Between self-help and emerging water markets: self-governance, everyday practices and the spatiality of water access in Dar es Salaam

ABSTRACT

In many Sub-Saharan African cities, residents depend more or less on decentralized (off the utility grid) water infrastructures, often by engaging in diverse but ordinary daily acts through which water is supplied and collected beyond the utility. However, little is known about how these practices and governance arrangement shape water access in terms of distance of water sources, reliability, affordability and water quality. This study addresses this gap by exploring the potential and limits of the ordinary ways in which peri-urban residents self-supply and collect water and how that shape water access. Through in-depth interviews, observations and household surveys, we contribute to urban water infrastructure governance debates by showcasing how these practices driven by a constellation of governance actors, simplified water access situation, and enable the involved actors (independent self-help actors and market-oriented actors) to earn extra income. The practices were characterized by informal relations, financial powers to supply water and to restrict use. These (re)produced geographies of access advantage in favor of the suppliers and access disadvantages to residents who depended on off the utility grid water infrastructures in the absence of state utility. We conclude that although the ordinary ways of supplying and regulating water infrastructures hold some potential for fulfilling the water access gaps, the uneven power relations, propertisation and commodification of water infrastructures limit their usefulness.

KEYWORDS:

• Everyday practices
• self-governance
• urban infrastructure
• water access
• Dar es Salaam

Acknowledgements

We sincerely thank the three anonymous reviewers for their useful comments that led to the improvement of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The lead author received funding support (scholarship) from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for this research as part of their PhD.