Drawing comparisons in Dar es Salaam

Transporting water by bicycle. Source: All Africa

Inspired by Stine’s engagement with Kjellén’s (2000) paper, I thought I would give it a read for myself. Having been to Dar es Salaam a few years ago I wanted to take the opportunity to learn a bit more about its water situation and reflect on any similarities it might have with the other urban areas that I have considered so far. 

Kjellén’s paper kicks off with a really interesting analysis of Dar’s physical water resources, a rare find in the literature on urban water. By revealing that the city’s physical water supplies are plentiful she gives evidence to an idea that has emerged in much of the literature that I have consulted so far. That is, that the problems here are political and not hydrological. That in Dar es Salaam, as elsewhere, a great deal of the challenge in terms of access derives from a horribly neglected secondary water supply. 

As appears to be the norm, the gap in supply is filled by private water vendors. These entrepreneurial individuals access water where the piped network is available, either legally or illegally (as was noted in Kibera) and then sell it on at a profit to those with no supply of their own. Something that was new to me in Kjellén’s account was that vendors in Dar es Salaam readily transport water around the city by bicycle, charging up to five times as much for a delivery as they would for someone ‘waiting at the tap’. 

For Kjellén private vendors are an ‘interim’ solution, a pop-up industry that has filled the gap whilst pipe issues are resolved. But with their presence clearly persisting into the early stages of the 21st century (see Ayalew et al. 2013) a number of questions begin to emerge. For instance, what has the growth of private vendors meant for the likelihood of piped network reform? Or, how does their existence relate to the neoliberal forms of governance that I discussed in my last blog? I hope to begin to address these in my next few blogs as I focus in on the issues of privatisation and independent water providers.