Surviving on Four Buckets: 01 Carrying the weight of water scarcity скачать в хорошем качестве

Surviving on Four Buckets: 01 Carrying the weight of water scarcity

This six-part documentary series examines chronic water insecurity in Mountain City and Phumla Mqashi, two informal settlements in the City of Johannesburg, through an empirical focus on the 'truck-and-tank' system (Jojo tanks supplied by tanker deliveries). Drawing on residents’ accounts and sustained on-site observation, the series analyses how a nominally temporary service arrangement becomes institutionalised as a long-term modality of urban water provision. It documents the operational features of the system—unpredictable delivery schedules, insufficient volumes, and weak maintenance —and traces their consequences for daily practices of water acquisition, rationing, and household reproduction. The series further investigates downstream developmental effects, including constraints on hygiene and health, disruptions to Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres, and limitations on household food production and livelihood strategies. Particular attention is given to the political economy of coping: the accumulation of household-level infrastructure (containers, drums, private tanks) and the expansion of informal water markets that shift costs onto low-income residents, often increasing the unit price of water relative to formal tariff structures. By foregrounding community agency and resilience without recognition, the series contributes to debates on state capability, accountability, and rights-based service delivery, and advances a practical agenda for transparency and minimum service standards in tanker-based water provision. Part 1 This episode situates access to water as a foundational determinant of health, dignity, and socioeconomic development, and examines how chronic scarcity reshapes everyday life in Johannesburg’s informal settlements. Focusing on Mountain City and Phumla Mqashi in the city’s southern periphery, it introduces the truck-and-tank system—Jojo tanks supplied by tanker deliveries—as the dominant mode of water provision. The episode analyses how an intervention framed as temporary becomes normalised as a long-term service arrangement, despite persistent unreliability, insufficient supply, and weak operational accountability. Through residents’ narratives and on-the-ground observation, it traces the everyday implications of this infrastructure: prolonged waiting and queueing, rationing practices, and pervasive uncertainty regarding timing and volume of deliveries. It further interrogates the distributional consequences of this service model, including the time and financial burdens absorbed by households, the impacts on wellbeing and social relations, and the broader constraints imposed on community life and local development when water access remains contingent rather than guaranteed. About PARI is an African institute doing research into the constraints to effective governance, underlining the importance of improved institutional design and performance. We work towards building effective and democratic state institutions, for more equitable policies to reduce poverty and inequality. Learn more about our work at: https://pari.org.za/