Tactic 22: Safety considerations, checks & cycles
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The residents of informal settlements face numerous critical and common issues beyond just inadequate housing due to low incomes. These issues cut across various settlements regardless of location, that include:
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Mobility within the settlements
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Access to clean, safe and potable water
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Insecurity
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Safety hazards due to unmetered electricity
The "Safety Considerations, Checks, and Cycles" approach is a tactic that can be applied to address some of these problems. This approach emphasises safety throughout all phases of an infrastructure project: construction, implementation, and usage.
These residents often live hand-to-mouth and struggle to afford basic necessities like food, healthcare, and transportation, therefore lacking the resources and influence to advocate for their rights, especially when not organized into community groups. This lack of collective power leaves room for rogue players and cartels to control the provision of key services including electricity, water and sewage, leaving them vulnerable to safety issues during all phases of infrastructure projects. While formal environments are generally protected from such oversights due to potential legal repercussions for consultants and contractors, informal settlements often bear the brunt of safety negligence due to residents' financial vulnerability and lack of structured models that can be enforced to suit the unique circumstances in informal settlements.
Therefore, prioritising "Safety Considerations, Checks, and Cycles" during infrastructure projects is crucial. This approach ensures the safety of everyone involved, particularly the residents who provide labour and the ultimate users of the infrastructure within their communities end to end.
The Challenge
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The absence of safety signs and barricades to warn residents to stay off construction areas and sites, such as sites not being held, barricades where excavations are ongoing or in the regions that have been cordoned off, or signs on existing diversions. Moreover, the absence of electric hazard signs like: Danger, Hatari, etc., for existing power lines.
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Lack of provision of safety and protective gear to workers engaged in those construction sites who happen to hail from the same settlements.
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Lack of first aid kits and personnel trained in emergency response based on the same sites where the residents in informal settlements are engaged to work.
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Inadequate lighting is present at the construction sites where these workers are engaged.
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Lack of provision of the necessary prerequisite equipment for the job compromises their safety and well-being.
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Lack of holding at active construction sites could lead to residents in informal settlements being prone to accidents, compromising their safety.
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Lack of adequate isolation points to de-energize the areas of activity to work safely.
Safety of supervisory project staff who may face mistreatment due to the volatile nature of the settlements.
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Illegal electricity connections in informal settlements that endangers the lives of the residents by exposing them to the risks of electrocution and fire outbreaks due to faulty substandard connections.
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Vandalism of installed equipment also endangers the lives of the residents. The safety from vandals is rampant during this phase.
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The construction of ineffective infrastructure is a threat to the safety of the residents who use the infrastructure in these ways;
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Steep ramps could lead to falls for those using wheelchairs on them.
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Open drains and channels on the footpaths also make them difficult or impossible for vulnerable users, who risk falling due to sudden interruptions. The infrastructure has such issues; it is not continuous and thus cannot serve them.
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Cycle tracks and footpaths that cannot be utilised force users to use the carriageway to interact with motorised traffic, compromising their safety. This is worse for PWDs since they are forced to use the carriageway when the NMT infrastructure is not continuous.
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Implementing infrastructure that ensures the safety of all users. In many instances, the streets and roads implemented tend to ignore the safety of all other users except MT users. Consequently, pedestrians have paid the highest price by having the most considerable fatalities when accidents occur.
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The tactic safety considerations, checks, and cycles advocate for upholding safety practices throughout an infrastructure project's life cycle. This guarantees the safety of those interacting with the infrastructure.
Advocating for safety considerations promotes upholding and ensures adherence to prescribed safety standards. This protects the well-being of others, especially those vulnerable and lacking the capacity to advocate for themselves.
One vital principle in adhering to prescribed safety standards is the mandatory first aid and emergency response training that the workers and residents interacting with the project must receive. This improves their capacity to ensure their safety, and they can work with the project consultants and contractors to promote it.
The tactic safety considerations, checks, and cycles advocates for upholding safety practices, ensuring that the implementation of infrastructure will have the least disruptions to the lives of residents in informal settlements, thus promoting their well-being.
Informal settlements have unique characteristics from formal settlements. Adherence to this tactic when implementing infrastructure will lead to learning and perfecting the implementation of prescribed safety standards, reengineered to suit extreme factors and challenging environments.
How To
Using the safety considerations, checks and cycles tactic as one of the guidelines during the planning and design stage ensures that the safety considerations required during construction and when the infrastructure is in use are adhered to in the following ways:
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The safety officials, who should be engaged on the client’s, consultant’s, and contractor’s side to implement safety standards and enforce their implementation, are considered in the planning and design stage.
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It highlights the community engagement and involvement strategy as a key pillar in the tactic.
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Moreover, it guarantees that the required budgets for safety considerations are factored in during the planning and design stage and that tenderers include such costs. Consequently, they can be paid for the same once confirmation of their implementation has been guaranteed.
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It ensures the embedding of existing safety policies stipulating the recommended safety standards of infrastructure during construction, implementation and use in the tender documents as contract requirements, which ensures their enforcement.
Case Studies
Key Concepts
The vital outcome of this tactic is upholding safety in infrastructure projects implemented in informal settlements. There is a usual bias in which contractors and consultants working on projects in informal settlements tend to be nonchalant about upholding prescribed safety standards, mainly because they can get away with it. The residents there lack the financial muscle and knowledge to advocate for their rights; thus, no one enforces them. Moreover, very little attention is paid to the accidents; hence, there are no repercussions. This is discriminative since their rights to implement their safety and well-being are trampled upon due to their financial vulnerability. It is also key to note that in applying safety standards in informal settlements successfully, unique considerations must be taken into account due to the peculiarity of the circumstances that play in these segments.
Embedding this tactic in the 3iF ensures it is a crucial checklist when infrastructure projects are being implemented in informal settlements. Consequently, the safety and welfare of the residents will be a priority when undertaking infrastructure projects which ensure their safety and welfare.