Going Small When the City Grows Big
Abstract Actual development of water and wastewater systems in towns is an outcome of several interrelated factors such as physical, economic, and social environments. Demography is also an important factor to consider in the formulation of development strategies. Too often in policy papers, population increase only serves as an argument for urgent action, but rarely as a factor in its own right that affects chances of improving a grave situation. A model is developed to generate water management options in urban areas related to population growth. A hypothesis is that management should go small in periods when the city expands rapidly. A study is presented of the development of water and sanitation in the town of Kisumu in Kenya on the shore of Lake Victoria during last century. The aim is to describe and analyze actual development in the water sector and to foresee what prospective developments could be identified in light of continued rapid population growth. The slow growth of the town in the colonial period allowed towns to adequately meet the needs of all residents for water. The extremely rapid population growth after Independence in 1963 interacted with other factors to cause a successive deterioration of residents access to water and sewage disposal.
Fighting the urine blindness to provide more sanitation options
South Africa is trying hard to improve sanitation in the country and presently a White Paper is being prepared to outline the sanitation policy. A brief look around the globe shows that most countries are facing sanitary problems, especially in the expanding cities in the Southern Hemisphere. There is a need to know what is being done in other countries in order to extend the policy options. This article provides such information and focuses on excreta disposal systems which use little or no water , and various ways to use the end-products of faeces and urine. We have to do away with our urine blindness to discover new possibilities.
Coronial Practice, Indigeneity and Suicide
All available data suggest that, like many other Indigenous peoples, Australian Aborigines are significantly more likely to kill themselves than are non-Aboriginal Australians. This statistical disparity is normally positioned an objective, ontological and undeniable social fact, a fact best explained as a function of endemic community disadvantage and disenfranchisement. This research explores the possibility that higher-than-normal Aboriginal suicide rates may also be a function of coronial decision-making practices. Based upon in-depth interviews with 32 coroners from across Australia, the following conclusions emerged from the data. First, coroners have differing perceptions of Indigenous capacity, and are less likely to have concerns about intent when the suicide is committed by an Indigenous person. Second, coroners have identified divergent scripts of Indigenous suicide, particularly its spontaneity and public location, and this supports rather than challenges, a finding of suicide. Third, the coronial perception of Indigenous life is a factor which influences a suicide determination for Indigenous deaths. Finally, the low level of Indigenous engagement with the coronial system, and the unlikelihood of a challenge to the finding of suicide by Indigenous families, means that a coronial determination of suicide is more likely.