Report from scoping of innovation hubs across Africa. Profiling best practices to inform establishment of an energy innovation hub at the University of Rwanda

Innovation hubs are being established across the globe as spaces and places where innovative ideas are nurtured and applied to solve emerging societal problems and market needs. There exists, today, more than 600 active hubs across Africa and the interest to establish new ones is widespread. The hubs are understood to have potential for supporting transformative economic growth and development in Africa, through innovation and entrepreneurship.While hubs have largely been established and promoted by innovators and entrepreneurs independently, we are observing growing interest by public and academic institutions across the globe – also in Africa. These institutions are increasingly acknowledging the value of providing support directly to entrepreneurs and innovators by nurturing and protecting their ideas, also by providing safe spaces to ‘fail’. An additional value is the possibility to build social communities within hubs that bring together academics, students, NGOs, policy makers, government administrators, international support organizations, industry actors, innovators and entrepreneurs, community members, etc. Interactions among these so-called ecosystem actors contributeto knowledge creation and provide new platforms that facilitate the development of knowledge economies.This study reports on the findings from a scoping study aimed at profiling best practices among innovation hubs in Africa, while highlighting the values of university-embedded hubs. Forty Five (45) hubs and other relevant organizations were identified and studied, of which fifteen (15) were university-embedded. This\ua0study finds that university-embedded hubs can contribute significantly to the innovation and\ua0entrepreneurship ecosystems by creating a pipeline of students that have gone through ideation stage and are\ua0ready to be incubated either on campus or by existing independent hubs. Additionally, academics play an\ua0essential role of providing scientific inputs to the development of products, in analyzing market conditions,\ua0and in developing frameworks to evaluate the contributions of hubs towards societal transformations

Sustainable Supply of Safe Drinking Water for Underserved Households in Kenya: Investigating the Viability of Decentralized Solutions

Water quality and safe water sources are pivotal aspects of consideration for domestic water. Focusing on underserved households in Kenya, this study compared user perceptions and preferences on water-service provision options, particularly investigating the viability of decentralized models, such as the Safe Water Enterprise (SWE), as sustainable safe drinking water sources. Results showed that among a number of water-service provision options available, the majority of households regularly sourced their domestic water from more than one source (86% Ngoliba/Maguguni, 98% Kangemi Gichagi). A majority of households perceived their water sources to be unsafe to drink (84% Ngoliba/Maguguni, 73% Kangemi Gichagi). For this reason, drinking water was mainly chlorinated (48% Ngoliba/Maguguni, 33% Kangemi Gichagi) or boiled (42% Ngoliba/Maguguni, 67% Kangemi Gichagi). However, this study also found that households in Kenya did not apply these household water treatment methods consistently, thus indicating inconsistency in safe water consumption. The SWE concept, a community-scale decentralized safe drinking water source, was a preferred option among households who perceived it to save time and to be less cumbersome as compared to boiling and chlorination. Willingness to pay for SWE water was also a positive indicator for its preference by the underserved households. However, the long-term applicability of such decentralized water provision models needs to be further investigated within the larger water-service provision context

Report from scoping of innovation hubs across Africa. Profiling best practices to inform establishment of an energy innovation hub at the University of Rwanda [Elektronisk resurs]

Innovation hubs are being established across the globe as spaces and places where innovative ideas are nurtured and applied to solve emerging societal problems and market needs. There exists, today, more than 600 active hubs across Africa and the interest to establish new ones is widespread. The hubs are understood to have potential for supporting transformative economic growth and development in Africa, through innovation and entrepreneurship. While hubs have largely been established and promoted by innovators and entrepreneurs independently, we are observing growing interest by public and academic institutions across the globe – also in Africa. These institutions are increasingly acknowledging the value of providing support directly to entrepreneurs and innovators by nurturing and protecting their ideas, also by providing safe spaces to ‘fail’. An additional value is the possibility to build social communities within hubs that bring together academics, students, NGOs, policy makers, government administrators, international support organizations, industry actors, innovators and entrepreneurs, community members, etc. Interactions among these so-called ecosystem actors contribute to knowledge creation and provide new platforms that facilitate the development of knowledge economies. This study reports on the findings from a scoping study aimed at profiling best practices among innovation hubs in Africa, while highlighting the values of university-embedded hubs. Forty Five (45) hubs and other relevant organizations were identified and studied, of which fifteen (15) were university-embedded. This study finds that university-embedded hubs can contribute significantly to the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems by creating a pipeline of students that have gone through ideation stage and are ready to be incubated either on campus or by existing independent hubs. Additionally, academics play an essential role of providing scientific inputs to the development of products, in analyzing market conditions, and in developing frameworks to evaluate the contributions of hubs towards societal transformations

Anchoring innovations in oscillating domestic spaces: Why sanitation service offerings fail in informal settlements

A persistent conundrum for practitioners and researchers in the development context is that, often, newly provided and improved basic services are not maintained by users despite seemingly superior functionality and user convenience. We argue that one major reason for this is an insufficient understanding of the context in which users have to manage their daily lives. We therefore propose an approach to analysing the embedding of basic services that focuses on the users’ daily practices. We do so by borrowing insights from ‘socio-technical transitions’ and ‘practice theory’ in developing our concept of oscillating domestic spaces. The concept reflects the need for people to constantly respond to quickly changing and precarious circumstances by rearranging their daily practices in time and space and developing a multiplicity of alternative options and partial solutions. We illustrate the analytical approach in a case study of sanitation access in informal settlements of Nairobi, Kenya. The analysis shows how the introduction of a container-based toilet resulted in partial embedding. The innovation anchored to only a part of the oscillating domestic spaces and was in disarray with the needs of users most of the time. The conceptual approach contributes to the understanding about how users take part in sustainability transitions as well as the added value of the time-space dimension in analysing practices in highly complex contexts. We conclude by reflecting on the potential applicability of the analytical approach to transition cases in the Global North

Sustainable Supply of Safe Drinking Water for Underserved Households in Kenya: Investigating the Viability of Decentralized Solutions

Water quality and safe water sources are pivotal aspects of consideration for domestic water. Focusing on underserved households in Kenya, this study compared user perceptions and preferences on water-service provision options, particularly investigating the viability of decentralized models, such as the Safe Water Enterprise (SWE), as sustainable safe drinking water sources. Results showed that among a number of water-service provision options available, the majority of households regularly sourced their domestic water from more than one source (86% Ngoliba/Maguguni, 98% Kangemi Gichagi). A majority of households perceived their water sources to be unsafe to drink (84% Ngoliba/Maguguni, 73% Kangemi Gichagi). For this reason, drinking water was mainly chlorinated (48% Ngoliba/Maguguni, 33% Kangemi Gichagi) or boiled (42% Ngoliba/Maguguni, 67% Kangemi Gichagi). However, this study also found that households in Kenya did not apply these household water treatment methods consistently, thus indicating inconsistency in safe water consumption. The SWE concept, a community-scale decentralized safe drinking water source, was a preferred option among households who perceived it to save time and to be less cumbersome as compared to boiling and chlorination. Willingness to pay for SWE water was also a positive indicator for its preference by the underserved households. However, the long-term applicability of such decentralized water provision models needs to be further investigated within the larger water-service provision context

The challenges of livelihoods reconstruction in the context of informal settlement upgrading

Community involvement is recognized as a core condition for success in informal settlements upgrading. However, the wider ramifications of this requirement are not well understood. Mostly, community involvement has been equated with a narrow interpretation of participation, largely focusing on the elicitation of dwellers’ preferences at the planning stages. We argue that this approach overlooks the actual needs for livelihoods reconstruction in the course of upgrading. To better conceptualize these requirements, we propose to analyse the time–space configuration of practices, which we frame as constituting Oscillating Domestic Spaces. The concept illustrates the contingent nature of daily activities to meet livelihoods needs and how people navigate these conditions. Challenges associated with reconstructing new domestic spaces are illustrated using the Kenyan Slum Upgrading (Kensup) initiative in Nairobi, Kenya. The findings suggest that an inadequate understanding and consideration of livelihoods reconstruction reduced legitimacy of the initiative, resulted in rapid deterioration of physical amenities and relegated most of the alleged ‘beneficiaries’ deeper into poverty. We suggest that, for successful settlements upgrading, livelihoods reconstruction should be a core process in the planning, implementation and post-implementation stages. </jats:p

The challenges of livelihoods reconstruction in the context of informal settlement upgrading

Community involvement is recognized as a core condition for success in informal settlements upgrading. However, the wider ramifications of this requirement are not well understood. Mostly, community involvement has been equated with a narrow interpretation of participation, largely focusing on the elicitation of dwellers’ preferences at the planning stages. We argue that this approach overlooks the actual needs for livelihoods reconstruction in the course of upgrading. To better conceptualize these requirements, we propose to analyse the time–space configuration of practices, which we frame as constituting Oscillating Domestic Spaces. The concept illustrates the contingent nature of daily activities to meet livelihoods needs and how people navigate these conditions. Challenges associated with reconstructing new domestic spaces are illustrated using the Kenyan Slum Upgrading (Kensup) initiative in Nairobi, Kenya. The findings suggest that an inadequate understanding and consideration of livelihoods reconstruction reduced legitimacy of the initiative, resulted in rapid deterioration of physical amenities and relegated most of the alleged ‘beneficiaries’ deeper into poverty. We suggest that, for successful settlements upgrading, livelihoods reconstruction should be a core process in the planning, implementation and post-implementation stages