Co-designing systems for sustainable energy technologies in informal settlement households in Nairobi a case study of Mathare Valley informal settlement

Abstract

Empirical data shows that there is limited adoption of sustainable energy technologies especially by residents of urban informal settlements in Kenya. This is because informal settlement dwellers, such as those living in Mathare valley, have little incentive to switch from unsustainable energies such as kerosene and illegal electricity connections to more sustainable energy sources. Mathare valley is one of the oldest informal settlements within Nairobi, housing over 200, 000 residents. Given that the settlement is growing exponentially, and is characteristic of informal settlements in the city, it is imperative to study the challenges encompassing the adoption of sustainable resources by low income households in the settlement, in order to propose systems that would potentially improve adoption. The overarching methodology of this research anchors on socio-technological reciprocity as an approach that borrows from the Actor Network theory (ANT). In socio-technological reciprocity, people and technologies interact continuously to reproduce environments that disable or enable the adoption of sustainable energy technologies. Using the case study of Mathare, the study analyses how disabling and enabling environments hinder or promote the adoption of sustainable energy technologies. Using a household survey of 100 households, a participatory mapping exercise and a focus group discussion, it is established that in the current disabling environment, resistance to adopting sustainable energy can be attributed to: inaccessible technologies; constraining socio-economic factors; restrictive micro-politics; and a detached macro-policy framework. To counter this, the study proposes the use of design thinking to facilitate an enabling environment in which an integrated socio-technological approach promotes the acceptance of sustainable energy technologies. To demonstrate the use of design thinking, two focus-group sessions were conducted. The first one is a multi- stakeholder HCD workshop that engaged respondents from various households in Mathare, energy providers among other stakeholders of the energy systems in Mathare, as well as policy actors from the Ministry of Energy. The second was a policy seminar that brought together residents from Mathare, energy and health experts, as well as policy actors. The two sessions highlighted the importance of co-designing informal settlement solutions with the informal settlement dwellers themselves, as well as the need for integrated policy dialogues. The end result of the research is the proposal of sustainable product-service systems that can be used to foster the adoption of the existing sustainable energy technologies.