Guenin, MURP, MPH, Executive Director, Sustainable Transportation Council, Portland, Oregon
GB Arrington, Principal, GB place making, Portland, Oregon
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Where are living wage jobs? Where is high-quality, affordable workforce housing? What are the most pressing health issues and where are they concentrated? How well does the region’s transportation system connect the income, housing and health needs of individuals and families? How can multi-modal transportation make the region healthier, stronger and more resilient?
Join local and national experts on Regional Day for a lively discussion about these topics—including the potential of predictive analytics to help transportation systems become more efficient, safer and easier to use. At the end of Regional Day, meet with colleagues from your own communities to share your insights and plan next steps.
Moderator: Regina Montoya, Chair, Mayor’s Task Force on Poverty, Dallas, Texas
Jeffrey Tumlin, Principal, Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates, Inc., San Francisco, California
Craig Adelman, Director of Transit Oriented Development, Low Income Investment Fund, San Francisco, California
Melinda Pollack, AICP, Vice President, Enterprise Community Partners, Denver, Colorado
Dan Burden, Director of Inspiration and Innovation, Blue Zones, Minneapolis, Minnesota
John Fregonese, President, Fregonese Associates, Portland, Oregon
Karla Weaver, AICP, Program Manager, North Central Texas Council of Governments, Arlington, Texas
Elizabeth Sobel Blum, Senior Community Development Advisor, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Dallas, Texas
Michael Sorrell, Esq., President, Paul Quinn College, Dallas, Texas
Dr. Ruben Amarashingham, MD, MBA, President and Chief Executive Officer, Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation, Dallas, Texas
Walter Bialas, Vice President, Director of Research Dallas, JLL, Dallas, Texas
Larry Tubb, Senior Vice President, System Planning, Cook Children's , The Center for Children's Health, Fort Worth, Texas
Are you interested in a new ecommerce solution that might be beneficial for your business? See how BROWUSE works and see what functionality you will obtain.
La sicurezza informatica negli uffici, in particolare negli studi legali, dalla sicurezza fisica alla sicurezza dei sistemi.
Un'introduzione ai concetti della sicurezza informatica nell'utilizzo dei sistemi informativi di tutti i giorni.
Talk tenuto da Alessandro Tanasi (http://www.tanasi.it)
Victor Lawrence talk at video conference lecture April 19th 2013Ed Dodds
TECHNOLOGY FOR THE OTHER 3-4 BILLION INHABITANTS
--- CHALLENGES IN SERVING THESE HAVE-NOT’S
---Possibilities of saving lives
Professor Victor Lawrence
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Are you interested in a new ecommerce solution that might be beneficial for your business? See how BROWUSE works and see what functionality you will obtain.
La sicurezza informatica negli uffici, in particolare negli studi legali, dalla sicurezza fisica alla sicurezza dei sistemi.
Un'introduzione ai concetti della sicurezza informatica nell'utilizzo dei sistemi informativi di tutti i giorni.
Talk tenuto da Alessandro Tanasi (http://www.tanasi.it)
Victor Lawrence talk at video conference lecture April 19th 2013Ed Dodds
TECHNOLOGY FOR THE OTHER 3-4 BILLION INHABITANTS
--- CHALLENGES IN SERVING THESE HAVE-NOT’S
---Possibilities of saving lives
Professor Victor Lawrence
18th April, 2013
Framework and templates used by ministerial delegations to the 2016 Minister Meeting of the Sanitation and Water for All Partnership. PLease note that instructions are in the notes section.
Auckland! how smart city you are! peter chong - 20190804-uploadDrPeterChong
Auckland! How smart you are! Obviously, this presentation is to talk about Smart City. Even though there are many initiatives to promote smart city, is it really beneficial to us? In this talk, an overview of a smart city and various key technologies, mainly focusing on ICT (information and communication technology), will be introduced. The pros and cons of smart city will be discussed. Examples of Smart City technologies and programs in various cities, including Auckland, will be presented together with their comparisons. The 2nd part of the talk will introduce Prof. Chong’s current research on smart mobility which is one of the key technologies for future smart city.
In the 1990s, as the digital revolution began to gather pace, some social commentators speculated that it would lead to the death of the city. People’s geographical location would become less important, the argument went, as they came to interact mostly in cyberspace.
Accessibility in an Urban Area: Alcântara, Lisboa,_Presentation part 1Luis Neto
Gestaão Mobilidade Urbana, Mestrado de Planeamento de Operação de Transporte, Instituto Superior Téncico, Universidade de Lisboa. Nota do Trabalho 18 / 20. Nota Final 17 / 20.
Urban Mobility Management, MSc Transport Planning and Operation, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisbon University. Project course grade 18 / 20. Final grade 17 / 20
Modelling and managing urban water demand through smart meters: Benefits and ...
Amplifying Apartheid ywp15 conference kuala lumpur
1. The 2nd IWA Malaysia Young
Water Professionals Conference
Vivatel Kuala Lumpur
17 - 20 MARCH 2015
2. Amplifying Apartheid:
Access to the City of Cape Town’s
Water and Sanitation Fault Reporting
System
Wesley Hill & Ulrike Rivett
17 MARCH 2015
3. 3
STATE OF WATER & SANITATION
• Constitutional right to clean drinking water.
• Inequality of access between rich and poor areas.
• 176 service delivery protests in 2014.
• Service faults can be reported cheaply via SMS.
5. 5
DEMOGRAPHICS
Imizamo Yethu
Population Age 65+
- 0.6%
Population With
Disability
- 3.8% (Provincial total)
Eastern Cape
Population Age 65+
- 6.7%
Population With
Disability
- 5.8%
9. 9
METHODS
• 168 Interviews
• Randomized With Replacement Sampling
Technique
• Obtained Data on…
- Socio-Cultural traits
- Use of mobile technology
- Access to water & sanitation
• Results Analyzed using Chi-Square
10. 10
TRAVEL TIME TO ACCESSIBLE TOILET
- General Population 10 mins.
- Population with Disabilities 14 mins.
- Population with Poor Health 15 mins.
- Elderly Population 20 mins.
FREQUENCY OF TOILET CLEANING
- General Population 25 days
- Population with Disabilities 28 days
- Population with Poor Health 35 days
13. 13
CONCLUSIONS
- Access to information and communication technology is
highly unequal, therefore it is a poor fit for combating
unequal access to water and sanitation services.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Enforcement of disability laws would improve equality of
access.
- Develop remote sensing systems to reduce the
dependence on user generated fault reports.
- Integrate data collection with the distribution of
government grants.
14.
15. 15
STEPS TO REDUCE CONSTRUCTION
COSTS
• Prioritize universal accessibility from the start of a projects
• Focus on a few key features.
- Ramps
- Wide doorways
- Enlarged toilet cubicles
- Avoid hazards to visually impaired people
17. 17
GLOBAL RELEVANCE OF RESEARCH
- 66% of the global population will live in cities by 2050.
- 90% of the urban growth will take place in Africa and Asia.
- One-fifth of the world's population lives in water scarce
environments.
- Another 1.6 billion people face economic water shortage.
- 7 billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide.
- Three-quarters of global mobile phone subscriptions are in
developing countries.
Editor's Notes
Thank you all for coming to this presentation. Amplifying Apartheid is the culmination of nearly two years of research in Cape Town, and highlights some of the difficulties facing South African municipalities in undoing inequality caused by apartheid.
During today’s presentation, I am going to briefly explain South Africa’s influx control laws which were in place during apartheid, and how despite efforts to undo their effects, they still shape access to essential services in Cape Town’s informal settlements today.
I will then provide an overview of the City of Cape Town’s water and sanitation fault reporting system, and explain how it may actually encourage unequal access to these services.
I will proceed by describing our research methods and study site, before explaining our results.
I will wrap up the presentation with a few suggestions on how municipalities can reduce service delivery inequalities.
The state of Water and Sanitation services in Cape Town are characterized by extreme inequality. Despite a constitution that guarantees all South Africans access to basic essential services, predominately white, middle and upper class parts of the city enjoy access to world-class services, while poor black African townships make due with overburdened and poorly maintained infrastructure. The root cause of these disparities lies in apartheid policies that segregated the population based on race and prioritized the well being of white South Africans over all others.
The responsibility of undoing these structural inequalities largely falls to municipal governments. However, municipalities often struggle to met these demands, and in the past few years, destructive protests, spurred by resentment over service delivery failures, have become alarmingly common. According to a report by the University of the Free State, South Africa experienced 176 major service delivery protests in 2014, up from just 11-recorded protests in 2004.
The City of Cape Town is aware of the urgent need to address these issues, and has made efforts to ease the reporting of service delivery problems. One such effort was the establishments of an SMS based fault-reporting system that allows people to cheaply and quickly communicate issues to government. However, introducing information and communication technologies, such as SMS, into a system will not change its outcomes, but will simply act to amplify whatever intents and capacities are already present.
Therefore we undertook this study to examine whether marginalized populations can advocate for improvements using the city’s SMS based system. Because, if these populations are unable to communicate their needs, than it is likely that the system is contributing to the problem it attempts to solve.
I’ve pulled up this map to help explain the nature of segregation and environmental inequality in South Africa. In this map we are shown what were known as Native Reserves, Homelands, or Bantustans during the apartheid era. The Orange and Yellow areas in the South are Transkei and Ciskei, the green area in the far north is Venda, the teal area in the East is KwaZulu, so on and so forth. One of the hallmarks of the time was influx control laws, which consigned black Africans to these areas. Though the majority of the population at the time was required to live in native reserves, they only accounted for about 13% of the country’s landmass.
As it were, they lacked enough natural resources or industry to support their populations. Thus, it was common for people to temporarily migrate to so-called ‘white areas’ such as Cape Town and Johannesburg to find work. The apartheid authorities generally allowed this, so long as the migrant was able to secure legal employment. Even then, however, black South Africans were forced to live in under resourced townships located on the edge of cities to prevent them from mixing with the white population. Since black people were not allowed to live permanently in white areas, they were obliged to return to the native reserves when their employment ended.
This type of movement is known as circular migration, and it was assumed that after influx controls were abolished in the late 1980s that black families would settle together in places that offered employment opportunities.
However nearly 30 years have passed since the abolition of influx controls, yet circular migration still characterizes settlement in Cape Town today. One explanation as to why families are not settling together is that the built environment of the townships, which was inherited from the apartheid state, was not designed to support permanent settlement, rather they were designed only for those physically fit enough to participate in the workforce. Since families are made up of multiple generations, and often have physically challenged members, essential services need to be accessible to these populations, as well, in order for families to settle together.
SLIDE 4
Because residency in Cape Town was dependent on employment, we undertook this study to examine the barriers that the physically challenged, the elderly, and the infirm, face in accessing water and sanitation services, as well as their ability to communicate problems to municipal authorities. These populations are significant to consider because they are unlikely to be employed, and therefore would not have been welcome in Cape Town during apartheid.
It’s worth nothing that even today, the city’s predominantly black African townships have relatively few elderly people or people with disabilities compared to the Eastern Cape Province where most township residents originate. For instance, in our study site, Imizamo Yethu. Less than 1% of the population is age 65 or older, compared to nearly 7% in the Eastern Cape. While we don’t have township specific data on the prevalence of disability, The Western Cape Province, which is where Cape Town is located, also has a much smaller disabled population than the Eastern Cape. This is likely a result of Cape Town’s environment not supporting these populations’ needs.
SLIDE 6
To help illustrate the continued prominence of circular migration, I put together this chart that shows the percentage of residents aged 65 or older in every predominately black African township in Cape Town as well as every municipality in the Eastern Cape. I know it may be a bit hard to read, but if you count two lines in from the left, that is the 4% mark. Every bar that ends to the left of that line represents a township in Cape Town, while every bar to the right is an Eastern Cape municipality. This means that people aged 65 or older make up less than 4% of the population in every township in Cape Town, while every Eastern Cape municipality has over 4%, with about a quarter of them having between 8% - 12% of the population falling into this age bracket. As you can see the Eastern Cape has a much higher percentage of elderly, but Imizamo Yethu, has a considerably larger percentage of working age adults, indicating that people are living in Cape Town only in their prime years, thus perpetuating influx controls despite them being repealed for nearly 3 decades.
As I have already mentioned, Our field work took place in the township of Imizamo Yethu, which is located in the suburb of Hout Bay, about 20 km south of the Cape Town CBD. Though the township is located a considerable distance from the central city, it is still administered by the City of Cape Town municipality.
The population density of the settlement is extremely high, as it is tightly contained on three sides by upper and upper-middle class neighborhoods, and on one side by Table Mountain National Park. The contrasts between Imizamo Yethu and its surrounding area are quite stark, as you can see from the photo above, shack dwelling residents of the township have a amazing view of the large homes and grassy lawns across the valley. A defining characteristic of Imizamo Yethu is its location on a steep mountainside. The terrain becomes steeper, and housing more informal, as one travels up the slope. And water and sanitation infrastructure generally declines as one moves higher up the mountain.
Xhosa speaking people from the Eastern Cape form the bulk of the population, but there is a large minority made up of people from across the African continent and even as far away as China (Tokwe 2014). Since it’s founding, Imizamo Yethu has experienced rapid population growth that has outpaced the development of infrastructure and houses. In 1991 there were only 450 families living in the township, but since then the population has grown substantially, with some estimates putting the current population as high as 60,000. Due to overcrowding, most public toilets are in various states of disrepair and some have become unsanitary to the point that they were no longer usable.
The questionnaire used in the survey allowed us to collect information on social and cultural factors, such as: age, sex, place of birth, and family size; as well as the quality of water and sanitation facilities; and the use of mobile phones. This allowed us to do a simple Chi Square analysis to identify where correlations exist between sociocultural traits and access to water and sanitation facilities, as well as between sociocultural traits and mobile phone use. Having this knowledge allowed us to see if segments of the population who experienced comparatively marginal access to services had the ability to advocate for improvements using the City of Cape Town’s SMS based reporting system,
We carried out one hundred sixty-eight surveys, over the course of 3 days with the help of local translators who speak Xhosa. In an attempt to ensure our sample was evenly spread throughout the township we did our best to count 15 houses between those where we conducted interviews. The township is largely made up of informal housing without defined paths between the shacks; therefore it was not always easy to keep track of our location. To make sure we weren’t conducting all of our interviews in one small area, we carried aerial maps and marked off the location of each place we conducted a survey.
Not surprisingly, the results indicated that mobility challenged respondents make due with comparatively low quality water and sanitation facilities. Among those respondents who were dependent on public toilets, the elderly, people with disabilities and those with poor health spent significantly more time traveling from their home to access facilities than the general population. On Average It takes respondents aged 50 or over close to 20 minutes to get to an accessible toilet, whereas respondents aged between 25 and 40 can typically get to a toilet in about 10 minutes. A similar trend can be seen among physically challenged and infirm respondents, who were traveling between 14 and 15 minutes.
In addition to spending more time traveling, people with disabilities and the infirm, are also using toilets that are cleaned less frequently than those used by respondents without health or mobility issues. respondents with disabilities claimed the toilets they use are cleaned, on average, every twenty-eight days and those with poor health claimed their toilets are cleaned only every thirty-five days; this is compared to those without any health or mobility issues who claim their toilets are cleaned on average every twenty-five days.
The disparities we found could be due to most toilets being inaccessible to mobility challenged individuals, so therefore they must travel further to find a toilet that supports their abilities. I’ve pulled up this photo to give an example of a public toilets that may be difficult to access. This photo shows portable toilets that were brought in by the City of Cape Town to alleviate overcrowding of the toilet blocks, but they were placed in such a way that you literally have to climb over boulders to get to the door.
As I’ve explained, in Imizamo Yethu, people with disabilities and the elderly make up a relatively small portion of the population. It is likely that the built environment of the township prevents a large mobility challenged population from developing. Evidence of this can be seen in studies that have shown that mobility problems in older adults leads to a reduced willingness to encounter environmental challenges, such as; climbing stairs, crossing busy streets, and stepping over curbs. Access to public toilets in the township, often involves squeezing through narrow passageways, climbing un-paved paths, and crossing pools of mud and water, while the toilets themselves lack any sort of railing or other assistive devices that might be needed for the physically challenged. It can be assumed that if people with mobility issues avoid stairs and curbs, they would probably avoid (or simply not be able to access) most public water and sanitation facilities in the township. This echoes research examining environmental barriers in South Africa, which found that disabled people living in Cape Town’s informal settlements faced significantly more barriers to accessing services and infrastructure, than their rural Eastern Cape counterparts.
The difficulty these populations face in accessing essential services may explain why circular migration continues to be so common. Unfortunately, as long as the environment in the townships continues to be inaccessible, only the young and healthy will be able to settle in Cape Town. In fact, studies have shown that South African migrants, who leave home in search of work, typically return to rural areas if they become seriously ill or otherwise physically handicapped.
Because people with mobility challenges find it difficult, if not impossible to access many public facilities, it is all the more critical that the ones they can use are properly maintained. However, our analysis indicates that these populations have limited opportunities to report problems to authorities, as their technological capacity is comparatively low. Our results indicate that there is a sharp decline after age 40 in the use of SMS communications.
Lower rates of SMS use also appear to be associated with poor health. Only about 30% of respondents who claimed to have serious health problems used SMS, compared to nearly 70% of those who claimed to have good health. The same pattern is seen among physically challenged respondents, with just about 30% of respondents with disabilities using SMS, compared to 70% of those without disabilities.
Because everyone gets older and our health and mobility decline over time, it is imperative that governments ensure essential services are universally accessible. Unfortunately by depending on user generated fault reports, or at least those that necessitate the use of SMS, the city is likely reinforcing the marginalization of these populations
Perhaps the greatest step the City of Cape Town could take to fight this inequality would be to strictly enforce accessibility laws, and ensure public facilities are built to appropriate standards. South Africa has progressive laws protecting the rights of those with disabilities. Unfortunately these laws are rarely enforced. However, The City of Cape Town is currently attempting in-situ upgrading of informal settlements, which provides a golden opportunity to design environments that are accessible to all. Furthermore, many civil servants and people with disabilities are unfamiliar with national housing policies specific to physically challenged populations. For instance, while the general population must either have children or be in a legally recognized relationship to benefit from public housing programs, people with disabilities are exempted from these requirements, furthermore they are entitled to additional grant money to retrofit their homes to support their needs. Educating civil servants about these provisions could go a long way in building equitable environments.
While enforcing building codes would offer an immediate improvement, the city would still need to collect data to ensure these facilities are maintained. Remote sensing technology has shown some promise in monitoring water systems, and perhaps could be used to fill some of Cape Town’s data collection gaps (Panchard, et al. 2006; Chaudhri, et al. 2012). The application of this technology could potentially lessen service providers’ dependence on user generated fault reports, reducing disparities caused by unequal technological capacity between various social groups.
Unfortunately, due to the cost and expertise needed to develop, install, and maintain a network of remote sensors, it is likely not feasible as an immediate solution. A more immediate option would be to integrate data collection with the distribution of disability and pension grants, as the majority of these populations receive some form of government assistance. A worthy topic of research would be to identify areas where the South African Social Security Agency, known as SASSA, could act as an intermediary between mobility challenged populations and municipal governments.
In its current form, E-Governance in the water and sanitation sector is unlikely to mitigate systemic inequalities caused by apartheid since Information and Communication Technologies can merely enhance the intents and capacities present within a system, and the intent of the apartheid system was to ensure a constant supply of cheap labour, while preventing permanent black settlement in white areas.
The built environment of Cape Town’s townships still encourages settlement only by those physically well off. Furthermore, those who are not physically fit, in addition to facing barriers to accessing water and sanitation services, also face barriers to using mobile technology. Therefore, introducing e-governance into the system is not going to be enough to correct the inequalities built into it. Meaningful change will depend on strict enforcement of existing regulations, and eventually moving past a dependence on user generated fault reports. That concludes today’s presentation, thank you for being such a great audience. I will now open the floor to questions.