Papers by Festival Godwin Boateng
Transportation Research Procedia, 2024
Africa is one of the key sites of global toilet suffering, with some 779 million people experienc... more Africa is one of the key sites of global toilet suffering, with some 779 million people experiencing deficient access to adequate, safe and clean toilets. Sanitation and development scholars and practitioners have extensively documented the impacts of toilet suffering and inadequate access to sanitation generally in Africa on various dimensions of sustainable development, including its adverse effects on public health (e.g., disease impacts); women and girl's safety (e.g., toilet access-linked sexual violence); girlchild education (e.g. school absenteeism and abandonment among girls linked to toilet access impediments during menstruation) and the economy generally (e.g., impact on health spending and productivity losses). Much less, however, is known about the effects on sustainable urban transport. This paper contributes to the limited research on toilet access and mobility in African cities. It argues that toilet suffering in urban transport context poses important sustainability concerns related, but not limited, to pleasant mobility experience; equitable everyday access, public participation and urban citizenship; road safety; occupational health and safety that could benefit from knowledge building and further learning. The paper aims to stimulate a shift towards making toilet access more valued and embedded in urban and mobility policy and research in Africa.
While most countries in Africa have revised the planning laws they inherited from their colonial ... more While most countries in Africa have revised the planning laws they inherited from their colonial experience, research shows that the attitudes and practices of politicians and planning professionals still reflect and are deeply embedded in colonial logic and rationalities of urban spatial organization and management. However, we do not yet fully understand how post-colonial African leaders justify and elicit public support for their continued utilization of colonial approaches in their contemporary engagements with their own people. This paper contributes to the limited research on the processes and politics of legitimizing colonial urban spatial organization and management in post-colonial African cities. The paper draws on Van Leeuwen's (2007) symbolic legitimation framework to explore and critique the parallels between how colonial and post-colonial authorities weaponize aesthetic, hygienic, and morality concerns to give false clarity to evictions as inevitable or natural solutions to the congestion, crime, filth, and other socio-environmental problems they associate with the activities of lower-class urban dwellers (particularly those living in informal settlements). A key finding of this paper that bears watching is the phenomenon of 'voluntary demolition'-an emerging approach to containing lower-class urbanites where state officials violently displace notable informal settlements or activities, without any prior warnings, to set as a precedent and invoke fear, intimidate, and force the residents of other informal communities to 'self-evict'. The paper offers lessons for moving research, policy, action, and investment toward building just, equitable, and sustainable cities in Africa.
As with other street-based workers, public transport operators in the United States (US) face a g... more As with other street-based workers, public transport operators in the United States (US) face a great deal of personal hygiene uncertainty while on the job. There is a general lack of public toilets in the cities with only a few public transport facilities equipped with toilets. Even where restrooms are available, sanitary and safety concerns, schedule pressures and traffic, vague and unrealistic procedures for securing and leaving vehicles tend to undermine operators' access. Concerns about embarrassment or negative passenger reaction and fear of disciplinary actions also tend to discourage public transport operators from using restrooms. As a result, many operators are forced to reduce fluid and food intake and avoid taking urination-affecting medications for fear of conflicting their work schedules with their excretory needs. Others have developed "systems" to "hold it in". In unbearable circumstances, however, they release themselves into cups/bottles/piles of newspapers and diapers while others do it in bushes/gutters/tunnels and on train tracks, and bus tires. Much has been written about the litany of personal harms (including the urinary tract and kidney infections) linked to public transport operators' deficient access to toilet. Much less, however, is known about the problem's impact on sustainable public transport including its undermining effects on safe and pleasant public transport experience, recruiting and retaining qualified operators, and efficient scheduling and reliability of public transport systems. This paper fills this gap in US toilet and transportation research, and aims to stimulate a social mental shift to demand and support prioritizing access to more safe and clean toilets in transportation and urban planning.
The Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2022
African countries serve as used vehicle dumping sites for advanced capitalist countries, undermin... more African countries serve as used vehicle dumping sites for advanced capitalist countries, undermining global and local goals to move toward safe and low-emissions transport. Africa’s used vehicle dependency is commonly explained in terms of push-pull factors linked to demand for new cars and stringent environmental policies in wealthier countries that make available used vehicles for export, the limited purchasing power for less-polluting new safer vehicles, and weak regulation of vehicle emissions in Africa, all of which sustain used vehicle import on the continent. Drawing on the Ghanaian case, we present an enhanced explanation that brings in the role of historical underinvestment in public transport and larger processes that channel public resources toward car-oriented transport and land use, marginalizing other modes of transport used by the majority. Using historically informed political economy analyses and drawing on interviews and grey literature including media and institutional sources, this paper makes two contributions. First, it advances used vehicle research by moving beyond the push-pull approach to incorporate the historical institutional drivers of used vehicle and automobile consumption generally in Africa. Second, it provides insight into why used vehicle import bans on their own are unlikely to lead to sustained environmental and public health benefits and instead recommends more holistic policies for shifting toward cleaner, safer and affordable public transport in Africa. Transport and land-use planning reforms and investment prioritizing public transit including minibus recapitalization programs, as well as mixed land use and transit-oriented development can help reduce used vehicle dependency and the harms it brings.
The Rise of ‘Smart’ Solutions in Africa: A Review of the Socio-Environmental Cost of the Transportation and Employment Benefits of Ride-Hailing Technology in Ghana
SSRN Electronic Journal
Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
Governments in Africa are licensing major global ride-hailing firms to launch operations in the c... more Governments in Africa are licensing major global ride-hailing firms to launch operations in the continent. This is often presented as a refreshing development for the continent to leverage technology to address its twin problems of inefficient urban transport and rising youth unemployment. Interviews with ride-hailing adopters (drivers, riders, and car owners) and researchers in Ghana suggest, however, that whereas the technology is driving up the standards of road transport experience, the benefits are accessible to a select few (largely, the younger, highly educated and relatively high income-earning class). The lopsided power relations underlying the ride-hailing industry have also meant that the economic opportunities it avails disproportionately benefit a few powerful players (e.g. ride-hailing firms and car owners) while stimulating ‘turf wars’ among online and traditional taxi drivers; deepening existing gender inequalities in access to income-earning opportunities in the com...
A brief essay on socio-cultural factors and building safety in the construction sector
AUBEA 2019: Built to Thrive: creating buildings and cities that support individual well-being and community prosperity, 2019
Current level of knowledge on the impact of socio-cultural factors on building collapses in the c... more Current level of knowledge on the impact of socio-cultural factors on building collapses in the construction sector is limited. Such phenomena are studied mainly as ‘engineering’ problems. Encouragingly, today, there is a growing momentum towards a socio-cultural approach to safety in the sector. The approach, however, focuses only on health and safety management concerns in the context of physical construction. Little or no attention is given to accidents caused by built structures. This essay argues that the principles of health and safety in the construction sector apply to not only those who are engaged in work; they also apply to those who are placed at risk by work activities, including members of the public. Therefore, limiting the impact of socio-cultural factors on safety in the sector to only worker safety obscures the impact of the factors on another vantage area of safety in the sector: the dangers posed by completed structures such as buildings to public health. The essay argues that a sociocultural grounding for building safety/accidents in the construction sector is warranted. A socio-cultural approach to building collapse could be worthwhile, in complementing the engineering focal approach, for identifying pathways to avoidance.
Lax Regulation Doesn’t Fully Explain Unsafe Buildings in African Cities: A View from Ghana
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2021
Defying Ghana’s Lockdown Rules Wasn’t Simply Stubborn: Here’s What Was Going On
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2022
The paper discusses how unresolved historical injustices, deepened in new forms, undermined Ghana... more The paper discusses how unresolved historical injustices, deepened in new forms, undermined Ghana's COVID-19 containment efforts.
Poor Policies, not Drivers, Are to Blame for Ghana’s Road Transport Miseries
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2021
Authorities in Ghana frequently blame drivers for the country's road transport problems a... more Authorities in Ghana frequently blame drivers for the country's road transport problems and poor safety record. For instance, in parliament recently, the country's Roads and Highways Minister cited driver indiscipline as the cause of accidents. His predecessor made similar claims, as have presidential committees, parliamentarians; former presidents and the National Roads Safety Authority. These claims often end up forming the basis of public policy. For instance, based on a presidential committee report claiming that: "Indiscipline is the main contributory factor to the increasing incidents of road traffic crashes" in Ghana, the government approved a colossal 1 billion Ghana Cedis ($175 million) to tackle driving behaviour through road surveillance, sensitisation and public education. The Ghanaian authorities have good cause to be concerned. Today, road trauma is among the top 10 causes of deaths in Ghana. One report suggests that about $230 million is spent annually on emergency and trauma care from motor accidents alone.
Knowing What Leads to Building Collapses Can Help Make African Cities Safer
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2019
Ghana's Road Traffic Problems Have Deep and Spreading Roots
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2021
Ghana's Land Acquisition Process Generates Conflict. Blockchain Offers a Solution
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2021
Why Fines and Jail Time Won't Change the Behaviour of Ghana's Minibus Drivers
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2021
Standard Responses to Road Accidents Haven’t Worked in Ghana: Here Are Some Alternatives
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2021
Standard responses to road accidents haven't worked in Ghana: here are some alternatives ... more Standard responses to road accidents haven't worked in Ghana: here are some alternatives https://theconversation.com/standard-responses-to-road-accidents-havent-worked-in-ghana-here-are-some-alternatives-168127 1/3 Academic rigour, journalistic flair Standard responses to road accidents haven't worked in Ghana: here are some alternatives October 7, 2021 4.50pm SAST Road traffic accidents remain a major public health and development challenge in Ghana. They are among the top 10 causes of deaths, draining 2.54% of its gross domestic product annually. Some recent reports suggest that between January and July 2021, about 8 deaths and 43 injuries were recorded daily on Ghana's roads. The recent surge in road deaths and injuries has ignited demands for a sharper policy focus on road carnage. The conversation, however, appears to be heavily oriented towards doing more of the existing control measures. These are the so-called 3Es: education; enforcement and engineering. The contemporary science or best practice in road safety management is shifting towards an understanding of the wider societal factors that might impact road safety. It is also about the exploitation of these factors in interventions. This major shift, however, remains inadequately considered in the current search for solutions to make Ghana's roads safer.
Data for: A critique of overpopulation as a cause of pathologies in African cities: Evidence from building collapse in Ghana
Interview guide and coding framework
Ghana’s COVID Lockdown: Why It Triggered a Toxic Mix of Mass Defiance and Police Violence
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2022
While many of the persisting social problems in Ghana and Africa broadly tend to be visible expre... more While many of the persisting social problems in Ghana and Africa broadly tend to be visible expressions of ‘indiscipline’ and ‘lawlessness’, their roots are often found in inequalities. Viewed this way, the current go-to public policy of deploying the violent power of the state to contain the problem, as the lived experience shows, could only yield little meaningful, sustainable benefits. More could be achieved by investing in measures that give the majority a chance to have a shot at decent life or address the conditions undermining their chances to have a shot at a decent life. This paper illustrates this argument with the mass-violation of Ghana’s March 2020 COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.
COVID-19 Lockdown Defiance, Public ‘Indiscipline’, and Criminalisation of Vulnerable Populations in Ghana
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2021
Behavioural economics has provided much source of inspiration for public policy in the COVID-19 e... more Behavioural economics has provided much source of inspiration for public policy in the COVID-19 era. Such is evidently the state of discussion in Ghana, where Ghanaians' so-called stubborn resistance to positive behavioural change is increasingly the target of public and popular criticisms. This paper argues that further to legitimising the police violence and extrajudicial sanctions meted out to 'undisciplined' violators of the restrictions, the indiscipline narrative leaps too quickly from an account of the personal morality/attitudes of Ghanaians to the collective action of mass-defiance of the restrictions without taking adequate account of the range of structural constraints that made it difficult for the majority of the people to comply with the restrictions. The mass defiance of the restrictions is best understood in the context of the unequal outcomes of the broader policy processes and practices, and the historical-institutional power dynamics around them that put some people in criminogenic situations in the country. It is important that media and policy analyses of public defiance of the restrictions and social problems in the country generally move beyond the simplistic notion of indiscipline to dissect how deliberate bias against the needs of the majority operates, and is institutionalised in policy and practice in ways that undermine their commitment to rules and regulations.
“De-Casteing” India: How Dalit Women’s Rights Civil Society Organizations Tackle Caste Based Socio-Political & Religio-Cultural Challenges
Untouchability practices and caste-based discrimination and injustices are under yet another sieg... more Untouchability practices and caste-based discrimination and injustices are under yet another siege. Over the past 50 years, India has seen a tremendous amount of mobilization by vibrant lower caste women’s movements, which are committed to challenging Indian caste society by securing social change and reducing caste-based discrimination and injustice. However, as it was in colonial India1, the anti-caste movements of today have to contend with socio-political and religio-cultural factors that perpetuate caste-based injustices. This study examines the ways in which Dalit women’s rights civil society organizations tackle four primary levels of caste-based challenges in India: Hindu religion, family, community, and state/institutional.
Exploring the implications of urban vulnerability to incidents of building collapse for construction safety research
Engineers and architects have not yet developed a model for predicting when and where a building ... more Engineers and architects have not yet developed a model for predicting when and where a building may collapse. However, the odds are high that any such incident(s) may occur in an urban setting, particularly in a developing country. This review bemoans on the public safety implications of the rising urban vulnerability to incidents of building collapse for our ever-urbanising world. It acknowledges the proactive turn that construction and building safety research has taken- i.e. the shift from, hitherto, ex-post facto analysis of trigger events to identifying and neutralising organisational preconditions that create vulnerability for failures to occur. It, nevertheless, contends that the questions that urban vulnerability to building collapse incidents raise, such as what web of forces are at play, why is it predominant in developing in contrast to advanced countries and their corollaries, are beyond the current scope of causes of vulnerability for construction failures research. It...
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Papers by Festival Godwin Boateng