Romano Nyoni, Community Monitor, measures the pH of water from a polluted inflow of the Deka river.

Can ‘citizen science’ work in Zimbabwe?

Can committed citizens in developing countries initiate change using scientific data when public accountability systems are weak? Fritz Brugger, Senior Scientist at NADEL — Center for Development and Cooperation at ETH Zurich, gives an insight into an ongoing research project in Zimbabwe.

Fritz Brugger, you were in Zimbabwe recently. What were you doing there?
Fritz Brugger: I visited Désirée Ruppen’s field research on environmental monitoring in a mining area. She is doing an interdisciplinary doctoral thesis at the Institute for Science, Technology and Policy ISTP at ETH Zurich. Bernhard Wehrli, Professor for Aquatic Chemistry, supervises her work in natural sciences, namely the analysis of polluted water in the vicinity of coal mining and processing sites. What is extraordinary about it is that the water quality is monitored by local volunteers in a participatory approach, since the Deka river is important for their livelihood. I supervise Désirée Ruppen’s work in the field of citizen science and social accountability. The interface between mining and local development is an important area of our research at NADEL.

Can scientific monitoring help the local population to make their concerns heard? ETH doctoral student Désirée Ruppen in exchange with the volunteers.

What exactly is it all about?
It is about the use of evidence — of scientifically collected data — in the advocacy work of citizens. A group of local volunteers has taken water samples to prove that, as well as where, the water of the Deka river has been polluted near mining sites. The samples tested in a laboratory have been used by these citizen scientists to demand compliance with and enforcement of existing water quality guidelines by environmental authorities and mining companies.

And what aspects does the thesis examine?
Désirée Ruppen tests to what extent scientific monitoring can be an instrument for the local population in developing countries to make their concerns heard. In the field of human rights or education, social accountability with qualitative methods is already being used successfully under certain conditions. The collection of scientific data with volunteers for environmental monitoring is much more demanding. Désirée Ruppen examines to what extent volunteers can collect and use scientific data in this socio-economic context, how credibly they are perceived by decision-makers, up to which point the results penetrate the system, and whether volunteers can build up enough pressure to achieve decisions and changes.

Désirée Ruppen in her laboratory at Zimbabwe University in Harare.

Does this approach work?
Of course, there is no automatic improvement as soon as scientific evidence of pollution is presented. The fact that mining pollutes surface waters in the region is undisputed. Wastewater treatment used to work better, but has been neglected in recent decades for cost reasons. In addition, the situation is more complicated today because new companies without environmental management have become active in the same catchment area. Four companies are active in the research area, some state-owned, some private. They mine coal or burn it, and accuse each other for being responsible for pollution. Apart from this blaming and shaming, nothing has happened so far, nor have the authorities intervened in the long term. Thanks to the evidence from the investigations in cooperation with the volunteers, it has now been possible to determine which company contributes how much to pollution. The volunteers have already made their way to the District Administrator and the companies’ environmental officers — certainly a first success.

Can scientific monitoring help the local population to make their concerns heard? ETH doctoral student Désirée Ruppen in exchange with the volunteers.

What challenges does the project face?
There are always setbacks, of course, that is part of it. The project has, however, set things in motion and raised many questions. Thus, the topic receives more attention in the community and with the authorities. Two mining companies have already initiated investigations for six new drinking water wells. So there are signs that the acute problem of drinking water is being solved. Once the immediate pressure is gone, however, there is a danger that the actual problem — the improper handling of the wastewater and the decay of the previously functioning biological treatment facilities — will again be neglected. The analysis of the interaction between social accountability strategies and the mix of political, economic and private interests will continue for quite some time.

If the former sewage system were restored with natural reed plantations, a large part of the water problem would be solved.

Fritz Brugger is senior scientist and Co-Director of NADEL — Center for Development and Cooperation at ETH Zurich. He holds a PhD in Development Studies from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. His research focuses on the developmental effects of natural resource extraction and on the role of extractive companies.

NADEL — Center for Development & Cooperation

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We connect researchers and practitioners to build knowledge that addresses development challenges. https://nadel.ethz.ch/

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