Due to urbanization and governmental incapacity to cope with the consequent increase in demand for housing in cities, more than 10 % of the South African population is living in informal settlements. This group is also growing at high rates, causing settlements in cities to be established in ever less suitable conditions (Gaunt et al. 2012; Wolpe & Reddy 2010). Informal households in locations considered unsuitable for habitation are not sufficiently addressed by current national policies aimed at relieving energy poverty. These households instead resort to buying electricity from their neighbors or stealing from the grid, posing issues of revenue losses, network reliability, safety and affordability, and they also continue to rely on unclean use of fuel for cooking and lighting (Franks & Prasad 2014; Tait 2013). At the same time, alternative ways of providing energy services, such as Solar Home Systems and LPG being tested in such contexts need further examination.  This thesis explores how access to basic energy services can be sustainably provided to informal households that are ineligible for grid electrification, by comparing current and alternative ways of accessing energy services and identifying some barriers and opportunities related to these. The sustainability of the access alternatives is studied using a multi-criteria sustainability assessment (MCSA). This approach incorporates a case study in the Western Cape Province, focused on Cape Town, using semi-structured interviews to explore views and knowledge of stakeholders and experts. The MCSA identifies notable trade-offs of various access alternatives and suggests that off-grid electricity alternatives may provide a short or medium-term solution if provided along with gas for cooking accessed at local convenience stores. The case study further shows that barriers for electrification can be overcome in most cases, providing that there is political will at the local level to do so. At the same time, it is shown that the current focus on electricity is limited in its success of providing access to basic energy services. It is suggested that sustainable implementation of alternatives to grid electricity is likely to depend on a range of factors, including political will, policy framework, funding and allocation of subsidies, the model of service provision, as well as social dynamics. The case study also indicate that non-government initiatives may be necessary in some cases, both to overcome political inertia and to gain social acceptance among households. In conclusion, this study supports the suggestion that governmental efforts aimed at access to energy services, as opposed to supply of electricity, may be more effective in meeting basic needs. It also suggests that close cooperation between various government levels, as well as non-government actors and the local community is crucial to sustainably meeting these needs. As this work was limited both in time and scope, further studies should apply and/or study possible models of providing access to basic energy services, using findings from this study as a starting point. / Till följd av urbanisering och regeringens oförmåga att hantera åtföljande ökade efterfrågan på bostäder i städer lever mer än 10 % av den Sydafrikanska befolkningen i informella bosättningar eller slumområden. Denna grupp växer också kraftigt vilket leder till att bosättningar etableras på allt sämre lämpade platser (Gaunt et al. 2012; Wolpe & Reddy 2010). Informella hushåll på platser som anses olämpliga för boende nås inte av nuvarande nationella policyer inriktade på att bekämpa energifattigdom. Dessa hushåll lämnas således åt att köpa elektricitet från sina grannar eller att stjäla från elnätet, vilket orsakar problem med intäktsförluster, elnätets pålitlighet, säkerhet och betalningssvårigheter, och de får också fortsätta att förlita sig på oren användning av bränslen för matlagning och belysning (Franks & Prasad 2014; Tait 2013). Samtidigt behöver alternativa sätt att tillhandahålla energitjänster, så som Solar Home Systems och gasol, som testas i sådana sammanhang undersökas ytterligare. Denna uppsats undersöker hur tillgång till grundläggande energitjänster kan förmedlas på ett hållbart sätt till informella hushåll som inte är berättigade till elnätsanslutning, genom att jämföra nuvarande och alternativa sätt att få tillgång till energitjänster, samt genom att identifiera vissa hinder och möjligheter i samband med dessa. Hållbarheten hos försörjningsalternativen studeras genom en multi-kriteriell hållbarhetsbedömning (MCSA). Detta tillvägagångssätt inbegriper en fallstudie i Västra Kapprovinsen med fokus på Kapstaden och använder semistrukturerade intervjuer för att utforska åsikter och kunskap hos intressegrupper och experter. Med MCSA identifieras betydande avvägningar mellan olika försörjningsalternativ och det föreslås att icke nätbaserade alternativ kan utgöra möjliga lösningar på kort eller meddelång sikt, ifall de tillhandahålls tillsammans med gas för matlagning genom lokala närbutiker. Fallstudien visar vidare att hinder för elektrifiering kan övervinnas i de flesta fall, förutsatt att det finns politisk vilja på lokal nivå för detta.  Samtidigt visas att den nuvarande fokusen på elnätsanslutning är begränsad i dess förmåga att tillhandahålla grundläggande energitjänster. Det föreslås att hållbarheten i genomförande av alternativ till elnätsanslutningar i kontexten sannolikt beror på en rad faktorer, bland annat politisk vilja, politiska ramverk, finansiering och fördelning av styrmedel, modellen för tillhandahållande av tjänster, samt social dynamik. Fallstudien visar också att icke-statliga insatser kan vara nödvändiga i vissa fall, både för att övervinna politisk tröghet samt att vinna social acceptans bland hushållen. Sammanfattningsvis stöder denna studie förslaget att statliga ansatser som syftar till att tillgång till energitjänster, i motsats till elförsörjning, kan vara mer effektiva när det gäller att tillgodose grundläggande behov. Studien föreslår också att ett nära samarbete och interaktion mellan olika förvaltningsnivåer, samt icke-statliga aktörer och lokalsamhället är avgörande för att på ett hållbart sätt möta dessa behov. Vidare studier bör tillämpa och/eller studera möjliga modeller för tillhandahållande av grundläggande energitjänster, med resultaten från denna studie som utgångspunkt.

La réflexion proposée prend forme à partir d’un projet de vie établi entre l’Equateur et la France. La thèse interroge les conditions de conduite du travail juridique dans l’orbite du phénomène de territorialisation des ‘établissements humains informels’ -asentamientos urbanos informales- de Guayaquil, ailleurs connus comme ‘slums’ ou ‘taudis’. La mise en cause de l’incidence économique, sociale, culturelle ou environnementale des usages et pratiques professionnelles du droit sur la ville en devenir, l’évocation d’une dimension éventuellement marginalisante, discriminatoire ou traumatique du travail juridique depuis la perspective des ‘usagers’ ou des ‘administrés’, paraissent troublantes au premier abord. Inscrits dans un mouvement d’itération constante entre l’observation participante et la théorie de l’agir juridique, les travaux entreprennent de poser les jalons épistémologiques et méthodologiques pour un travail de situation de l’agir juridique aux portes de la ville Sud. La lecture renouvelée de la contextualité urbaine marginale et le développement d’instruments de cartographie de la fonction sociale du juriste ‘en situation’ constituent les principaux résultats de l’investigation. Les développements coïncident, par ailleurs et d’une manière générale, avec l’investiture du gouvernement de la « Révolution citoyenne » -Revolucion ciudadana-. Ils offrent, dès lors et chemin faisant, un aperçu « vu d’en bas » sur le devenir des réformes traversant le pays aux lendemains de l’adoption de la Constitution du « Buen vivir ». / The investigation is building upon a life project established between Ecuador and France. The doctoral thesis questions social legal work’s conditions in the ambit of Guayaquil’s informal human settlements’ territorialization -elsewhere known as “slums” or “taudis”-. The mention of economic, social, cultural or environnemental’s downfalls associated to legal practices’ development in forthcoming cities, the pointing out of ongoing discriminations, marginalization and traumas caused by legal malpractices does create, at first glimpse, an awkward feeling among the legal development practitioners’ community. Through a continued iteration between participative observation, fieldworks and legal endeavor’s theory, the doctoral thesis develops epistemological and methodological backgrounds in order to better situate legal work in city peripheries of the South. Means to renew our understandings of marginal urban contexts, on the one hand, and to reevaluate the social function of legal practices, on the other, are the principal outcomes of our research work. The fieldwork coincided, otherwise, with the investiture of the “Revolucion ciudadana government”. Hence, the thesis does offer some bottom-up insights on the becomings of legal and political reforms in the aftermaths of the “Buen vivir” Ecuadorian Constitution’adoption.

abstract: Diarrheal diseases caused by poor water, sanitation and hygiene continue to kill more children in Sub-Saharan Africa's burgeoning informal urban settlements than in any other part of the world. In recent years, Delegated Management Model (DMM), a partnership in which a utility delegates service management to slum residents have been promoted as new models to improve services. This dissertation examines the benefits of DMM by comparing water services in three informal settlements in Kisumu city, Kenya: two slums where DMM has been implemented, and one, a control, where it has not. In addition, the research examined how school-based hygiene interventions could be designed to improve safe water and hygiene knowledge in urban informal settlements. This study compared outcomes of two approaches to hygiene education, one which combined messages with participatory water testing; the second used hygiene messages alone. Results of the DMM study showed that DMM implementation had lowered water cost and improved provider accountability. However, unhygienic water collection and handling practices on the part of the service users could contaminate drinking water that was clean at the delivery point, thus preventing the intended health outcomes of DMM from being realized. Results of the hygiene education intervention showed that one week after the inventions, hygiene knowledge among students who received the intervention that combined hygiene messages with participatory water testing was significantly improved. Evaluation of the intervention 12 months after implementation showed that the hygiene knowledge gained was sustained. The research findings suggest that: i) regular monitoring of water quality at the kiosks is essential to ensure that the DMM model achieves intended health outcomes, ii) sanitation conditions at kiosk sites need to be regulated to meet minimum hygiene standards, and iii) customers need to be educated on safe water collection and storage practices. Finally, school-based hygiene education could be made more effective by including hands-on water testing by students. Making sustainable impact on health and wellbeing of slum residents requires not only building effective partnerships for water delivery, but also paying close attention to the other points of intervention within the water system. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Sustainability 2014