Applying New Institutional Economics to the Mozambican water and sanitation sector

by Noud
I wrote my Industrial Ecology thesis as part of the this project, wherein I focussed on the (informal) institutions that govern the relations between the actors present in Maputo’s sanitation sector. My research found its origin in the school of New Institutional Economics (NIE), which is an economic perspective that attempts to extend economics by focusing on the institutions, i.e. the social and legal norms and rules, that underlie economic activity and with analysis beyond earlier institutional economics and neoclassical economics. NIE assumes that individuals are rational and that they seek to maximise their preferences, but that they also have cognitive limitations, lack complete information and have difficulties monitoring and enforcing agreements. Continue reading

Sanitation event in Maputo

by André

On the 8th of November, as part of the celebrations of the 130 years on the City of Maputo, the Municipality organized a public event about sanitation. The day included a presentation about the city-wide sanitation Masterplan and a field-trips throughout the city. Continue reading

Attending IWA’s international conference on water reclamation in Long Beach

By Noor
It was 16:30 on the 21st of July 2017 that I arrived at Long Beach airport after a long trip from Maputo, on a sunny day with nice and warm weather. Continue reading

Dynamic adaptive policy pathways approach for Maputo

by André and Jesper

Jesper characterized the challenges that Maputo faces using the framework of Dynamic Adaptive Pathways (DAPPS), which was developed by Marjolijn Haasnoot, a colleague at the Faculty of TPM here in Delft. You can read all about Jesper’s work in this entry. Continue reading

Team Anaerobic Maputo

by Jelle and Stijn

In the spring of 2017 we, Jelle Epema and Stijn Dijsselbloem students from the TU Delft, went to Mozambique to work on our BSc thesis on wastewater treatment. We stayed for a period of two months, from the beginning of April to the start of June. Continue reading

Witnessing the politics of integrated urban resilience agenda in Mozambique

by Adriano

In the past 20th April I had the opportunity to witness some of the efforts to integrate the theme of urban resilience into the planning cycle in Mozambique. I participated in an event named “The Dialogue on Urban Resilience in Mozambique”. This event aimed to stimulate new ideas and solutions to incorporate disaster resilience into the country’s development strategies, plans and programs. More information can be found on UN Habitat’s Facebook page. Continue reading

Results of the household survey – a comic strip

by Lena

In the past few months we were quite busy finalizing the technical report discussing the household survey that we did together with WSP at the end of 2014 and beginning of 2015. I wrote about it here and here and you can now grab a copy of the final report here. By the way, this work was the basis our WEDC paper and for my MSc thesis – very productive! Continue reading

My third (and last) post

by Nessia

1. Looking Back
The time passed so quickly until I realized that six months had passed since I flew back to Delft. It was hard to say goodbye to everyone in Maputo who had been with me from March until May but it was even harder noticing that some goodbyes were left unspoken since I could not say it directly for a last time. However, the next phase of my thesis project was waiting for me: the design of the wastewater treatment plant. Continue reading

Defenses

by André

In the last few months we had three MSc defenses: Iana went first, the 19th of September, followed by Jay-el on the 23rd. More recently (30th of November) was the time for Nessia‘s MSc defense. They all did really well and you can grab a copy of the theses here.

Then, on the 24th of November both Celma and Noor defended their research proposals, with Adriano doing the same on the 29th. The three of them got a GO.

Congratulations everybody!