Gehood Zateya: Governing Urban Water Access in Cairo

Extreme weather changes in the Middle East are mostly mitigated by state-led development, with a particular focus on the chronic lack or damaging abundance of water in particular. Despite of recent corporatization of water governance in the region, communities lie at the crux of water supply, maintenance, and quality. Marginalized communities have always developed their own methods of sustainable access to water, and especially in times of crisis like the Pandemic. Water governance operates as part of self-built networks in urban milieus; and is constructed through grassroots efforts, social capital, and heterogenous configurations of socio-technical relations. Negotiations between state, non-state actors and within communities determine how livelihoods are affected by water in/security such as food security, sanitation, and ultimately citizenship. My study explores how communities come together and/or compete to create networks of sustainable and localized efforts to guarantee access, supply, repair and maintenance of public commons such as water. This event will be chaired by Dr Paroj Banerjee.