Words by | 23 Apr 2024

One of the key challenges of multiple sociotechnical systems is how one leverages the fact that they are empirically dominant while also engaging with their inadequacies and vulnerabilities. Thinking about consolidation makes us focus our practice away from, say, such purely technical responses as building better soak pits, or changing the technology of the toilet, or designing an appropriately lined septic tank. I am arguing for a different emphasis in practice: focusing on the governance of multiple sociotechnical systems rather than simply improving their engineering. What are the governance arrangements – institutions, processes and regulatory instruments – that can bring together these diverse existing systems to deliver the desired outcomes of universal access that the network was intended for?