Informality as Experimentation: Water Utilities’ Strategies for Cost Recovery and their Consequences for Universal Access

Abstract

This paper considers the modalities by which utilities in four sub-Saharan African cities have extended water services into low-income settlements and examines their consequences for household access to water. We argue that water utilities and other public agencies supplying water are experimenting, drawing on the approaches of informal suppliers, to find ways to extend their coverage into low-income and/or informal neighbourhoods despite their legal status. While this experimentation appears to be extending access, prices prevent low-income households from being able to purchase sufficient quantities of water from public suppliers. Prices remain high in a context in which cost-recovery is a priority for utilities. Using a critical political economy approach, we argue that water pricing strategies applied in informal settlements present a form of accumulation enacted through the ‘market integration’ of low-income, primarily informal households that appears to undermine attempts to build the universal access to water services promised by Sustainable Development Goal 6.

1. Introduction

In 2000, reports that the proportion of the population without access to an ‘improved water source’ was halved suggested success in meeting Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 7c on water access (WHO, 2015). Yet the reality of water provision is complex and substantial challenges persist, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite a sizeable growth in absolute numbers with improved access to water in sub-Saharan Africa, significant increases in urban populations between 1990 and 2012 also means that there has been a decrease in the proportion of urban households with water piped to the premises (WHO, 2015). Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 presents a more ambitious target – to provide universal access to safe affordable water by 2030.¹ Achieving affordable water services for low-income households is recognised to be central to this endeavour.

Across Africa, development models, and particularly the scale and nature of private sector involvement in public services, remain contested. This extends to the specificities of service provision, as well as broader questions of economic growth and inclusion in the benefits of development. While private sector ownership of water utilities and other public agencies now receives less attention in the sector than in the 1980s and 1990s, the corporatisation of public services continues to be promoted.

There is continuing discussion about the opportunities related to economic growth, rising incomes and increasing household assets in Africa; debates about the size of the middle class led by the African Development Bank suggest that issues of poverty and exclusion are no longer centre stage.² However, it remains the case that urban services, housing and employment are primarily produced or accessed informally. A large proportion of the urban population rely on informal work, with an average of 66 per cent of non-agricultural employment in sub-Saharan Africa concentrated in the informal sector (Chen, 2014). Extending water services to low-income households, requires that utilities work in the informal settlements that are home to 62 per cent of sub-Saharan Africa’s urban population (Chitonge, 2014). Despite opportunities for income growth, low-income neighbourhoods face inadequate access to services (WHO & UNICEF, 2017), and in this context, civil society efforts to organise low-income and disadvantaged households to secure their basic needs take various forms. One example is Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI), a transnational network of federations of women-led savings schemes living in low-income informal settlements, active in more than 16 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.³ SDI affiliates have been involved in considerable efforts to upgrade informal neighbourhoods; securing access to affordable basic services is a key priority. This paper draws on these experiences in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; Harare, Zimbabwe; Windhoek, Namibia; and Blantyre, Malawi to better understand the challenges for residents of informal settlements here in respect to water access and affordability.

We argue that the strategies and modalities that utilities are using exemplify changing state attitudes towards informality. Local authorities and public utilities are extending formal public services to low-income neighbourhoods characterised by informality. Residents here, once seen by authorities as illegitimate squatters, are now considered legitimate customers. Following research into these practices and the corporatisation policies of utilities across these four cities, we put forward two arguments. First, we argue that informal settlements have become a site of experimentation as utilities look for ways to increase their income through extending service provision to these areas in new ways. Secondly, we argue that, since management priorities of local authorities and utilities have been focused on cost recovery, the question of affordability has been given insufficient attention. We argue that utility approaches reveal tensions between cost-recovery and affordability in water service provision; informal settlements have become sites of experimentation as efforts have been made to generate revenue streams and improve financial viability. Failing to address this tension will undermine commitments to universal access to water services; hence present practices suggest that SDG 6 will not be achieved. Looked at from the other direction, for the SDGs to be achieved and universal access to essential services to be secured, the public service role of utilities needs to be assured. The present orientation towards cost-recovery, improved profitability, and accumulation – both of income and capital – jeopardises this goal, and this is demonstrated in this paper through evidence on the lack of affordable water supplies.

Section 2 discusses how utilities and state water providers have sought to extend their customer base and incorporate informal settlements. Section 3 introduces the methodology used in the study. Section 4 reports on the findings both in terms of utilities’ institutional practices in the four cities and what corporatisation means for policy and programming, and the affordability of water for low-income households. Section 5 discusses policy frameworks and expansion modalities, Section 6 discusses the pricing of water, Section 7 discusses the challenge of affordability and Section 8 concludes.

2. Water need and provision in the context of spatial and labour market informality

2.1. Unequal infrastructural development, the introduction of market principles

The management of water utilities on which urban dwellers rely has been subject to considerable change in recent decades. The introduction of private sector involvement and market principles into the water sector reflected widespread concern during the 1980s that public utilities had been undermined by decades of poor management, with limited investment in infrastructure and low expectations by both consumers and would-be consumers (Herrera & Post, 2014). The very limited scale of piped networks and lack of internal funds resulted in the de facto exclusion of low-income households living in areas without piped water. A further problem for low-income informal settlements was that governments were not prepared to supply to those living in informal settlements, as they feared legitimising the residents’ claim over the land they were occupying. However, it has long been recognised that public utilities provided the water for informal sellers (Rahman, 2008; Swyngedouw, 2004). As privatisation took place, the emphasis on cost recovery and improved financial management was combined with measures to encourage supplies to lower-income consumers; service obligations to extend provision were a characteristic of water privatisation strategies during the 1990s (Chisari, Estache, & Price, 2001).

These practices of water governance have been critiqued as exclusionary and part of a socio-political process whereby certain actors and groups exercise power over others (Castro, 2008, p. 75), denying marginalised groups their rights as citizens. This has led to conflict between the state and different groups, particularly when water services have been privatised or corporatised (Castro, 2005). Pertinent to our discussion, the outcomes of privatisation highlighted problems with affordability (von Weizsäcker, Young, & Finger, 2005). Private sector providers recognised that they could not supply low-income households without some form of subsidy (Bayliss, 2001). Consequently, private companies were attracted to management contracts that offered greater income certainty and avoided the risk of low returns and reputational damage (von Weizsäcker et al., 2005).

In the absence of large-scale private sector investment, the corporatised model has been promoted in cities across the global South by multilateral and bilateral development agencies (Dagdeviren, 2008; Manor, 1999; McDonald, 2014). Public utilities have been restructured so that they behave more like private enterprises and provide services on a cost-recovery basis. Exactly what this means is determined in each local context; and is elaborated below for the four cities considered here. Advocates of corporatisation contend that it is a method of making public services more efficient (see McDonald, 2016). However, others have questioned the extent to which this approach has been able to develop the improved access that low-income communities in the global South require (Van Rooyen & Hall, 2007). Even the most cursory analysis suggests that utility financing involves choices that are apparently technical but for which there is no unambiguously right answer; for example, the cost of capital, the time period over which investments should be costed (that is, how long pipes and treatment plants are anticipated to last), and the cost of land transferred from other government departments for infrastructure. These decisions determine costs and therefore profitability; and are, at least in part, political. Such factors emphasise that utilities do not work within what is generally understood by a competitive market. While corporatisation does not exclude the possibility of subsidies – which can be introduced either through cross-subsidy arrangements related to required pricing policies, and/or through financial transfers into the company to support the extension of services to those in need – the separation of public utilities from government makes it more difficult for them to be introduced.

2.2. The growing awareness of affordability challenges

While not specific to corporatisation, affordability is an emerging concern in academic literature and policy-related documents. Sustainable Development Goal 6.1 aspires to achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all by 2030 (our emphasis). Prior to 2017, little attention had been paid to this component by the Joint Monitoring Program (JMP) (World Health Organization, 2015). However, in 2017, the JMP report and a further report on ‘safely managed water’ both discuss affordability concerns (World Health Organization & UNICEF, 2017); these concerns are also present in World Bank documentation (Heymans, Eberhard, Ehrhardt, & Riley, 2016; Hutton & Varughese, 2016).

One promising proxy measure of affordability that has been suggested and applied in several countries is the proportion of the household budget spent on water, sanitation, and hygiene (World Health Organization & UNICEF, 2017). The United Nations’ Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council suggest the cost of water and sanitation services should not exceed 5 per cent of a household’s income in order to be considered ‘affordable’ (UN & WSCCC, n.d.). A paper prepared for the UN Commission on Human Rights on the affordability of water and sanitation services also uses the percentage of income spent as the primary means of assessing affordability (Hutton, 2012). However, this report recognises that underpinning this approach is the assumption that supplies are adequate in quantity. The WHO recommend minimum quantities of water consumption of 20 litres and 50 litres per person per day for emergency and non-emergency situations respectively (WHO & WEDC, n.d.). WHO minimum recommended quantities in a non-emergency situation (50 litres per person per day) are broadly similar to the quantities supplied in the lowest-cost block within the progressive block tariff structure commonly used in water pricing. The lowest-cost block generally ranges from zero to six kilolitres up to 20 kilolitres per household per month (Heymans et al., 2016; Hutton, 2012).⁴ WHO requirements can be compared to non-emergency standards in Egypt and Portugal of 100 and 120 litres per capita per day, respectively (Hutton, 2012, p. 54–5). Adequacy measured by the percentage of income is inherently flawed; it means that households may be spending an ‘affordable’ amount on water and sanitation services, but there is no guarantee this can provide the quantities required to meet minimum standards of water consumption.

Specific affordability challenges associated with corporatisation are noted by Dagdeviren (2008) in cities in Zambia. Cost increases linked to corporatisation have meant that access to water has not improved; indeed, for the lowest-income households water services are unaffordable. High prices and hence a lack of affordability have also been recognised in Dar es Salaam (Rugemalila & Gibbs, 2015) and Mumbai (Anand & Rademacher, 2011). Political tensions related to affordability have been particularly acute in South Africa where the government introduced the right to water as part of the new Constitution at the same time as introducing a cost-recovery management model (Nleya, 2008, p. 277). Utilities and water providers must supply free water, at the same time as being required to cover costs. Municipal responses to non-payment of bills include disconnection and the introduction of ‘trickle’ meters to restrict the flow of water (Rodina & Harris, 2016). The City of Cape Town also increased the monthly quantity of free water available to indigent households from six kilolitres to approximately 10 kilolitres to ensure that they receive adequate water while avoiding the non-payment of bills (Rodina & Harris, 2016).

More generally, improving service provision and cost recovery presents authorities with specific challenges, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Foster et al. (2010) suggest that Africa’s infrastructure services are associated with particularly high prices⁵ compared to global standards and that this is likely to raise concerns about achieving universal access. Despite comparatively high prices and an emphasis on cost recovery, tariffs rarely cover the cost of maintaining and developing water and sanitation infrastructure and services (Foster & Briceño-Garmendia, 2010). Moreover, it appears that efforts to improve cost recovery in sub-Saharan Africa have not resulted in network extensions and more affordable services (Marson & Savin, 2015). Subsidies are ostensibly to improve affordability, but 90 per cent of those who have access to formally-provided basic services in sub-Saharan Africa belong to the richest 60 per cent of the population, suggesting that the targeting of these subsidies is not pro-poor (Foster & Briceño-Garmendia, 2010). Prices are high, available subsidies are poorly-targeted and cost-recovery is rarely achieved.

2.3. Informal settlements as sites of experimentation

Faced with intense pressure to recover costs, a financing crisis, and requirements related to the expansion of networks into low-income areas, public utilities have begun to reconsider their position with respect to informal settlements and water supply (Pieterse & Hyman, 2014). Local authorities have traditionally excluded residents from public services on the basis of their ‘illegal’ status and concerns that service provision will act to legitimate claims for tenure security (Hardoy & Satterthwaite, 1989). However, evidence from the last 15 years suggests that perspectives and policies have changed (Jaglin, 2002). A professional and academic discourse that treats formalisation of informal neighbourhoods as an accepted mode of urbanisation means that local authorities may now recognise that formalisation is the most likely outcome for unplanned settlements (Roy, 2005). Furthermore, there is increasing recognition that assumptions that all incomes in informal settlements are low and unable to pay for services may be misplaced (Satterthwaite & Mitlin, 2014). Insights into the changing attitudes of authorities emerge from Lusaka where the corporatised Water and Sanitation Company provide services in an urban centre in which over 60 per cent of residents live in informal settlements (Kennedy-Walker, Amezega, & Patterson, 2015). Some argue that residents have limited ability to pay, but one Ministry of Local Government and Housing official suggested otherwise:

I don’t agree with this excuse. Mainly because 70 per cent of Lusaka’s population live in such an environment so with usage of water and services there must be money to be captured from the areas. [The] Problem is ensuring systems are in place to capture that money. (Kennedy-Walker et al., 2015, p. 498)

The high amounts, both in cash and as a percentage of income, that households report to be paying to informal vendors have helped to fuel the narrative that public utilities can provide water on a cost-recovery basis. Heymans et al. (2016) reports that World Bank data from 2012/3 show that the 40 per cent of households with the lowest incomes in Nairobi were spending 10 per cent of their income buying water, then worth about US $7 a month.

The significant expansion by utilities into informal settlements has required utilities to develop a strategy to manage existing informal providers (Jaglin, 2002). Where utility provision was previously lacking, a multiplicity of water providers have emerged, albeit with a limited range of options in each particular context (Solo, 1999). In Latin America, water committees and associations are common in unserved barrios (Allen et al 2017); provision ranges from decentralised water systems built and managed by the community, to community-managed systems that distribute water provided by utilities. In some towns and cities, informal services emerged as a result of informal processes of urbanisation, and were an opportunity for well-located and powerful groups to extract resources (Swyngedouw, 2004; Rahman, 2008; Ghertner, 2014; Kooy, 2014; Ranganathan, 2014b). In other locations, less formalised patterns of delivery took place with, for example, households being supplied by young men using bicycles and donkey carts and on foot (see Thompson et al., 2000). Households may also be purchasing water from those living in adjacent formal neighbourhoods.

As utilities have expanded their services they have sought to identify the most effective means or ‘modalities’ of supply to low-income populations, referring to the infrastructure and/or the means by which the services are managed locally. Informal settlements emerge as ‘sites of experimentation’ (Simon, 2010). A key challenge is how to extend networks, improve supply, and comply with conditionalities in service agreements with ministries, while securing a revenue stream. Some utilities are including a component modelled on informal practices of provision within their formal system so as to extend reach and/or reduce supply costs (Jaglin, 2014). These hybrid modalities are not a blending of informal and formal per se; rather, they represent the copying and redevelopment of informal practices within formal agencies (Jaglin, 2002). In Dar es Salaam, for example, local municipalities have replicated informal water provision by excavating shallow wells in informal settlements. Both municipalities and the corporatised utility in Dar es Salaam have supported informal entrepreneurs to treat and protect groundwater that they are selling in the absence of affordable networked provision (Rugemalila & Gibbs, 2015). However, utilities are not wholly dependent on informal modalities and have also experimented in other ways. In South Africa, technology (trickle meters that restrict the flow to the free water allocation and prevent charges from being incurred) is seen by providers as the solution to households not being able to afford to pay for water and needing to spread their consumption of free water over the month (Rodina & Harris, 2016).

Partnerships with civil society organisations replicate practices already used by privatised utilities (discussed by Cheng, 2014 in the context of metro Manila). Jaglin’s (2002, p. 235) analysis of corporatisation in Kenya and Tanzania leads her to draw attention to the utilities’ practice of ‘grassroots-level contracting out to user committees’ in peri-urban neighbourhoods. In summary, utilities and other water agencies are using informal modalities of supply, engaging with grassroots organisations in the form of user committees, and testing out new technologies to identify new strategies for extending supply. This happens within governance regimes that require utilities to both extend networks and secure revenue; such experimentation appears to constitute an effort to capture informal incomes for utility financing.

Changing state priorities and perspectives appear to be leading to reverse patterns of institutional isomorphism (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). Isomorphic experimentation has typically entailed the weaker agency modelling its practices on the more powerful agency, but that is reversed here. Responding to the challenges of finding profitable models of delivery, elites are going beyond simply permitting informal practices (Varley, 2013) and are embedding such practices within their own delivery models. Vasudevan (2015, p. 344) draws on Simone (2004) to suggest the value in considering informality as a tactical operational field rather than as an overarching logic that structures action, and this has some resonance here. Roy (2005) argues that the informal is characterised by distinct practices or transactions, while Ranganathan (2014a) argues it is a particular negotiated process related to specific laws and authorities. Our analysis challenges the conclusion that informal is either a distinct practice and/or distinct negotiated process as formal and informal models of delivery become blurred through their modes of delivery (see also Ranganathan, 2014b). Whether and to what extent low-income groups are disadvantaged by such experimentation is unclear. As Ranganathan (2014b) elaborates, in Bangalore access to water services – even on unfavourable financial terms – is seen by informal settlement residents as an opportunity to bargain for legitimate tenure and recognition in the eyes of the state. However, while this is access, it is not equal access; full citizenship and its associated rights and obligations continue to be denied in a process that draws water consumers into formal markets, reduces non-revenue water and improves utility finances with insufficient attention to affordable access, wellbeing and good health.

3. Methods

Our engagement with SDI has been central to knowledge generation. This paper benefits from data collection in informal settlements across four African cities, providing a depth of insight into local experiences with access to water. The research was undertaken by the authors working closely with SDI affiliates in four countries. SDI is a trans-national network of federations of informal settlement (slum) dwellers.

SDI groups are strengthened through data collection practices: community profiling, mapping, and enumeration within informal settlements. Accurate profiles (with verification processes) record local populations and assess both the quantity and quality of housing and basic services in the community, including access to water. This knowledge helps to address important data gaps on informal settlements and, as a result, has proven to be a substantive tool for engaging government (Beukes, 2015). SDI have recently standardised this data collection process across affiliates to improve rigour and comparability. Profiles (summary data about conditions in informal settlements) and household surveys have been built up to track changes at the local level (Beukes, 2015). By March 2016, SDI affiliates had gathered basic data for 8,512 informal settlements across the global South (SDI, 2016).

These profiles and surveys have provided the basis for much of the data analysed below. An early review of this data revealed concerns about access to water in our four case study cities. The four SDI Alliances involved collected additional information for this study in response to these shared concerns. The neighbourhoods we include are all considered informal (except in Zimbabwe, where spatial informality is repressed, but informal renting is prevalent in our study neighbourhoods). The scale of informal housing in Harare is difficult to estimate. For many years, squatting was prevented by swift state action. However, under recent Mugabe-led ZANU-PF governments, the occupation of farms has offered a route for the expansion of residential development through housing cooperatives. Many of these occupations are not formal; however, they have some quasi-legal status. However, regardless of what has happened recently, low-income households have long struggled to find affordable accommodation and services in the city.

In Blantyre (Malawi) data sources include a 4,000-plus household survey in three neighbourhoods supplemented with: six focus groups; in-depth interviews with officials at Blantyre Water Board, kiosk operators, and kiosk users; and the analysis of 74 water bills. In Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), a 1,200-household survey across six sub-wards was supplemented by interviews with a representative of the Energy and Water Utilities Regulatory Authority (EWURA), community focus groups on water usage and costs, and policy analysis of key policy documents from the utility and regulatory agencies in relation to the cost of water. In Harare (Zimbabwe) data sources include the analysis of 11 settlement profiles covering 9,500 households⁶ together with key informant interviews and further desk-based research on water policy and legislation. In Windhoek (Namibia) survey data has been collected from four settlements (1,381 households). An earlier study on water affordability collected information from 14 savings groups (663 households) in Windhoek (SDFN, 2012). Further discussions based around our visits to these cities and focus groups plus key informant interviews have taken place during research in Dar es Salaam (2014, 2015), Blantyre (2015), Harare (2013, 2015), and Windhoek (2015, 2017).

Data on household income is routinely collected by SDI affiliates for household surveys. SDI affiliates also work closely with neighbourhood savings schemes to evaluate loan applications and these require careful assessment of both income and expenditure. Survey data was available for both Blantyre and Windhoek, with the results of the survey data being ground-truthed by local expertise. In Dar es Salaam and Harare, income estimates from enumerations were not available and hence we used estimates based on the wages of commonly-held jobs (established through discussions with professionals and federation leaders). More details are provided in Section 4.

SDI affiliates include 16 federations of low-income and disadvantaged groups in sub-Saharan Africa; 12 are considered by SDI to be mature federations with advanced programmes of planning and implementation (Bolnick, 2017). SDI provides a global platform to strengthen the voice of the urban poor, living largely in informal settlements, to engage with urban development processes and agencies.⁷ An important focus of the network is to provide opportunities for groups to share learning around the problem-solving strategies that they have developed to improve access to housing and basic services and engage with local and central government.

SDI-affiliated federations typically work with support NGOs that provide technical assistance, manage donor finance, build links with professional counterparts in local government and beyond, and assist with learning and documentation. Together these organisational configurations are referred to within SDI as ‘alliances’. Four alliances participated in this research: the Malawian Alliance includes the Federation of the Rural and Urban Poor and the Centre for Community Organisation and Development (CCODE); the Zimbabwe Alliance includes the Zimbabwe Homeless People’s Federation and Dialogue on Shelter Trust; the Namibian Alliance includes the Shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia (SDFN) and Namibian Housing Action Group; and the Tanzanian Alliance includes the Tanzanian Urban Poor Federation and the Centre for Community Initiatives (CCI).

To ensure that the social movement is responsive to local needs – and to women, in particular – SDI processes begin at the grassroots with savings and lending practices. Individual groups are then federated and strengthened at the city-wide, national, and international level.

4. Findings

4.1. Policy frameworks

In each of the four cities studied, policy frameworks have emerged that have reinforced cost recovery in service provision as a core principle of operation. This has led to corporatised water utilities and, in one instance (Dar es Salaam), temporally-privatised water services. Water services in Blantyre are provided within Malawi’s national framework, which requires that water is delivered by public Water Boards. Since the mid-1990s these have prioritised the commercialisation of water services according to the 1995 WaterWorks Act. These reforms were introduced alongside decentralisation of water service provision, creating spaces for Water User Associations to deliver services on behalf of Water Boards. Objectives to commercialise, decentralise, and expand water services to low-income areas have been made without the institutional structures and processes to reconcile inevitable tensions (Adams & Zulu, 2015). Here, as elsewhere, there is Ministerial responsibility and a specific authority tasked with oversight of the sector (Adams & Zulu, 2015); however, there is no evident engagement with the issues discussed here. Blantyre’s water board makes it clear that the extension of services through kiosks to low-income areas is to improve the ‘financial viability and sustainability of the Board’ (Blantyre Water Board, 2010, page, p. 14). Water services in Tanzania are delivered by public water authorities, although water provision was briefly privatised in Dar es Salaam between 2003 and 2005. Dar es Salaam Water and Sewerage Authority (DAWASA) and Dar es Salaam Water and Sewerage Corporation (DAWASCO) provide infrastructure and services, respectively, in the city, operating according to a full-cost recovery approach and corporatised water services. The policies mean that low-income households continue to rely on a mix of formal and informal water services, with sources of water often including deep and shallow boreholes. Municipal boreholes are accepted water sources, and informal boreholes and water vendors are tolerated. The public utility for Windhoek – NamWater – also operates through a strong cost-recovery ethos; this has been the case for many years (Muller & Mitlin, 2007). Both this agency and the City of Windhoek operate with the premise that city residents should cover the cost of infrastructure and water supplies and pre-paid meters are being introduced (Chitekwe-Biti, 2013). A 2012 report from the United Nations (Human Rights Council) special rapporteur on the human right to safe water in 2012 notes the ‘heavy emphasis’ placed on cost recovery (2012, p. 12), the use of communal meters which exclude some low-income households from the lowest tariffs and up to 280 households per day being disconnected due to issues of affordability. In the absence of significant informal provision, residents in Windhoek secure water through the network. Water services in Zimbabwe have been seriously undermined by political and economic crisis, halting investments and leading to unaffordable tariffs and consumer debt. There is increasing use of bore holes in Harare (to deal with a lack of water in the pipes) and pre-paid meters that are being introduced to improve cost-recovery (Gass, 2015). While water services are provided by local authorities, with limited national or local resources to invest in the sector water tariffs are dictated by a full cost recovery model. While the policy recognises the need for a water subsidy, this has not been introduced.

In each location, there are tensions between meeting twin objectives of cost recovery and delivering affordable, quality services to low-income communities. In summary, policies consistent with corporatisation have been introduced in each city; in Blantyre and Dar es Salaam, utilities have extended supplies into informal settlements, selling through water kiosks, and in Windhoek communal meters and pre-paid meters have been introduced (with the extension of piped supplies to some plots) (see Section 5.1). In Zimbabwe, as discussed in Section 6.1 below, concerns about consumer debt led to specific election promises in 2013 (We Pay, You Deliver Consortium, 2018), as well as the installation of pre-paid meters. Table 1 elaborates.

Table 1. Coverage, policy frameworks, and expansion modalities for low-income urban settlements in Dar es Salaam, Harare, Blantyre, and Windhoek

City	City situation	Current informal provision	Expansion strategy for low-income areas	Policy towards incorporation of low-income households
Blantyre Malawi	75% of Blantyre residents live in informal settlements. 46% rely on communal standpoints.	Residents use shallow wells and surface water such as rivers extensively to top up on kiosk water. Some buy from neighbours.	Water kiosks are widespread in low-income and informal urban communities. 730+ water kiosks are managed by 9 community-based Water User Associations (WUA).	WUAs under pressure to collect revenue. They have no influence over pricing (and therefore affordability) following the creation of Kiosk Management Units within Water Boards. Kiosk water charges are about 40% less than the lowest tariff for piped services per unit of supply.
Dar es Salaam Tanzania	66% of Dar’s population live in informal settlements. 58% of the population is serviced by the formal network.	Informal suppliers in many informal settlements. Boreholes sometimes with multiple vending sites. Some shallow saline wells in parts of the city. Bicycle water deliveries.	Piped network with kiosks in informal settlements. Piped network not extended into many locations. Deep and shallow informal boreholes are widespread. Staff from the utility company oversee some boreholes and wells. Informal boreholes sanctioned and/or developed by the utility. Water sold through public and private kiosks. Some informal suppliers operate mini-networks.	Costs and burden of community management to low-income households; costs are determined locally on a commercial basis. Kiosk and borehole water cost at least four times the cost of piped supplies per unit of supply.
Windhoek Namibia	35% of Windhoek’s population currently live in informal settlements or settlements designated by the City of Windhoek to be at the lowest level of development with communal pay-by use-metered services.	Families that are cut off due to non-payment of bills can still access pay-by-use services which are available throughout informal neighbourhoods and those at the lowest development level. Neighbours also sell water informally but prices are higher than pay-by-use.	City of Windhoek introduced a policy to enable households to access secure tenure and communal basic services at very low cost. Communal water points with meters are provided in new settlements. Metered household connections are available as upgrading takes place and when households can afford it.	City policy is to assist with formalisation through reduced standards, that is communal services. Communal water charged at just over 150% of lowest tariff for piped services per unit of supply.
Harare Zimbabwe	Few informal settlements due to government policy. Until 2000 the City would sell services plots but these were rarely affordable to low-income households. City has not serviced any major residential development in the last 10 years.	Households purchase from neighbours who have not been cut off. No commercialised informal provision.	Piped network extension. Policy suggests that households unable to afford water costs should access a monthly subsidy for an amount not exceeding 10 cubic metres per household, but this is not operational. Boreholes are licensed by the City and there is an annual charge of US$150. However this is simply a response to requests to install boreholes; it is not an expansion strategy.	Piped water remains the primary means through which water is accessed. Water bills bundled into a general basic service bill for formal households, which is often unaffordable. Residents may purchase informally from neighbours when they are cut off from the system due to non-payment of bills.

Source: SDI profiles and field research.

5. Coverage, policy frameworks, and expansion modalities for low-income urban settlements in Dar es Salaam, Harare, Blantyre, and Windhoek

5.1. Water pricing

To understand water affordability, we assessed the cost of water as a percentage of the incomes of low-income city dwellers in Blantyre, Dar es Salaam, Harare, and Windhoek (Table 2). As noted above, settlements in Blantyre and Dar es Salaam are considered informal with no prospect for formal land title. In Windhoek, water is supplied both in informal neighbourhoods and newly formalised areas with communal services. In Harare these are formal neighbourhoods (with informal renting) supplied with formal services. To calculate the figures in Table 2, some assumptions have been made:

Table 2. Estimated water costs as a percentage of household income for low-income households

	Piped water to the plot		Low cost non-plot public supply		High cost non-plot public supply
Consumption (high/low litres per person per day or lpppd)	20 litres	50 litres	20 litres	50 litres	20 litres	50 litres
Five people per household
Blantyre (2013)	38%	92%	13%	34%	22%	56%
Dar es Salaam (2014)	7%	17%	15%	38%	61%	152%
Harare (2014)	6%	7%	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Windhoek (2013)	3%	9%	5%	12%	N//A	N/A
Six people per household
Blantyre (2013)	45%	112%	16%	40%	27%	67%
Dar es Salaam (2014)	8%	20%	18%	46%	73%	182%
Harare (2014)	7%	11%	N/D	N/D	N/D	N/D
Windhoek (2013)	4%	13%	6%	14%	N/D	N/D

Notes: Where N/D (no data) is stated, this source is not available in that location.

5.1.1. Water consumption

There is no universally agreed water quantity that people require each day. We use the WHO recommended 20 litres per person per day in an emergency context for the ‘low consumption’ level. We use a ‘high consumption’ level of 50 litres per person per day which is the lower end of the WHO’s recommended 50–100 litres per person per day necessary for wellbeing in non-emergency situations.⁸ SDI Alliance studies in the four cities reported an average household size of between five and six people; hence we present results for five and six person households. We do not make adjustments for different household members; young and old are assumed to need the same amount of water as other family members.

5.1.2. Incomes

Income assumptions draw on estimation techniques for ‘typical’ households in each neighbourhood, on advice from the local SDI affiliate (see Section 3). In Windhoek, a monthly household income of US$102 was used, this being the 2013 average income for the 73 per cent of households dependent on only one income (as established by a survey of 633 households living in informal settlements). In Blantyre, we used US$29 per household per month. A survey of 4,255 households in 2013 established this as the upper income for the fourth quintile in Blantyre’s informal settlements. In Harare and Dar es Salaam we used low-income wages since reliable household income data are not available. In Dar es Salaam, we assumed an income of US$45 per household per month, based on one male unskilled monthly wage of US$30 and one female domestic worker’s monthly wage of US$15 (data from 2014).⁹ In Harare we used a single monthly wage of US$80. This was the gazetted wage for a live-out domestic worker in 2014 and is consistent with SDI affiliate assessments of the monthly expenditure available to low-income households (Beth Chitekwe-Biti, director of Dialogue on Shelter, January 2015).

5.1.3. Prices

We established up to three prices for water: the formal price charged by the utility for a piped water connection to the plot or house from the city network, and the low and high prices for forms of public non-plot provision in low-income settlements, such as kiosks. In most cases, only one source of public non-plot provision was available to households. In Blantyre and Dar es Salaam prices for public non-plot provision varied across the city with some neighbourhoods, having to pay more. In Dar es Salaam prices charged by kiosks also varied across the city, despite all providers being sanctioned by the utility. In Windhoek, the non-plot supply was metered pay-by-use public standpipes, and thus a single price was charged for communal supply (that is, there is no informal alternative). In the case of organised communities that have moved onto an area of land with the support of the City of Windhoek, there is a single meter with the costs shared out among member families. In Harare, only piped water to the plot was available.

6. Estimated water costs as a percentage of household income for low-income households

Even at the lowest consumption estimate of 20 litres per person per day, our findings show that buying water takes up considerable proportions of household incomes for low-income households. Across the four cities, six-person households consuming 50 litres per person per day through direct piped supplies would have to allocate between 11 and a theoretical 112 per cent of their household income for this. In Dar es Salaam, households that can access piped supplies to the plot and manage with ‘emergency’ levels of water (20 litres per person per day) would allocate 7 per cent of their income if they have five family members, or 8 per cent of their income with six family members. Pricing in Blantyre is such that non-plot provision is cheaper per unit purchased than plot provision. However, even the low-cost non-plot public provision there requires a five-person household to spend more than 13 per cent of their income to secure 20 litres per person per day. Water appears relatively affordable in Harare, but water cannot be purchased separately from other services here (although the monthly bills distinguish water costs separately from other charges). Metered supplies are billed together with other council services such as sanitation and waste management. In 2014 and 2015, the typical monthly charge was US$28 (or 35% of our income estimate). These calculated expenditures are hypothetical, but serve to highlight the costs of water. Repeated discussions with community groups over the last five years have confirmed that these service charges are a major issue.

6.1. Local responses to unaffordable water

SDI Federations are aware that the cost of water is unaffordable to some households. In Namibia, the SDI Alliance conducted a water affordability study in 2012, concluding that affordability was a serious concern (SDFN (Slum Dweller Federation of Namibia), 2012). In their study, water costs were calculated to equal an average of 14 per cent of household income for those with one income-earner; 73 per cent of the 663 households interviewed fell into this category (SDFN (Slum Dweller Federation of Namibia), 2012). The implications of these high costs are evident in Blantyre, where 30 per cent of residents with piped connections reported having had their water connection disconnected at least once in the last five years due to unpaid water bills. National governments, too, show similar awareness of the problem. In 2013, Zimbabwe’s ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front made an electoral promise that they would write off service arrears if they won the election. Arrears were indeed cleared after their victory, and focus group discussions in Harare suggested their promise had contributed to election success.

How do SDI Federation members and other households manage in these circumstances? In Blantyre (as in other cities), focus groups acknowledged that households supplement utility supplies with water from shallow wells, despite health concerns around water quality. Interviewees also mentioned the issue of limited supplies. Another common practice is community-managed boreholes and water supplies. This was particularly notable in Zimbabwe, where the Federation provides water in low-income neighbourhoods, with three boreholes in Harare. Likewise, in Dar es Salaam the Federation has excavated and manages one deep borehole and local savings groups have begun to manage water points; this is tolerated by the utility.

Federations have created further opportunities to improve access to water services through working with local government to shape policies and programmes. This has been demonstrated through the introduction of ‘development levels’ by the City of Windhoek following a review of how to facilitate settlement for new urban migrants; these levels provide a legal framework for low-income residents to access communal services including pay-by-use communal water points provided in newly-settled informal areas (Chitekwe-Biti, 2013). The efforts of CCODE and the Malawian Federation to establish community-led Water Users’ Associations in Lilongwe are a further example of how low-income communities have sought to shape access to and/or the management of water services to better meet their needs. However, as we see next, they have been unable to influence the price of water.

7. The challenge of affordability

This section explores the challenge related to water affordability for low-income populations in our four cities. We return to the literature introduced in Section 2 and, using the understanding provided by members of local SDI federations and the data collected, we address two issues. First we examine the supply models used in each city and how informal neighbourhoods have become sites of experimentation. We then analyse the perspectives of federations and practices of utilities with respect to informal neighbourhoods, arguing that in the context of continuing informality and public service financing imperatives, informal neighbourhoods are increasingly viewed as potential revenue sources for utilities.

7.1. Experimentation in supply

Informality – both in terms of the extension of services to informal neighbourhoods and the integration of informal providers – is being re-appraised by service providers and the state, as several logics combine in the context of territorial expansion by utilities. This concurs with, and adds to, earlier analyses of changing policies towards secure tenure (see Section 2). Governments have made national and international commitments to expanding water access. The emphasis on cost recovery means that utilities require income; this requires expanding their customer base and, ideally, increasing earnings from each unit sold. Reconsidering previous attitudes to informal settlements has been one outcome of this. Households in informal settlements require water and – from the utilities’ perspective – appear to have the ability to pay for this, evidenced by revenue secured by informal water providers in areas where formal supplies are lacking. These informal vendors (including those around supply such as groundwater sources) and the efforts of NGOs in community-driven forms of water supply have demonstrated the potential customer base of informal settlements and, therefore, a viable additional means for utilities to capture revenue.

Through these processes, low-income neighbourhoods in these cities have become places of experimentation. Utilities have sought new modalities of supply (for example, water kiosks), new technologies (for example, pay-by-use meters), and new market-based relations with community groups and informal entrepreneurs. Such innovations sought to resolve a situation characterised by ‘cash-starved’ formal water providers, and low-income urban households without access to formal supplies (see Adams and Zulu [2015] for a discussion of this situation in Malawi). In this context, the approaches of formal and informal providers are becoming less distinct with private entrepreneurs, NGOs, and grassroots organisations playing a role. In Blantyre, water kiosks are run by community Water User Associations (WUAs) that were established by the utility. Kiosks were developed to provide water in informal settlements and operational systems have been modified over the years to make them more effective (Manda, 2009). The commercial orientation of the water boards in Malawi has been influenced by donors (as there is a heavy dependence on development assistance) as well as by government recognition of the importance of water for economic growth (Manda, 2009). Within this set-up, prices and other operational terms are dictated by the utility (Adams & Zulu, 2015). While efforts have been made to keep the price of kiosk water below piped water, water prices still appear to be too high to generate sufficient demand to make kiosks viable. Kiosks have to sell nine cubic meters a month; or 15 jerry cans of 20 litres a day to be financially viable, that is, to cover all costs. (See Adams and Boateng [2018] who make a similar conclusion for Lilongwe.) Even this small amount is not possible in some localities due to the lack of effective demand and kiosks have closed, leading to a lack of supply. In Dar es Salaam there is now a wide diversity of providers. Here government, community groups, NGOs, and informal entrepreneurs are all part of the supply chain. Some non-state providers are sanctioned by the utility as they experiment with modalities of service provision. In Windhoek, utilities have been working with community groups to explore the potential of communal and public meters for households settling in new areas without any access. In this city, the informal sector is not well-developed. The authorities recognise that partnerships with civil society may be helpful in enabling the continuation of cost-recovery policies alongside a commitment to address the needs of low-income residents. In addition to exploring these new relationships, technologies to charge residents on a ‘pay-by-use’ basis as they draw from communal water meters have been introduced. Harare, where informality has long been contested, has been an exception to this trend of experimentation. However, a funding crisis for local authorities has resulted in new models of supply being explored with, for example, NGO installation of boreholes. In Zimbabwe local authorities are testing out new forms of relationships as they seek to improve and extend services in a difficult context in which they have no access to investment capital.¹⁰ Relationships between both community providers and informal enterprises, and the utilities, are asymmetrical in all four cities; for example, the utility determines the costs of supply and tariffs for WUAs in Blantyre, even if there is evidence that rates are unaffordable. The primary emphasis of these experiments thus appears to be either income generation or cost-saving for the utility or public water provider rather than improving access to affordable water for low-income households.

7.2. Access, affordability, and ‘accumulation by inclusion’

As indicated above, the terms and conditions through which people access public services are political. The government decides on the nature and costs of supply. Historically low-income and disadvantaged citizens have struggled to secure access to publicly-provided basic services both because of their low incomes and, in many contexts, their informal residency (see Section 2). On the one hand, informal residency has become less of a problem for utilities and local authorities; there is less discussion about eviction and, as mentioned above, there are even amended City regulations in Windhoek with a more permissive approach to unplanned settlement. On the other hand, based on the evidence above, the shift in the basis of service provision from being a public service towards a commodity has led to problems with affordability. This tension between universal access to water and principles of cost recovery has been recognised for many years (Jaglin, 2002). However, at least in these four cities, there is little effort to resolve this tension, with priority given to recovering costs.

SDI Alliances seek to transform urban development policies and practices through strategic collaboration with powerful agencies, primarily the state. Roy (2014), when analysing the strategies by which spatial informality might be addressed, asks whether it is possible for citizen organisations seeking inclusion to be sufficiently subversive, and successfully challenge governments’ neoliberal approach to the redevelopment of cities. SDI Alliances, in their engagement with the state, seek to legitimate the voice of the urban poor and their right to be involved in solutions to improve outcomes. The primary focus of Federations when engaging with the state has been on municipal planning departments and those with responsibility for regulating and potentially upgrading informal settlements; in other words, there has been emphasis on secure tenure. In Harare (Chitekwe-Biti, 2014), Windhoek (Muller & Mitlin, 2007), and most recently Dar es Salaam (Ndezi, 2009), there has been collaboration between SDI and the authorities to plan and implement informal settlement upgrading and (in Dar es Salaam) resettlement. This work is less advanced in Blantyre, although substantive engagement with the local authority takes place regularly. These partnerships begin with recognition of the presence of informal settlement residents and/or other low-income households and their claim to citizenship. Hence, in this case and unlike Bangalore (Ranganathan, 2014a), households that are Federation members are not dependent on their consumption of utility water for increased legitimacy; rather they have secured it through engaging local authorities. There has been less engagement with water utilities.

The affordability of basic services is increasingly a priority for SDI affiliates and is integrated into upgrading efforts. Federations are recognising that formalisation and upgrading will not in itself ensure affordable services. The study undertook by the Namibian SDI Alliance on service affordability in 2012 was because Federation members were frustrated that efforts to improve homes and neighbourhoods had led to high service bills. Focus group discussions between one of the authors and with members of People’s Square, a Federation self-build neighbourhood in Windhoek, in 2011, 2013, 2015, and 2017 affirmed that service charges remain an issue.¹¹ Despite Federation advocacy, the City of Windhoek has not reduced service charges. The efforts of low-income groups to self-provide water, such as those in Dar es Salaam and Harare, are evidence of struggles against the commodification strategies of formal corporations (public or private). As discussed above, in the case of SDI, this has taken place alongside attempts to engage local authorities and utilities. For example, the Tanzanian Federation participates in a city-wide Urban Sanitation Forum with local government and the local water utility focussed on upgrading sanitation in low-income settlements. The efforts of some other SDI affiliates to collaborate with state agencies to provide services have been more successful. However, this has been in locations in which state subsidies have been provided, such as community-managed sanitation in the State of Maharashtra, India (Patel, 2015).

Utilities in these four cities are clear about their focus on cost recovery. In Harare, for example, the municipal supplier proposes to shift to water and electricity pre-payment meters to avoid defaults. In Dar es Salaam, kiosk water must be paid for at point of delivery. The Federation has recently been negotiating access to waste treatment ponds for a local community-installed sanitation network, and in 2015 households were being charged US$1 per toilet each month to deposit waste water. This seems high given local incomes. The SDI Alliances are keen to engage directly with utilities in improved approaches to service provision, ideally through collaborative experimentation with the authorities. They recognise that, as argued by Subramaniam (2014), the interests of the most disadvantaged are served through collective efforts to ensure inclusive access to public services. However, they face utility managers whose primary concern in a regime of cost-recovery is to raise revenue from the residents of informal settlements; expanding their customer base to advance processes of accumulation. When Federations protest about members’ low incomes, one typical response is to refer to the amounts being paid to informal water providers. A second response is to note consumption goods (for example, cars, phones) that are visible in informal settlements. However, there is little effort to engage with the Federation data on local incomes. The challenge for the Federations, as argued by Gillespie (2016) in a study of Federation low-income housing in Ghana, is to use the potential agency of citizens to secure improvements in the terms and conditions of service provision. Without these efforts, it seems unlikely that utilities will reconsider their approach to pricing. Moreover, they may be unable to resolve these tensions without support from governments.

The complexity of patterns of capitalist accumulation in urban centres has been observed with an emphasis on Harvey’s (2012) argument that ‘accumulation by dispossession’ is taking place with respect to urban land (Bandyopadhyay, 2011; Gillespie, 2016), services (Subramaniam, 2014), and livelihoods such as waste recycling (Samson, 2015). Specifically with respect to the water sector, Subramaniam (2014) argues that provision in India is increasingly a regime of accumulation by dispossession: ‘[…] as water has been increasingly subjected to market imperatives and transformed into a means for capital accumulation, it has become increasingly difficult for governments to manage its distribution in ways that take into account social considerations’ (p. 407). It appears that some form of ‘accumulation by inclusion’ can be observed as formal water markets extend into low-income areas. In these four cities, by extending water provision into informal settlements and integrating low-income households into the formal market, utilities are seeking to generate revenue; in so doing they expose the tension between cost recovery and the affordability of water services for low-income urban households. In using this term, we are drawing attention to the efforts of utilities to secure part of the income of those living in informal settlements. While Ghertner suggests that this is simply the ‘existing institutionally structured marketplace, or the organisation of production, consumption, and exchange as shaped by laws, norms, and governance’ (Ghertner, 2014, p. 1566), there is little of the market place about the public provision of water (Heller & Harilal, 2007). In these four cities, water provision in informal settlements involves processes of experimentation by corporatised utilities to secure the income of households previously unserved by formal suppliers. As discussed in Section 5, it is evident that utilities are making efforts to generate increased revenue. It is not so evident that profits are being secured and capital accumulated. One recent report from Zimbabwe highlights the profitability of water services (at least in recent years) (We Pay, You Deliver, 2018). However, the considerable complexity in pricing assets and evaluating costs means that we have to be cautious about drawing conclusions.

8. Conclusion

Informal settlements and the modus operandi of informal providers offer places and processes of experimentation for formal utilities. These utilities are seeking territorial expansion in order to increase incomes and respond to government requirements that they service low-income households. New operational modalities are required to rise to this challenge. Experimentation at the neighbourhood-level has resulted in informal provider practices (for example, localised sales points such as kiosks), being tested and replicated by utilities. Moreover, informal vendors and community organisations are drawn into the supply chain as utilities experiment with new inter-agency configurations. In this context, formal and informal water supply practices are becoming less distinct. Academic discourses on informality have over-looked the extent to which replication is taking place and the motivation for such actions (see Section 2). We argue that as utilities engage with informal practices in this way it is increasingly difficult to distinguish formal from informal based on specific patterns of behaviour. With this understanding, what is formal and informal has to be context-specific. In the contexts discussed here, informality is negotiated through unequal relations, and is in flux. Such experimentation by corporatised utilities is facilitating processes by which the incomes of those who live in informal settlements can be acquired in a form of accumulation by market inclusion.

The supply models that have emerged in each of the four cities (Table 1) reveal the tension between objectives of cost recovery that enable utilities to maintain and develop provision, and objectives of affordability. This experimentation takes diverse forms: in Blantyre, particular efforts are made to reduce the cost of communal water. However, cost recovery requirements for kiosks have led to closures and consequently households find it more difficult to secure access from the public utility; in Dar es Salaam, a diversity of water retailers are used in part due to the strength of existing informal supply networks; and in both Harare and Windhoek pre-paid meters are being introduced to improve cost-recovery with the extension of services to newly-settled areas in Windhoek. In all four cities, insufficient attention has been paid by utilities to what is affordable for low-income households. The UN Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council argue that water and sanitation facilities and services must be available and affordable (not exceeding 5% of a household’s income) for even the lowest-income households (UN & WSCCC, n.d.). As we illustrate, however, measuring water affordability by the percentage of household income it takes up is not adequate. The percentage of income spent on water says little about whether or not adequate amounts of water can be consumed.

The experiences of low-income and/or informal communities in our four cities reveal that water affordability is a growing concern. Federation groups believe that utilities and local authorities fail to prioritise the needs of low-income and/or informal communities when planning services. The capacity of such communities to identify their basic service needs and engage in planning processes is evidenced through their work on data collection and through the precedents they have developed to address deficiencies in supply. However, to date there has been limited opportunity to engage with water utilities around issues of affordability.

As part of efforts to universalise access to water, SDG 6 includes a target to support and strengthen the participation of local communities in improving water and sanitation management. The imperative is to develop more inclusive planning processes for water service delivery, and to build democratic water governance arrangements that reflect the needs of low-income communities and which create spaces for their participation. This requires local governments and utilities to engage with low-income and informal residents as citizens with rights and capabilities, as opposed to passive customers and sources of revenue. While we have not engaged with the challenge of cost-recovery in this paper, we recognise that sub-Saharan African governments have to ensure the long-term viability of water services. Achieving this requires well-directed subsidies so that services are affordable for low-income households. More effective dialogue between utilities and representative organisations of low-income households appears essential to achieving the expansion of affordable water services. But without a reconsideration of supply imperatives and new objectives for public water providers, it is unlikely that the ‘water’ SDG will be achieved.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs.

2. http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21676774-africans-are-mainly-rich-or-poor-not-middle-class-should-worry; https://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Publications/The%20Middle%20of%20the%20Pyramid_The%20Middle%20of%20the%20Pyramid.pdf.

3. http://www.sdinet.org.

4. Fifty litres per person per day equates to nine kilo litres for a family of six when there are 30 days in the month.

5. Sub-Saharan African utilities have challenges in recovering costs, achieving optimum economies of scale, and cross subsidising services. Government/external investments are essential to the performance of many well-performing utilities, which requires a political commitment to fund the sector. See van den Berg and Danilenko (2017).

6. The scale of informal housing in Harare is difficult to estimate. For many years, squatting was prevented by swift state action. However, under recent Mugabe-led ZANU-PF governments, the occupation of farms has taken place. This has offered a route for the expansion of residential development through housing cooperatives. Some of these occupants are not formal; however, they have some quasi-legal status.

7. See www.sdinet.org.

8. http://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2012/10/basic_water_requirements-1996.pdf and http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/pdf/human_right_to_water_and_sanitation_media_brief.pdf.

9. In most low-income households here there are two income earners.

10. https://www.iied.org/co-learning-for-inclusive-cities.

11. This was confirmed by the Federation’s national leadership in a strategic planning meeting in 1–3 March 2017.