Project

Partnership for Research on viable environmental infrastructure development in East Africa (PROVIDE); towards sustainable waste-water and solid waste infrastructures in East African cities

The PROVIDE project focuses on and contributes to the improvement of sanitation and solid waste management in cities in East Africa (Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania) with an emphasis on the Lake Victoria Region. Developing and assessing the modernised mixtures approach (MMA approach) is the focal point. This approach integrates the (eco)technological, economic, social and governance dimensions of new environmental infrastructures against the background of specific local contexts.

Scope & objectives

The PROVIDE project aims at developing socio-technical infrastructures which are sustainable both in environmental and social respects – the Modernised Mixtures Approach (MMA). The project focuses on developing a knowledge base and the relevant networks for developing and applying this approach. Through different PhD projects PROVIDE will contribute to developing a knowledge base. To guarantee the sustainability of the approach, focus will be on capacity building through training and network relations.

For the design and development of modernized mixtures for sustainable, pro-poor environmental infrastructures an interdisciplinary research approach is required. It is a combined effort of the disciplines environmental policy, environmental technology, development economics and environmental system analysis.

The long-term objective is to help realize the Millennium Development Goal of increasing access to safe drinking water and sanitation and improve the lives of slum dwellers by improving sanitation and solid waste management in East Africa via the application of the Modernised Mixtures Approach.

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Activities

  • Ten PhD students and the co-ordinator conduct research under the umbrella of the PROVIDE programme. The subjects of the 11 PhD-projects are:
  • The modernised mixtures approach for urban infrastructures in cities around the Lake Victoria (Christa de Bruin)
  • Comparative analysis and the identification of best practices on policy, public administration and good governance with regard to urban sanitation and waste (Maurice Onyango)
  • Assessing national policies in East Africa on urban environmental infrastructures and the consequences of different types of (public-private partnership-based) management systems for urban waste and sanitation on access for the poor (Mesharch Katusiimeh)
  • Integrated modelling of the environmental flows of sanitation and waste at district and city levels in East African urban centres (Richard Oyoo)
  • Urban environmental governance: review the implementation of the national policies on sanitation and solid municipal waste management at urban level: institutions, regulations and practices (Sammy Letema)
  • Review the socio-technical systems for solid waste and excreta and wastewater collection, treatment and reuse at urban level used in East Africa (Aisha Oberlin)
  • Assessing the (potential) roles of NGOs and CBOs in public-private arrangements in urban sanitation and waste management (Judith Tukahirwa)
  • Testing and designing innovative systems for collection, treatment and reuse of solid waste in low-income communities in urban areas (Frederick Salukele)
  • Developing an integrated conceptual and methodological approach to develop mixed-morn urban environmental infrastructures that fit in the conditions and needs to communities in East African cities (Christine Majale)
  • Economic limits and possibilities for poor households in slums to use improved environmental infrastructures (Kenyanito Toure)
  • Testing and designing innovative systems for excreta disposal, collection, treatment and reuse for urban low-income communities (Thobias Bigambo)