Sanitation and Service Delivery in Cape Town (CHEC Project)

Aim: The project focuses on how the City can better understand, engage, and respond to the needs and imaginaries of residents in informal settlements in relation to sanitation provision.

Project description: Improving communication to improve services: Strengthening sanitation servicing in informal settlements: This project was motivated by the overarching theme of building ‘local responsiveness for a better future’. The work focussed on how the City of Cape Town (CCT) can better understand, engage, and respond to the needs and imaginaries of residents in informal settlements in relation to sanitation provision. Specifically we looked at the servicing and maintenance of Container Based Sanitation (CBS). The City works in this area to provide alternate sanitation technologies such as CBS in areas where the provision of waterborne sanitation is not possible or feasible. The research secondly supported the City in  enhancing approaches to working with and for citizens of Cape Town in the areas of active citizenship and citizen generated data. The research explored what type of resident-state engagement residents of informal settlements desire and how this relates to current CCT communication platforms. 

The research focussed on BM Section in Khayelitsha and employed several methods including: a) focus groups with residents; b) workshops with residents of BM Section and CCT; c) tracking of servicing requests by residents and d) a survey.  We found that residents would strongly prefer to report service requests to a person rather than through digital channels. Most digital channels are not know about or user friendly to residents, due to poor information sharing and high data costs/lack of access to WIFI. The most promising digital channel for logging requests is WhatsApp. Even when provided with data residents were inactive in using digital channels to report faults. Residents would however like to be more involved in the servicing chain, by for example, being trained to provide repairs. There was a strong desire for a more engaged form of communication, beyond information sharing and towards co-creation of solutions.