By Muhamed Lunyago, CLASK action research project co-lead, and Joseph Mukasa, CLASK project administrator

During ACRC’s foundation phase, the Kampala land and connectivity domain research revealed how relevant and critical local councils (LCs) are in land transfers, especially in informal settlements. This is because they were drawing land agreements, witnessing and validating land ownership transfers/transactions, and participating in different forms and aspects of land transfers.

The team observed that the active participation of LCs in land transfers was producing and/or fuelling conflicts – exacerbating tensions between landlords and tenants, land buyers and tenants, and land buyers and land sellers.

To deepen our understanding of this challenge, we are conducting action research in Kisenyi informal settlement in Kampala, through a project titled “Capacitating local councils for secure land transfers in Kisenyi informal settlements, Kampala City (CLASK)”. We prioritised the issue of LC involvement in land transfers in the first phase of the action research.

Contextualising the CLASK study

Land transfer in this context does not refer to the formal transfer of registered land, but to any form of land transaction – whether by gifting, buying or selling of registered or unregistered land – as long as the LCs are involved. This conceptualisation differs from the state conception of transfer, which focuses on the registered land.

By engaging different stakeholders – including LC leaders, local communities, government institutions, land brokers, representatives from traditional institutions, lawyers and some NGOs – the research aimed to establish what the LCs do, how they do it and what challenges they face. All this was done to unpack the complex nature of informal urban land governance, access, broader relations, contestations and conflicts in informal settlements, through the lens of Kisenyi.

Through interrogating this complex urban development challenge, the CLASK project team prioritised co-designing a solution to this intractable challenge. The team collected data through desk reviews, focus group discussions, interviews, field workshops and site visits. To understand the kind of land agreements that the LCs were writing and/or witnessing, we analysed different sample land agreements written by LC leaders and lawyers, using a comparative approach.

Next steps towards co-creating solutions

Findings from the initial CLASK research reiterate the contribution of LCs in bridging communities’ access to land transactions and governance. They also point to legal limitations, capacity gaps and questions around integrity, due diligence, inclusion and competing interests as critical impediments.

Building on this preliminary work, the CLASK team is working with communities and stakeholders in the land sector to co-create potential solutions that address some of these gaps and push for secure land transfer services.

Header photo credit: Muhamed Lunyago

Note: This article presents the views of the authors featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.

The African Cities blog is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means you are welcome to repost this content as long as you provide full credit and a link to this original post.

The Guardian | “Demolished future: How Otumara, Baba Ijora demolition contradicts Lagos Project Zero”
Gbenga Salau’s story exposes how the demolition of homes and schools in Otumara and Baba Ijora has disrupted the education of hundreds of children, forcing many out of school and into street trading, child labour and precarious living conditions. The report argues that the evictions undermine Lagos State’s Project Zero initiative to eliminate out-of-school children.

New Telegraph | “Okun Alfa: Caught between raging ocean and Lagos’ urban ambition”
Juliana Francis’s report explores how coastal erosion, ocean surges and displacement continue to threaten residents of Okun Alfa. It highlights how the Eko Atlantic project and other activities worsened environmental vulnerabilities, destroying homes, livelihoods and public infrastructure, while exposing tensions between elite urban development and the rights of coastal communities to housing and sustainable livelihoods.

Daily Trust | “Contaminated water in Lagos community inflicts deadly illnesses on children”
Eric Dumo’s report reveals how residents of Ago Egun, a Lagos waterfront settlement, face a deadly public health crisis from contaminated water and absent sanitation infrastructure. Children suffer frequent diarrhoea, typhoid and dysentery, with several dying in disease outbreaks. Despite over ₦66.9 billion spent on water infrastructure since 2019, Lagos State Water Corporation meets only 35% of daily demand.

Punch | “Inside Lagos’ waterfront housing crisis where development displaces communities”
This documentary, produced by Melony Ishola, examines the lingering human cost of Lagos’s waterfront demolitions. It follows displaced Makoko residents still living in boats and makeshift shelters months after their displacement, while exploring the city’s broader housing crisis and the uncertain fate of relocation promises made to affected communities.

These commissioned reports have gained some promising attention to date, including responses from the Ministry of Housing’s head of information, the Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board’s management and the Lagos State Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, along with increased collaboration across media titles and wider public commentary.

Five key lessons emerged from the workshop and subsequent mentoring scheme:

1. Training enhances clarity and alignment.

2. Capacity strengthening remains necessary, even for experienced journalists.

3. Collaboration facilitates access and improves story development.

4. Community reporters require additional support to maximise impact.

5. Multimedia and documentary content amplifies story engagement.

Following the publication of the commissioned stories, we will continue to monitor and track government responses to the published reports. The success of the initiative has also generated strong interest from Nigeria’s media industry, with leading news organisations, including The Guardian, Premium Times and News Central Television, expressing interest in a collaborative platform to enable journalists to jointly report on urban development challenges. This growing momentum presents an opportunity to build a network of newsrooms committed to reporting on urban issues.

Header image credit: Composite of news reports

Note: This article presents the views of the authors featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.

The African Cities blog is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means you are welcome to repost this content as long as you provide full credit and a link to this original post.

In Accra, ACRC is conducting two action research projects aimed at addressing the city’s solid waste management challenges. Led by People’s Dialogue, these initiatives focus on separate but interconnected parts of the city’s waste value chain: establishing a women-led composting facility in Old Fadama and facilitating the formation of a new cooperative of informal tricycle operators to and strengthen their capacity.

This blog post explores how these initiatives are seeking not only to improve waste management in Accra, but also to produce organic compost for growing healthy foods, to enable and test frameworks for separating household and market waste at source and, in the process, divert organic waste from landfill (thereby reducing methane emissions). This critical work is also providing livelihoods and opportunities for the informal workers involved.

Women‑led zero waste cooperatives

ACRC’s first waste-focused action research project in Accra is exploring how women‑led zero waste cooperatives can provide a scalable, community‑driven solution to improving waste management in informal settlements, while also creating economic opportunities.

The initiative – a collaboration between the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), the Ghana Federation of Urban Poor (GHAFUP), People’s Dialogue, community stakeholders and researchers – is in Old Fadama, one of Accra’s largest informal settlements. Situated along the Odaw River, on the upper reaches of the Korle Lagoon, Old Fadama is home to more than 120,000 people. Residents live in densely packed structures with inadequate sanitation, drainage and access routes.

A key part of the project is establishing the Old Fadama Women‑Led Zero Waste Cooperative Society, which is providing women with employment as well as being a pioneering model for community‑run organic composting and circular‑economy entrepreneurship in Ghana.

Why women and why zero waste?

Women already play a major but undervalued role in waste management in Accra. They lead household waste segregation, dominate sorting roles within the informal sector, and provide essential labour across recycling value chains. But their contributions are often overlooked and rarely lead to sustained income.

The women‑led cooperative model aims to directly address this gap. It builds on GHAFUP’s community-led waste management projects (CLEWAMPs) and longstanding women’s savings groups, which are widely recognised as effective platforms for mobilisation, leadership development and community advocacy. In Old Fadama, five such savings groups – each with around 15 members – form the foundation of the new cooperative. The model provides women with opportunities to build entrepreneurial capacity, gain leadership experience and access new income streams.

A community‑driven waste‑to‑compost enterprise

A ten‑tonne‑per‑day community composting facility has been constructed in Old Fadama to house this initiative, in partnership with AMA. Organic waste from households and the adjacent Agbogbloshie market will be collected through locally appropriate systems, including tricycles and door‑to‑door pickups, accompanied by sensitisation campaigns to promote source separation.

Using aerobic digestion techniques and pyrolysis, the facility will convert organic material into high‑quality compost, which will then be sold through a range of channels – including farmer‑based organisations, horticulture and landscaping associations, urban agriculture groups and individual buyers. Additionally, the project is testing the production of premium organic compost through the introduction of biochar into the higher quality organic compost. The initiative is also exploring access to voluntary carbon markets to diversify revenue and reduce methane emissions, thus linking local waste diversion efforts to global climate mitigation.

Building coalitions for urban reform

The initiative is grounded in the ACRC theory of change, which emphasises reform driven by mobilised citizens, strong coalitions, committed political actors and capable state institutions. The project brings together:

> Residents and households, providing segregated organic waste.

> OFADA (Old Fadama Development Association), supporting engagement, advocacy and oversight.

> Informal waste collectors, recognised as critical actors in the value chain.

> AMA, providing land, regulatory support and alignment with city strategies.

> National ministries, including the Ministry of Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, Ministry of Gender and the Environmental Protection Agency, ensuring decentralized waste management, gender‑responsive, environmentally sound governance.

> Farmer‑based organisations, essential for market linkages and uptake of compost products.

These actors will collaborate through learning alliances, stakeholder platforms and advocacy networks aimed at wider policy reform – including pushing for open tendering systems accessible to small‑scale service providers, integrating informal waste workers into formal systems, through waste concessions and securing municipal support for community‑run waste infrastructure.

Action research: Learning through doing

The action research team has conducted a baseline study, analysed regulatory frameworks, evaluated organic composting technologies and is now testing behaviour‑change strategies, developing market pipelines and strengthening cooperative governance. The process is iterative and collaborative, with actors and community researchers playing a central role.

Findings will inform city‑level policy, regulatory reform and future investment in community‑led waste systems, building an evidence base for scalable models across Accra and other urban centres.

> Read the project brief

Collectivising informal motorised waste operators

ACRC’s second action research initiative in Accra centres around the need for formal recognition of informal motorised waste operators, to drive a more responsive and decentralised urban waste system.

Accra’s labour force is 80% informal, with and informal workers collecting over half of all urban waste – even higher in informal settlements. Yet institutional arrangements remain exclusionary, as waste contracting requirements are outside the reach of informal and small-scale providers. This mismatch between policy design and urban reality has entrenched inefficiencies and deepened inequalities, leaving low‑income communities underserved.

This action research project has been developed through participatory engagement with young people working in Accra’s informal waste sector. Its goal is to support the organisation of motorised waste operators, strengthen their collective voice and facilitate their integration into an inclusive and decentralised urban waste landscape.

The paradox of the Aboboyaa

Motorised tricycle operators – widely known as Aboboyaa or “Borla taxis” – have become the de facto waste transporters for many of Accra’s informal settlements. In dense neighbourhoods like Nima, Chorkor and Agbogbloshie, where large refuse trucks cannot manoeuvre down narrow streets, tricycle operators provide an essential door‑to‑door service.

Yet these frontline workers operate under precarious and often criminalised conditions. They face regular harassment, lack legal identity within the city’s regulatory framework and are de facto excluded from municipal waste contracts. Many tricycle operators are migrants to the city, which compounds their precarity. Their marginalisation persists in a political economy dominated by a small number of large private waste firms that capture most public resources while informal actors – especially youth – remain peripheral.

Federating as a catalyst for co‑production

The action research project aims to form and build Borla Taxi and Tricycle Cooperatives and collectivise informal waste workers and small-scale service providers as transformative tools for addressing this imbalance. Organising into associations and cooperatives, such as through the Borla Taxi and Tricycle Association (BTTA), can give Aboboyaa operators the collective political power needed to shift entrenched practices:

1. Collective advocacy – An organised workforce can challenge AMA by‑laws, which currently grant de facto exclusive operating rights to a small group of registered large-scale contractors, and advocate for legal reforms that open service zones to embrace cooperatives.

2. Access to resources – Organised groups can leverage their collective identity to access soft financing, fuel subsidies and group purchasing schemes for safety equipment and spare parts – resources currently unavailable to most operators.

3. Co‑production of urban services – Rather than maintaining a top‑down service model, local governments can partner with unionised workers to co‑produce waste services. This allows the city to harness the agility, local knowledge and logistical flexibility of informal operators while providing regulatory oversight.

Expanding Accra’s green economy

Focusing on motorised tricycle operators offers a pragmatic entry point for policymakers interested in expanding Ghana’s green economy. These workers sit at a pivotal point in the waste value chain, often serving as the transport link between households and the women who sort and recover recyclable materials. They also provide employment opportunities for youth, many of whom are already engaged in recycling plastics, metals and organics.

This group also benefits from existing social visibility and well‑established informal communication networks, with the AMA‑supported Borla Taxi and Tricycle Cooperative Society demonstrating the potential of local government partnerships with informal workers, through offering training and logistical support. But for such initiatives to be scaled and sustained, they must extend beyond central Accra and address the bureaucratic barriers and deep‑seated mistrust that keep many operators informal.

Policy pathways forward

To build an inclusive and decentralised system, the study recommends targeted policy interventions, including:

> Procurement reform –Lowering the capital- and equipment-holding thresholds to allow informal cooperatives to bid for municipal waste management zones.

> Capacity building – Strengthening the AMA Waste Management Department’s ability to engage with informal groups and small-scale service providers through partnership, rather than enforcement.

> Legal recognition – Reforming sanitation by‑laws to formally embrace small-scale service providers and recognise motorised operator cooperatives as part of the city’s waste management infrastructure.

> Read the project brief

Towards a more inclusive circular economy

The waste challenge in Accra is vast. These action research projects present inclusive, scalable and politically grounded approaches to improving waste management in the city’s informal settlements.

By strengthening community agency and bridging formal and informal systems, the organic composting cooperative initiative can transform Old Fadama’s waste challenges into opportunities that improve women’s livelihoods. And by federating Accra’s motorised tricycle operators, informal workers can be recognised and rewarded for the vital work they do.

Improving the city’s waste management is not just a win for communities and the environment, but a step towards a more inclusive and resilient urban future for Accra.

Photo credits: Chris Jordan, Diana Mitlin

Note: This article presents the views of the authors featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.

Generative AI was used to help draft parts of this blog post: Microsoft Copilot was used to summarise key elements from the action research project proposals. These summaries were then reviewed and edited by the ACRC communications team, before being approved by the author.

The African Cities blog is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means you are welcome to repost this content as long as you provide full credit and a link to this original post.

This is acute in urban areas, where those living in informal neighbourhoods lack access to public services, dense housing built from cardboard and wood is a fire risk, and livelihoods are dependent on access to energy. Many residents are tenants, which is an added complication in accessing electricity, as the landowner can block direct access to the utility (and subsidy).

In Kampala, ACTogether is working with the National Slum Dwellers Federation of Uganda to transform access to grid electricity.

The government of Uganda has recognised the importance of access to clean energy through three subsidy and financing frameworks. The government is using a cooperative model to increase the likelihood that resources reach the residents of informal settlements. However, to date, progress has been slow.

This blog post introduces the subsidies that exist already, explains that they do not work, and describes how ACTogether and the Ugandan Slum Dwellers Federation are working to address this deficit in inclusive programming.

Existing subsidy models

1. Electricity Connections Policy (ECP): Launched in 2018, the ECP aims for a 60% electrification rate by 2027 by providing “free” connections to households situated within 35-90 metres of a pole. While the connection itself is subsidised, households must still meet the costs of internal wiring and obtaining a wiring certificate. The official connection application involves inspection fees of UGX 23,600-41,300. Research findings show that residents pay an average of UGX 86,620 in informal “fees” and UGX 100,000-200,000 for a wiring certificate, in order to bypass delays manufactured by official surveyors and inspectors (technical gatekeepers) during inspections.

2. Price Subsidy Programme: This is a market-driven initiative whereby the state provides 30-70% discounts on clean energy technologies like solar systems and clean cooking solutions. The subsidy funds go directly to pre-qualified energy service companies (ESCOs) to lower the upfront purchase price. Uptake in informal neighbourhoods is low, due to a lack of affordability and a lack of information. To be eligible for the discounted price offered by this programme requires a national ID and proof of ability to pay. However, individual applicants in informal settlements often lack the financial literacy or initial capital to engage with ESCOs alone.

3. Government credit lines via participating financial institutions (PFIs): The Uganda Energy Credit Capitalisation Company (UECCC) provides low-interest loan programmes through PFIs like Centenary Bank. These loans are intended to cover the expensive “house wiring” hurdle that excludes low-income households from the formal grid. However, loans are often inaccessible to informal residents, who lack the formal assets and/or credit history required.

Powerful political interests are well-served by the current system

Despite the government’s commitment to inclusive energy, the presence of powerful informal actors means that financial gain (rentseeking) dominates the process of accessing electricity. These informal actors include:

> Technical gatekeepers (surveyors and inspectors employed by the utility), who hold considerable power. They often “manufacture delays” during technical inspections to solicit informal payments.

> Informal brokers (Kamyufus), who are frequently former utility trainees or staff and now provide speedy informal access to the grid. They may charge a monthly fee (approximately UGX 10,000) regardless of consumption.

> Property owners (landlords), who often use Kamyufus to bypass delays in the formal system. They charge tenants marked-up rates of UGX 10,000-20,000 a month.

> Utility staff/installers (Musombwa), who are formally employed engineers working with informal brokers to connect residents. Staff extract fees from applicants, typically UGX 100,000-200,000, for connections.

Who are the important agencies?

ACTogether Uganda and the National Slum Dwellers Federation of Uganda (NSDFU) are coordinating a coalition to address these problems. They act as “navigators” for the process. Alongside providing professional support, they also focus on:

> Building trust – Bridging the communication gap between suspicious residents and formal utilities to overcome the “transparency deficit”.

> Social collateral – Leveraging organised informal settlement dwellers into community collectives to provide the social guarantees that replace individual credit history, making residents “bankable” for formal lenders.

UEDCL (the state-owned distributor) is a vital member of the coalition, ensuring technical integrity and grid stability. It has two significant contributions to make:

> Bulk service deals – The coalition aspires to negotiate bulk deals and discounted rates from UEDCL for the community collectives, rather than dealing with fragmented individual applications.

> Setting technical standards – Collaborating to institutionalise the “ready board” as a standardised technical solution for bypassing expensive housing-wiring requirements.

The Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) provides the critical urban planning framework that allows the initiative to move from a pilot to a city-wide system. Its role includes:

> Regulatory alignment – Ensuring electricity access is integrated with other urban systems like water and road access.

> Local approvals – Validating the residency of applicants and providing “letters of no-objection” for placing shared infrastructure in communal spaces.

The Ministry of Energy (MEMD) and UECCC provide the “vertical integration” needed to align community needs with national fiscal frameworks, focusing on:

> Formal recognition – Securing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that recognises community cooperatives as legitimate intermediaries for the national Electricity Access Scale-up Project (EASP) and the results-based framework.

> Risk mitigation – Developing framework agreements with PFIs like Centenary Bank, where the coalition helps define how the fund acts as a collective guarantor.

Improving outcomes through collaboration

Led by ACTogether and NSDFU, the coalition seeks to:

> Improve access for tenants through landlord–tenant negotiations – Standardising legal consent through agreements that protect a tenant’s investment in equipment, while securing the landlord’s permission for formal connection.

> Introduce a multi-stakeholder transparency dashboard –A low-tech, high-transparency digital interface (SMS/USSD/web/app) to track application status and eliminate “manufactured delays” and unofficial fees. With digital clarity, enabled through a real-time process tracker, the proposal seeks to strip technical gatekeepers (like surveyors) of the discretionary power they currently use to solicit informal fees.

> Challenge residents’ isolation and aggregate applicants into organised, credit-ready cooperatives – This process begins by identifying existing community associations and organising them into electricity cooperatives. Many of these associations are NSDFU women-led savings groups. These associations undergo capacity-building sessions focusing on financial literacy, leadership and the use of digital tools to foster self-reliance and trust.

The cooperatives help to bridge the complex requirements of national programmes – like UECCC and the EASP – with the lived realities of informal neighbourhoods. By enabling the utility to work with aggregated demand and bulk applications, it will be easier to challenge informal payments demanded by technical gatekeepers.

In addition to creating and capacitating cooperatives, ACTogether and NSDFU are also seeking to transition Kamyufus from “illegal actors” into certified agents to improve safety and response times. The project plans to select and certify ten to 15 experienced Kamyufus to act as official liaisons between the utility and the cooperative. This turns a “security threat” – brokers who tampered with legal meters to force residents back into illegal arrangements – into a “service asset” under a regulatory framework.

Photo credits: ACTogether Uganda

Note: This article presents the views of the authors featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.

The African Cities blog is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means you are welcome to repost this content as long as you provide full credit and a link to this original post.

By Joy Birungi and Rosebella Apollo

ACRC held a cross-project learning workshop in Kampala during the last week of April 2026, bringing together the Kampala city team, representatives from the action research (AR) projects, and members of the senior management and central uptake teams.

Activities over the two and a half day workshop served as both an inspiration and a brain teaser, pulling reflections from the past research phase and highlighting learnings that could inform ACRC’s implementation phase in Kampala.

Participants were organised into four functional teams – writers, community knowledge, AR leads and research uptake – to allow inclusive involvement and full exploration of group capacities.  As a result, they were able to gain substantial clarity on the mandate of ACRC, the core pillars, domains and application of the ACRC theory of change, and overarching influence on state policy, programming and practices.

Through quick fire panel discussions, functional team group discussions, world café presentations and fishbowl conversations, teams embarked on robust reflections about the ACRC journey – interrogating bright spots, challenges and possible ways of strengthening collaborations and forging integrated reform agendas.

Key learnings

Stakeholder engagement

Within AR projects stakeholder engagement was reported to have worked well, especially capitalising on existing relationships as probable entry points to key government offices. Pre-project preparations, such as preparing project profiles and framing key messages, acted as hooks for target stakeholders. In other instances, there was need to create and build new relationships critical to project outcomes, acceptability and continuity.

During discussions, it was noted that conducting discussions with stakeholders deepened insights of action research scooping studies, and that stakeholder mapping was helpful in identifying individuals who were well-aligned to influence specific policies and programming. Research teams conducted comprehensive community stakeholder mapping to determine potential community gatekeepers, devising strategic ways to engage these stakeholders to ease entry and enable local buy-in. For example, public markets required preauthorisation from the leadership at the City Hall to engage any market officers, dwellers and vendors. Likewise, teams had to continuously update the stakeholder matrix based on state and community feedback to ensure engagement remains relevant.

The importance of aligning ACRC Kampala projects with Uganda’s National Development Plan IV and Uganda’s Vison 2040, in addition the UN Sustainable Development Goals and African Union, was noted as a key reform entry point.

Power of community knowledge

The contribution of community knowledge leads in navigating community politics was undisputed.

“Community knowledge team was a great bridge between project researchers and community leaders and dwellers.”

Creative use of informal knowledge sources – such as community volunteers and Kamyufus, who do not have legal mandate but prove resourceful in mapping and capturing ground practices – enriched the documentation of AR projects. However, during the workshop, researchers were reminded to be more flexible and patient while dealing with various community dynamics for project entry and acceptance. Several communities are often influenced by cultural norms and beliefs, political parties and natural attitude towards strangers for fear of eviction.

Additionally, ACRC’s collaborative research approach supported communities and stakeholders to champion their own solutions through co-design workshops for the different projects. Plans to establish and steer dialogues between government agencies and communities through existing and emerging platforms would push the community agenda into the elites’ view.  To sum it up, good entry strategies, patience and collaboration were a few of the requirements to work effectively with communities in Kampala.

Leveraging political opportunity structures

In the months before the AR projects commenced, Uganda underwent an active electioneering period – challenging timely access to key state officials, quality participation from informal settlement residents and uptake pathways for ACRC projects in the city. Collaboration across teams was central to navigating politics within the research process and ensuring neutrality. AR teams worked with each other on entry points, shared probable bottlenecks and collectively devised actions and strategies to manage contestations. Although the political season presented a fair share of setbacks, the learning meeting drew attention to potential opportunities, including rekindling relationships with incumbent officials, opportunities to align with emerging priorities and seizing active policy windows.

ACRC theory of change as a roadmap

Teams gained overall clarity of how specific projects feed into the overall ACRC mission and theory of change (ToC).  The workshop amplified need to design and develop cross-project plans and strategies, looking at engagement processes, documentation and communication outputs together. Participants discussed how the AR project approach ensures citizen mobilisation, through community participation coordinated by local leaders, which in turn is supported by the elite commitment to drive change.

In terms of elite commitment, this is shown by the inclusion of evidence from AR projects in revisions of national policies, programmes and regulations. A case in point is research findings from the CLASK project informing local government induction trainings and policy consideration for land matters.

Opportunities for the emergence of reform coalitions were identified, such as within the markets, and there is potential for both mainstreaming coalitions across different projects and deepening understanding around building state capacity – the final component of the ToC.

> Co-learning and co-creation of knowledge

The writers group committed to a learning agenda to cross-fertilise ideas and lessons across different functional teams. Most importantly, this is set to involve a collaboration between community knowledge team members and researchers that goes beyond documentation, to incorporating learning and co-producing knowledge.

> Desire for a joint multistakeholder engagement

Building on comprehensive stakeholder mapping to establish common interest and requests, different project teams could attend stakeholder meetings together to pursue common interests. For example, engaging with city authorities and ministerial bodies cuts across all projects. This approach would address a number of bottlenecks and failed attempts in gaining stakeholders’ attention and participation.

Developing and implementing a city stakeholder engagement strategy, plans and budget could facilitate this, by outlining project structuring processes and stakeholder needs, with participation from the uptake lead, AR leads and researchers. A detailed stakeholder database could also be created for easy retrieval of contact information. 

> Joint communication and documentation

Many teams shared a desire to sharpen communication and dissemination activities in Kampala – from developing a toolkit to share best approaches, to adopting more community-centric communication outputs to increase access to information and capture community voices, to producing podcasts. Functional teams also shared aspirations to tell a city story, moving away from traditional action research stories.

Kampala’s overarching reform agenda

All in all, the workshop provided the groundwork for team Kampala to start looking at the AR projects as building blocks that are contributing to a bigger change process. As the curtains closed on the learning meeting, an important ask for the team was to think through a citywide reform agenda – mapping potential shifts and changes and weaving these into a coordinated effort to push the reform frontier.

Photo credits: Rosebella Apollo

Note: This article presents the views of the authors featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.

The African Cities blog is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means you are welcome to repost this content as long as you provide full credit and a link to this original post.

Photo credits: Chris Jordan

Note: This article presents the views of the authors featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.

The African Cities blog is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means you are welcome to repost this content as long as you provide full credit and a link to this original post.

Photo credits: Kudzai Chatiza

Note: This article presents the views of the authors featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.

Acknowledgement: This blog draws on ACRC‑supported work but does not represent the views of the Consortium or its funder, FCDO (United Kingdom). The contributions of ACRC Harare colleagues – especially George Masimba and Tapiwa Nyamukapa – and participants in the 15 December 2025 brainstorming session are gratefully acknowledged.

The African Cities blog is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means you are welcome to repost this content as long as you provide full credit and a link to this original post.

By Oluwaseun Muraina and Rasheed Shittu, ACRC Lagos action research project co-leads

When a key character in Game of Thrones tells Queen Cersei that “knowledge is power”, her immediate response is to order his death, with the retort that “power is power”.

We can draw a lesson from this. Knowledge alone does not determine outcomes – authority, institutions, enforcement and the ability to shape decisions do. The tension between knowledge and power is not confined to fictional kingdoms. It plays out daily in African cities, particularly in informal settlements, where communities possess deep knowledge of their realities but often lack formal authority to influence their preferred realities over land, infrastructure and services.

When the ACRC Lagos water and sanitation (WASH) team visited Mukuru in Nairobi, for a learning exchange, we carried a simple question: how do informal settlements secure dignified water and sanitation access in cities that often overlook them? What can Lagos learn from Nairobi in the struggle for equitable water and sanitation?

What we observed in Mukuru was not just community innovation, but well-organised influence. Alongside the improved water and sanitation provision, we witnessed how communities convert knowledge into structured bargaining power. In Mukuru’s informal settlements, the presence of community data, organised committees, transparent billing systems, and strategic engagement with city authorities has transformed lived experience into negotiating strength.

What we returned with was a series of more difficult questions: Is knowledge really power? How does a community move from understanding its deprivation to shaping the systems that govern it? And how does information translate into institutional authority?

Using data as a tool for community advocacy

Our visit began with Akiba Mashinani Trust (AMT), which hosted the delegation and is a central protagonist of the Mukuru Special Planning Area (SPA) story. AMT revealed a critical insight: communities that are not counted are easily ignored. Through systematic profiling, mapping and documentation, AMT and Mukuru residents have strengthened their engagement with county authorities, in some cases contributing to more structured responses to displacement and upgrading.

Building public trust, one sewer line at a time

Mukuru’s simplified sewer systems, facilitated by the state-owned Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company, serve hundreds of households through cost-effective design. Pre-paid water dispensers operate through token-based billing, reducing disputes and increasing transparency. These are technical solutions, but their deeper value lies in governance. Clear billing systems, defined management structures and accountable committees build trust. Trust strengthens legitimacy. Legitimacy strengthens negotiating authority.

What this means for Lagos

For Lagos, particularly in Okerube, where ACRC’s WASH project is ongoing, this lesson is critical. infrastructure must be accompanied by systems that institutionalise community governance. Without this, even the best technical model remains fragile.

The Lagos WASH team returned with clear actions to follow up on:

> Strengthening community data collection for advocacy.

> Deepening engagement with government and political office holders.

> Adapting proven solutions from Mukuru to improve service access, transparency and sustainability in Lagos informal settlements.

The broader insight is this: information without influence is vulnerable. Knowledge without organisation is limited. Power is the structured capacity to shape outcomes – built through committees, data systems, alliances, transparent management and sustained engagement with institutions.

In Mukuru, we witnessed how mobilised communities are combining all of these to deliver results – one water point, one dataset, and one negotiation at a time. The approach to WASH provision there demonstrates that when communities combine technical knowledge with collective organisation and strategic political engagement, they can move from surviving the city to shaping it.

Ultimately, power is the ability of ordinary citizens to influence how the city works. This is what we want to build.

Read more:

• Nairobi to Naija: Inclusive service delivery in African cities is not a pipe dream
• From Mukuru to Okerube: Reflections from the Nairobi–Lagos WASH exchange

Listen:

• Podcast: Building community-driven WASH solutions in Lagos

Photo credits: Akiba Mashinani Trust

Note: This article presents the views of the authors featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.

Grammarly was used for grammar checks and to assist with rephrasing selected sections of the first draft for clarity. This version was then reviewed and edited by the ACRC communications team, before being approved by the author.

The African Cities blog is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means you are welcome to repost this content as long as you provide full credit and a link to this original post.

Meeting local council members and visiting Okerube

The first day included a visit to the Executive Chairman of Igando/Ikotun Local Council Development Area (LCDA), a transect walk through the Okerube settlement and a meeting aimed at aligning government commitment with community priorities.

Meeting the Igando/Ikotun Chairman reinforced a need for structured collaboration between local and state governments in order to improve service delivery. He highlighted the importance of multistakeholder partnerships to address infrastructure deficits and expand access to basic services, also noting the need to grant greater autonomy to local governments to strengthen accountability and improve delivery.

During the engagement, the Chairman also formally confirmed institutional support for the WASH project in Okerube settlement, committing participation from relevant departments within the local government – specifically Budget and Planning, Agriculture, Health and Social Services, and Works and Development. The visit concluded with the Chairman expressing readiness to scale development interventions following implementation of the research project, reaffirming the institutional commitment to collaborative planning.

Following the meeting, the team visited Okerube settlement to better understand the spatial realities of the area – particularly the infrastructure conditions and flood-prone zones – as well as its socioeconomic dynamics. Unlike many highly congested informal settlements, Okerube has open spaces and defined plots, but inadequate infrastructure, weak drainage management and environmental vulnerability compound flooding in the settlement. While an active informal economy has emerged to fill service provision gaps, these enterprises are often located in high flood risk areas.

A community meeting was also convened to allow direct dialogue with Okerube residents. Although some community members were hesitant to openly discuss local challenges, other residents highlighted a number of priority needs – including improved water and sanitation, flood management, electricity supply, road and drainage infrastructure, secondary education, streetlighting and security. Flooding in particular emerged as a critical concern, with community members reporting severe flooding at least every two years and one resident describing having to carry her child on her shoulders through chest-level floodwaters to safety.

At the end of the day, the delegation had made progress in contextualising Okerube’s vulnerabilities and securing formal commitment from the LCDA to support the implementation of the WASH action research project.

ACRC Lagos in-city politics lead Damilola Agbalajobi delivered a presentation on Nigeria’s political and governance system, contextualising the planning environment for the Okerube WASH initiative and exploring the political dynamics that influence development processes in Lagos.

Funmilayo Daniel separately presented on the Women Water Committees, covering their leadership structure, operational model and how organised community groups have improved water accountability in underserved areas. Her presentation underlined how women’s groups have emerged as critical actors in improving water access in communities.

Following this, the Nairobi delegation shared practical experiences from Kenya – with Maureen Musya presenting the Mukuru Special Planning Area process and Rex Otieno covering the Homa Bay planning process, detailing the methodology and highlighting how long-term frameworks can provide stability and allow for phased investment.

Designing an integrated plan for Okerube

The third day transitioned from knowledge sharing to structured design. Collectively, delegates made progress in defining a shared vision for Okerube informal settlement and outlining the structured actions required to guide the planning process. With support from AMT, the ACRC Lagos team prepared an integrated participatory plan for Okerube informal settlement, moving beyond WASH issues to address broader and interconnected challenges – such as flooding, infrastructure deficits, land issues, social amenities and environmental risks.

For relevance and sustainability, the plan required integration at several levels:

> Integration with existing statutory and development plans

> Sectoral coordination across thematic areas

> Spatial and non-spatial linkages

> Climate and environmental considerations

> Structured input from diverse stakeholders

By the end of the day, it was clear that structured governance arrangements, early and sustained stakeholder engagement, standardised data systems and data-led decision making were key to a phased and methodical planning pathway.

Building capacity around data collection

The fourth day saw the team returning to Okerube settlement for a field-based capacity sharing initiative, which involved hands-on training on enumeration and real-time testing of tools to prepare for a full-scale data collection exercise. After preliminary deliberations to agree on a numbering structure, the session formally commenced with an orientation exercise for 17 community researchers on data collection. The pilot exercise allowed testing of research tools and refinement of questions, to sharpen numbering prior to a full rollout.

Involving community co-researchers proved instrumental in facilitating access and building trust. Their familiarity with local pathways and residents helped cooperation and minimised resistance. The pilot also worked to strengthen enumerator confidence, clarify workflow expectations and provide a shared understanding of quality control standards.

Reflecting and mapping a way forward

As the Lagos and Nairobi teams met one last time for a structured debrief on day five, it was clear that the visit had successfully secured institutional commitment from the Igando/Ikoton LCDA, strengthened collaboration across city teams, and built a shared understanding of an integrated, community-centred and evidence-based planning framework. Strong emphasis was laid on the centrality of co-production between community members, government actors and technical partners.

The exchange visit closed with mutual commitment to advancing the integrated planning process for Okerube settlement, with a collaborative framework linking SHEF, the University of Lagos and the local government. Conscious of the comprehensive nature of planning processes, the team charted a two-phase approach, aligned with statutory planning frameworks and institutional mandates. The first phase will focus on generating evidence and building capacity for comprehensive household numbering, mapping and enumeration, and the second on collective interpretation of the evidence and consolidating the integrated people’s plan.

Continued learning and collaboration

The five-day visit illuminated a complex governance landscape in Lagos state, along with clear physical and environmental vulnerabilities in Okerube, the need for strategic planning and alignment with government priorities, and the centrality of community and evidence in collaborative planning. Beyond securing institutional commitment from the LCDA, the learning exchanges have led to commitment from regional and national governments to advance WASH reforms in Okerube, with SHEF being invited to submit a 145 million Naira (approximately USD 105,700) proposal towards upgrading of WASH infrastructure in Okerube.

As the teams in Nairobi and Lagos continue to grapple with ways of catalysing inclusive urban transformation, the exchange has helped mark a clear path ahead for the ACRC initiative in Okerube: forming multistakeholder consortia, settlement-wide enumeration and mapping, validating findings, and preparing an integrated people’s plan to submit through local government structures.

SDI affiliate SHEF will anchor the process locally, while AMT provides technical advisory support, guiding the strategic approach and ensuring methodological rigour. The team will also explore cross-project collaboration with other ACRC initiatives, such as flood modelling, property tax and waste management.

Read more:

• Nairobi to Naija: Inclusive service delivery in African cities is not a pipe dream
• Is knowledge power? Reflections on water, sanitation and survival in informal settlements

Listen:

• Podcast: Building community-driven WASH solutions in Lagos

Photo credits: Rex Otieno

Note: This article presents the views of the authors featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.

The African Cities blog is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means you are welcome to repost this content as long as you provide full credit and a link to this original post.

“Sustainability for us would mean leaving behind capability and capacities, not dependency.”

In the informal settlement of Okerube in Lagos, the community faces significant challenges in accessing clean water and sanitation, which disproportionately impacts women and children. An ACRC action research project is aiming to address these issues through establishing a sustainable, community-driven social enterprise model.

In this podcast episode, Deji Akinpelu is joined by guests Temilade Sesan, ACRC Lagos city manager, Funmilayo Daniel, a woman leader from Okerube community, and project co-leads Oluwaseun Muraina and Rasheed Shittu. They discuss the importance of building trust with the community, harnessing existing women-led structures to advance water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) solutions, and supporting residents to advocate for their rights, so they can actively shape their community’s future.

Highlighting how community-driven initiatives like these can challenge urban inequality – by strengthening the capacities and capabilities of residents, and advocating for greater representation of informal settlements in urban planning – they also talk about the need for collaborative planning and community ownership, to ensure sustainability over the long term. Looking beyond Okerube to other informal settlements in Lagos, they conclude by talking about what a just and sustainable future would look like for these underserved areas.

> Read more about ACRC’s work in Lagos

Deji Akinpelu is co-founder of Rethinking Cities, an advocacy group working on urban development issues in Lagos, and part of the ACRC Lagos uptake team.

Temilade Sesan is a social development researcher and ACRC’s city manager for Lagos.

Funmilayo Daniel is a woman leader from the Okerube Water Committee in Lagos.

Oluwaseun Muraina is a doctoral candidate at the Centre for Housing and Sustainable Development, University of Lagos, and co-lead of the ACRC WASH action research project in Lagos.

Rasheed Shittu is the founder and executive director of the Shantytown Empowerment Foundation (SHEF) and co-lead of the ACRC WASH action research project in Lagos.

Header photo credit: Chris Jordan

Note: This article presents the views of the author featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.

The African Cities blog is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means you are welcome to repost this content as long as you provide full credit and a link to this original post.