Overdue: Tackling the Sanitation Taboo Across Urban Africa, 2023

Work Package 1: Tracking Sanitary Promises and Investments
A consolidated collection of data from the cities of Beira, Freetown and Mwanza containing information about infrastructure, promises, and configurations of actors who make and maintain sanitation across the cities, this was placed along timelines. Interviews with “memory holders”, were conducted to document the gaps and explore the hypotheses from the sanitation timelines. Maps were collected and produced based on the information collected from local institutions and online sources.
Work Package 2: Situated Sanitation Experiences and Practices
A consolidated collection of data from the 3 case study settlements in each of the cities of Beira, Freetown and Mwanza containing information both on the perspective of situated experiences (what sanitation and for whom) and of situated practices (what type of practices and by whom). Departing from a scoping analysis based on information gathered through Work Package 1, Work Package 2 builds on participant observation, interviews, participatory mapping techniques, and ethnographic methods. This data includes documentation of quotidian routines of sanitation workers (shadowing), community produced sanitation profiles (transect walks, community workshops, settlement timelines), the range of off-grid practices and investments (trajectories), and a catalogue of sanitation worker collectives.<p>OVERDUE interrogates infrastructural trajectories and possible pathways to tackle the sanitation taboo across African cities, a task at the core of the Open Defecation Free campaign and the 2030 SDGs, especially SDGs 6 and 11. Sanitation is critical for urban life,yet it continues to be invisibilised, avoided, systematically un-tackled or at best reduced to a 'cultural, technical or financial problem'. Disposing safely of human waste has long been recognised as a human right, yet we witness a persistent, exculpated and prevailing everyday right violation endured by the vast majority of the urban poor in Africa and worldwide.

With the grid narratives aspirating to reproduce the 19th Century sanitary revolution of the urban global North and the incremental coping mechanisms of the urban poor, most African cities just get by, skirting around the sanitation taboo. OVERDUE aims to provide fresh insights into the 'urban sanitation crisis' by decolonising the way it is framed and tackled. This involves a critical interrogation of urban sanitation trajectories and the links emerging across the sanitation continuum between large-scale infrastructural investments in grid systems vis a vis collective and individual incremental investments by the urban poor in off-grid coping mechanisms.

A sanitary revolution across urban Africa requires a new perspective on the gaps and synergies between grid and off-grid efforts and the spectrum of practices and interventions in between, which reads the sanitary metabolism of a city as a highly complex system- of pipes, energy, matter and social relations - which can produce illness or health, poverty or prosperity, suffering or well-being, stigma or respect for the different women, men, girls and boys engaged in the management of sanitation. Focusing on three fast growing cities - Freetown (Sierra Leone), Mwanza (Tanzania) and Beira (Mozambique) - OVERDUE examines the sanitation taboo across contrasting colonial legacies, with links to the experiences of Francophone urban Africa.

Our aim is to produce fresh outlooks and robust evidence for effective pathways to equitable sanitation across urban Africa's diversity, through three work packages (WPs). The first two WPs offer a reframed diagnosis of sanitation trajectories in Mwanza, Beira and Freetown, unveiling their spatial and social configurations and the historical and contemporary taboos that undermine equitable pathways. WP1 tracks down past, ongoing and projected infrastructural investments in the cities, scrutinising their political economy and approach to 'sanitation deficits' often through the expansion of sewer systems without secondary treatment. WP2 traces existing off-grid sanitation practices and investment flows by informal dwellers, assessing their outcomes and implications. WP3 expands our critical and propositive enquiry to a wider context to document, debate and evaluate emerging sanitation arrangements that could bridge grid and off-grid arrangements at scale across Francophone, Lusophone and Anglophone urban Africa. The ultimate aim is to contribute to visions for &quot;bridging&quot; policy measures (how do we do it) and practical solutions (what is working best), for whom and why.

We argue that sanitation 'deficits' and 'solutions' need to be de-colonised for the right to sanitation to be realised across African cities. Adopting a post-colonial perspective, we aim to provide fresh insights into how contrasting colonial legacies are imbricated in contemporary urban systems to produce different sanitation trajectories. We draw on intersectionality scholarship to shed light into how people's experiences and opportunities differ depending on gender and other social identities and their diverse, multi-layered and intersecting relations.</p>

工作包1：追踪环卫承诺与投资
本数据集整合了贝拉、弗里敦与姆万扎三座城市的相关数据，涵盖城市环卫基础设施、环卫相关承诺以及参与并维护城市环卫工作的行动者配置情况，并按时间线进行梳理呈现。研究团队对“记忆持有者”开展访谈，以记录环卫时间线中的短板，并验证相关研究假设；同时基于本地机构与在线渠道获取的信息，收集并制作了相关地图。

工作包2：本地化环卫体验与实践
本数据集整合了贝拉、弗里敦与姆万扎三座城市各3个典型定居点的数据，涵盖情境化体验层面（环卫服务的覆盖对象与具体内容）以及情境化实践层面（环卫实践的类型与实施主体）的相关信息。本工作包以工作包1所获取的信息为基础开展范围界定分析，并采用参与式观察、访谈、参与式制图技术以及民族志方法开展研究。数据集包含以下内容的记录：环卫工作者的日常工作轨迹（跟随式调研）、社区编制的环卫概况（样带调查、社区研讨会、定居点时间线）、离网式环卫实践与投资的各类形式（发展轨迹），以及环卫工作者集体名录。

OVERDUE项目旨在探究非洲城市的基础设施发展轨迹与破解环卫禁忌的可行路径，这一研究核心契合“无露天排便”（Open Defecation Free）运动以及2030年可持续发展目标（SDGs），尤其是第6项目标与第11项目标的要求。环卫工作对城市生活至关重要，但却长期被忽视、规避，系统性地得不到解决，至多被简化为“文化、技术或财务层面的问题”。安全处理人类排泄物早已被认定为一项人权，但非洲乃至全球绝大多数城市贫民仍在持续遭受这种被漠视且普遍存在的日常人权侵犯。

当前的管网化环卫叙事试图复刻全球北部城市19世纪的环卫革命，同时照搬城市贫民的渐进式应对机制，但绝大多数非洲城市仍在勉强维持，始终回避环卫禁忌这一核心问题。OVERDUE项目旨在通过去殖民化的环卫问题框架与解决路径，为“城市环卫危机”提供全新认知。这一批判性研究将审视城市环卫发展轨迹，以及管网系统的大规模基础设施投资与城市贫民在离网式应对机制中的集体与个体渐进式投资之间，贯穿环卫全链条的关联。

要推动非洲城市的环卫革命，需要以全新视角审视管网与离网式环卫工作之间的差距与协同效应，以及二者之间的各类实践与干预措施。这种视角将城市的环卫代谢视为由管网、能源、物质与社会关系构成的高度复杂系统——该系统既可能催生疾病或健康、贫困或繁荣、苦难或福祉，也可能对参与环卫管理的不同性别、年龄群体带来污名化或尊重。

OVERDUE项目聚焦弗里敦（塞拉利昂）、姆万扎（坦桑尼亚）与贝拉（莫桑比克）三座快速发展的城市，通过对比不同殖民遗产下的环卫禁忌问题，并结合非洲法语区城市的相关经验展开研究。

本项目旨在通过三个工作包（WPs），为非洲城市多样化背景下的公平环卫可行路径提供全新视角与坚实证据。前两个工作包将重新诊断姆万扎、贝拉与弗里敦的环卫发展轨迹，揭示其空间与社会结构，以及破坏公平环卫路径的历史与当代禁忌。工作包1将追踪三座城市过往、当前及规划中的基础设施投资，审视其政治经济逻辑与“环卫短板”应对策略——这类策略往往仅通过扩张污水管网实现，却未配套二级处理设施。工作包2将梳理非正式定居者现有离网式环卫实践与投资流向，评估其成效与影响。工作包3则将批判性与建设性研究拓展至更广泛的语境，以记录、讨论并评估新兴的环卫安排，这类安排可在非洲法语区、葡语区与英语区的城市中大规模实现管网与离网式环卫模式的衔接。本项目的最终目标是为“衔接型”政策措施（具体实施路径）与实用解决方案（最优实践方式）提供愿景支撑，明确其服务对象与背后动因。

我们认为，要在非洲城市实现环卫权，必须对“环卫短板”与“解决方案”进行去殖民化重构。本项目采用后殖民主义视角，旨在揭示不同殖民遗产如何嵌入当代城市系统，进而塑造差异化的环卫发展轨迹。我们借鉴交叉性研究的学术成果，以阐明不同群体的体验与机遇如何因性别及其他社会身份，及其多样、多层且相互交织的社会关系而产生差异。