Water and Sanitation in Africa

Sanitation Workers In contrast to my last post, this blog will aim to shine a spotlight on the small-scale actors that uphold the informal sanitation systems: sanitation workers. I hope to highlight the importance of the work that these actors do, but also shed light on precocity of their job, and provide a compelling argument as to why they should be rendered visible and how this can be achieved. This blog post is written in response to World Toilet Day (19 th  November) which aims to make visible the experiences of the 4.2 billion people worldwide who lack adequate sanitation, and project these lived realities onto a wider stage.    The concept of urban metabolism highlights that the city itself is a place through which waste flows, often unnoticed when things are going as they should. Urban metabolism is part of urbanisation, and is a way of understanding the circulation of material, including human waste through the city.  It is only when these flows do not work as they should, t

Inadequate water and sanitation access is gendered, with the impacts disproportionately making it harder for women and girls to lead safe, productive, healthy lifestyles . As a female myself, this is something that I wanted to write about in my blogs, however, when I stumbled upon the  Nestle Milk Scandal I was shocked that it wasn't something I had heard about. I therefore want to share what I found for others who may not have heard, whilst trying to answer the question of what should be done about it.  Figure 1 : Nestle advertising used in Africa In the 1970's, Nestle was the first major formal milk manufacturer to enter the Global South, marketing its formula milk as an alternative to breastfeeding. In Nigeria, the uptake was large, with 70% of babies being exclusively formula fed, when they used to be breastfed up until the age of 4 ( Muller 1974 ). The marketing of western babies on billboards who were, “Strong and Fat,” encouraged mothers to buy breast milk formula in th

As I sat on my sofa, ready to unwind from a busy week, I decided to watch a film. I chose ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, however, as I began watching it, I found myself unable to separate what I was watching on screen from Water & Development in Africa- great! My (not quite) relaxing activity quickly became the backbone of this blog. ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ tells a captivating story of a poor orphan’s precarious childhood, growing up in Mumbai’s slums. I know that this course is Water and Development in Africa, so I will keep my film analysis broad, and instead focus on some of the thoughts that it provoked.   The films depictions of slums: There are more than 200, 000 slums on earth, each varying from one settlement to another however slums have shared characteristics, one of which being a lack of basic services, especially water and sanitation infrastructure (Davies 2006) . In  the film, the protagonist,  Jamal, plunges from a hanging latrine into a pool of faeces to get a famous Indian mo