URBAN RESEARCH

1) Researching and co-writing the Water Integrity Global Outlook 2021

Urban Research worked with DKH Consulting to support the Client (Water Integrity Network) to research and write the Water Integrity Global Outlook 2021. This international publication will have a specific focus on urban issues, and will be published in 2021. 

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2) World Bank study of mechanisms for incentivisation of slum service delivery

Urban Research worked through WSUP Advisory (as lead firm) to deliver a 4-country study entitled "How can African national institutions incentivise subnational actors to improve water and sanitation services in low-income urban areas". The study is expected to be published in 2021. The Client for this work was the World Bank, Water Global Practice Water Supply and Sanitation Global Solutions Group

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3) Support to WSUP M&E design​

Urban Research delivered a short piece of work to support WSUP Advisory in the development of the M&E Framework for the Conrad N Hilton Foundation project in Uganda, which is a broad programme of capacity support to the Mid-Western Umbrella of Water and Sanitation in Uganda.

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4) ESAWAS/BMGF Citywide Inclusive Sanitation study

Urban Research is currently working through WSUP Advisory to support a study around the critical importance of clear mandates, strong accountability and fit-for-purpose resourcing for citywide inclusive sanitation. The series is led by the Eastern and Southern Africa Water Regulators Association (ESAWAS) with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). We are working across all 3 areas (mandates, accountability, resourcing), and leading on the accountability component.

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Recent publications with Urban Research involvement

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• "Quality Check: How can we ensure sanitation achieves health and quality of life outcomes in low-income areas?" This WSUP publication (Guy Norman co-editor) summarises the findings and policy implications of the Urban Sanitation Research Initiative around sanitation quality. See here for more details on outputs of the Urban Sanitation Research Initiative, which was led by Dr Norman.

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• "What do slumdwellers want? Service improvement priorities of slumdwellers in Ghana and Kenya". This publication (in preparation) will report the findings of a study delivered under the Urban Sanitation Research Initiative. A taster of the findings of this study in Nairobi (based on 3000 household interviews) is given below. The graphic [visible on laptop screen, too big for mobile rendering] shows aggregated results across all slums in Nairobi. Blue bars represent the proportion of respondents who included that service within their top 5 for prioritisation; this is normalised with respect to the highest prioritised service (Sanitation in the Nairobi case, included in the top-5-priorities-for-improvement by 49% of respondents). Orange bars show averaged respondent assessment of the current quality of that service; response options were “good”, “adequate”, “poor” or “non-existent”, subsequently scored as 3-2-1-0; values in the graphic are normalised with respect to the averaged score for the highest-rated service (Education).

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