The research project ACTUS aimed at investigating everyday experiences of solid waste and sanitation in peri-urban areas in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The overall goal of ACTUS is to discern the relationship between urban infrastructure systems, pro-poor growth and climate hazards. The specific scientific objectives were to contextualize solid waste management and sanitation in Dar es Salaam, to understand and document locally embedded practices and to provide a platform for exchange between different institutions and stakeholders
ACTUS has another central objective. The outgoing phase aimed at gaining more maturity in research through advance training in the region, to be truly embedded at my host institution (Ardhi University) and to shape a new generation of Tanzanian scholars through knowledge transfer.
The research context is Dar es Salaam, one of the fastest growing coastal cities of East Africa. Dar es Salaam. It is a bustling, growing city with a population estimated at 5.4 million inhabitants in 2016 and projected to become a megacity of over 10 million inhabitants in 2030. ACTUS then operates in a context of rapid transformation wwith increasing urbanization, diminishing natural resources and damaging flooding events.
There has been little attention accorded to the human experience and local strategies amidst urban transformation. ACTUS seeks to shed light on everyday experiences of solid waste and wastewater to expand our understanding of incremental, off-grid and complementary infrastructure in East Africa.
A crucial aspect of ACTUS was to influence positively the practice of research. This was done by truly integrating myself in the Tanzanian academic life and by experiencing the barriers and the opportunities associated with conducting research in conditions very different than the ones experienced in Europe.
