Urban electricity governance and the (re)production of heterogeneous electricity constellations in Dar es Salaam Electricity infrastructures in sub-Saharan African cities are characterized by heterogeneous socio-technical constellations, including alternative grid access channels and off-grid systems. These constellations secure access beyond conventional grids but also produce adverse social, environmental, and economic outcomes affecting sustainable energy transition efforts….

Toward Urban Resilience? Coping with Blackouts in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania The seamless and ubiquitous supply of infrastructure services such as electricity is usually seen as a critical backbone of modern urban societies. Yet electricity supply in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, like many other infrastructure services in cities in the Global South, is unreliable and…

Practicing urban resilience to electricity service disruption in Accra, Ghana Electricity is essential for the functioning of contemporary cities. However, despite its overarching criticality, residents of Southern cities like Accra are challenged by splintered access and limited reliability of electricity services. To maintain access, and creatively maneuver blackout situations, residents in Southern cities employ many…

Translating the sustainable development goals in national development planning: the case of Mozambique’s energy for all programme The international community has emphasised the importance of governments adapting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to national policy priorities. Whilst sustainability assessment frameworks and indicators are meant to facilitate adaptation, their assumption of high institutional capacity…

Mobilizing heterogeneity: understanding the dynamic qualities and diversity of energy access in Maputo Significant steps have been made to expand grid-level electricity access in Maputo, Mozambique. Simultaneously, research highlights the emergence of alternative socio-technical infrastructures that often run parallel or complementary to centralized electricity networks. Approaching energy access across such technologies and practices is crucial…

January 2020 almost marked the mid-point of the UrbanHIT project. Time for us to look back at the past activities, milestones and outcomes. What did we achieve? What are the learning effects for the next two years to come? These and other questions were addressed together with the whole consortium as well as our practitioner…

After months of intensive field work, data analysis and drafting of results, our post-doctoral researchers Dr. Daniel Msangi (Ardhi University) and Dr. Eléusio Viegas Filipe (Eduardo Mondlane University) arrived in the beginning of November 2019 to spend a period for intensive writing at Utrecht University. During their three weeks long exchange, the project organized a…

The research consortium organized the first meeting of our Advisory Board, chaired by Prof. Monstadt and co-chaired by Dr. Otsuki. The meeting took place at Utrecht University. With the help of internationally renowned experts in the field of urban infrastructures in the global South, we were able to: reflect on results from the first 1.5…

Our PhD candidate, Mathias Koepke, will present his research on six diverse settlements in Dar es Salaam and their different urban electricity constellations at his first large international conference in London. He will participate in the session named “Mapping the new spatialities of electricity infrastructure in the energy transition“, taking place on August 29, 2019.

In July 2019, the whole research consortium organized two further meetings of the Communities of Practice (CoP) in Maputo and Dar es Salaam, marking the third overall in each city. Researchers presented their initial findings on the diversity of urban electricity constellations (Mathias Koepke) and in-depth observations of two low-income settlements (Dr. Msangi) in Dar…