By Patrick Njoroge and Evans Otibine

The Mukuru Special Planning Area in Nairobi is home to a population of about 400,000. Approximately 100,560 households occupy 689 acres of land. The informal settlement is situated between the Nairobi Industrial Area and Mombasa Road, comprising of Mukuru Kwa Njenga, Mukuru Kwa Reuben and Viwandani.

The three settlements primarily consist of temporary structures made of corrugated iron, with many families residing in 9m² single-room dwellings. Most of these units are arranged within plots that contain ten rooms organised around a small internal courtyard. Approximately 94% of the residents in these three informal settlements are tenants who pay rent to the owners of the structures, who do not own the land on which they have built.

Water and sanitation challenges

Informal suppliers dominate water and sanitation services in this settlement. Water is distributed by vendors through kiosks or delivered door-to-door using handcarts. The informal, illegal and often chaotic system of piping – commonly referred to as “spaghetti connections” – is characterised by makeshift infrastructure typically laid above ground, making it highly susceptible to damage. Contaminated black water from overflowing pit latrines and drains frequently seeps into these fragile pipes, resulting in polluted water being used for cooking and drinking in households. Spaghetti connections are established by informal providers, who tap into the municipal supply and channel water to neighbourhood taps, where residents are charged exorbitant prices for 20-litre containers. Despite the poor quality and unreliable access, residents face a “poverty penalty”, paying 400-800% more per cubic metre for unsafe water than the official county rates.

Sanitation is mostly characterised by pit latrines that fill up quickly and are manually emptied, with the raw faecal waste dumped into the Ngong River. Residents are charged high fees for accessing the few pay-per-use toilets that exist, while water, which is unreliable and of low quality, costs about ten times the formal rate. The need to establish sustainable service delivery mechanisms to improve water and sanitation is therefore evident.

The Mukuru Special Planning Area

To enable the establishment of sustainable service delivery mechanisms, in 2017, the Nairobi City County Government declared Mukuru Kwa Njenga, Kwa Reuben and Viwandani to be a Special Planning Area. This designation initiated the development and implementation of a Mukuru Integrated Development Plan (MIDP).

Community asks:

Following designation of Mukuru as an SPA, water and sanitation plans were developed after extensive consultation with the residents, and three requests were made:

• That water and waterborne sanitation services from Nairobi City water utility company are provided to the residents.
• That families have access to toilets at the plot level, rather than relying on community toilets.
• That prepaid water dispensers (PPDs) are provided, each one to serve 150 households.

Implementation of Mukuru Integrated Plan:

During the preliminary design phase of Mukuru’s water supply and sanitation systems, the technical team evaluated various options for sanitation and water supply. After extensive analysis, simplified sewer systems (SSS) and PPDs were selected as the best solutions. Simplified sewers enable the construction of a sewerage network using smaller-diameter pipes laid at a shallower depth and on a flatter gradient than conventional sewers. This enables more flexible designs, leading to minimal displacement compared to conventional systems. Specifically, simplified sewers also have the following advantages:

• Lower capital and operational costs compared to conventional sewers.
• Can be extended as the community grows.
• Grey water, such as water used for washing clothes, can be managed concurrently.
• Do not require onsite primary treatment units.

Simplified sewer systems were implemented in Mukuru Kwa Ruben, supported by the national government’s installation of trunk and main sewers. However, the government did not construct lateral sewers, which are necessary for last-mile connections. As a result, civil society organisations (CSOs) stepped in to invest in the construction of these lateral sewers, enabling residents to build plot-level toilets and connect to the sewer network.

To ease water provision, pre-paid water dispensers were adopted, allowing consumers to purchase water using prepaid tokens, thus eliminating the need for billing. Tokens are registered using a person’s national identification card at Nairobi Water offices. Currently, water is charged at one shilling per 20-litre jerrycan, compared to the previous rate of KES 5–20.

To address financial barriers, Akiba Mashinani Trust (AMT), in partnership with FSD-Kenya, established a sanitation revolving fund to support structure owners who lacked the means to construct toilets and pay Nairobi Water connection fees. So far, the fund has helped 127 structure owners build toilets and cover water connection costs, with an average loan per owner of approximately KES 20,000. Additionally, AMT and other CSOs, such as Water Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP), have constructed approximately 3km of lateral sewers, connecting 1,248 plots and benefiting around 12,500 families.

Despite this progress, approximately 80% of residents still do not have plot-level toilets connected to the sewer system. Therefore, significant support is required for the construction of roughly 30km of lateral sewers and the installation of about 500 PPDs in Mukuru.

Partnership between AMT and the African Cities Research Consortium

AMT has partnered with ACRC to document the methodologies, systems and practices employed in expanding water and sanitation services in Mukuru Kwa Reuben through the Special Planning Area, while comprehensively assessing the outcomes of these interventions.

The partnership also seeks to identify and address critical financing gaps, infrastructure deficiencies, community organisation challenges, technical limitations and policy barriers that hinder the effectiveness of ongoing efforts. In parallel, the project will operationalise collaborative frameworks between AMT, Nairobi City County Government (NCCG), Nairobi Water and Sewerage Company (NCWSC), WSUP, the Nairobi Rivers Commission and other stakeholders, with a focus on strengthening and expanding these partnerships.

A key component of the initiative includes extending water and sanitation infrastructure to reach 8,000 households in Mukuru Viwandani. To ensure sustainability, the project will establish robust systems and governance structures to facilitate effective oversight and coordinated management of services, in collaboration with state actors.

Ultimately, the insights gained will contribute to enhancing the existing policy framework for delivering water and sanitation services in informal settlements, through refined methodological approaches.

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 Patricia Liola Tona Katto

The African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC) Visiting Writers Scheme provides young African scholars in the consortium with the invaluable opportunity to develop their writing and researching skills, through four weeks of mentorship from a senior researcher at a supporting institute. In November 2024, I had the pleasure of undertaking the programme at the Global Development Institute (GDI) in Manchester.

A key strength of the scheme is its flexibility. Recognising my need to balance professional and personal responsibilities, the ACRC team graciously accommodated my application for a hybrid model of participation, with two weeks of the scheme in Manchester and two weeks working remotely from Uganda. This flexibility highlighted ACRC and GDI’s dedication to inclusivity, making it possible for me to fully engage in the programme while honouring my commitments at home.

Manchester has an incredibly vibrant and lively environment. Though November was quite cold, it was difficult not to feel warmed by the friendly atmosphere within the Arthur Lewis Building, where the ACRC team and my mentors – Nicola Banks and Sam Hickey – were based.

As a researcher for the youth and capability development domain in Kampala during ACRC’s foundation phase, I had previously collaborated with Nicola and Sam. Their expertise was pivotal in shaping our research, which explored youth engagement with political systems and urban development in Kampala, within ACRC’s conceptual framework and theory of change. This work culminated in a draft working paper, co-authored with Nansozi Muwanga, analysing youth political representation in Uganda.

Encouragement from Nicola and Sam, following our presentation of this research at the Development Studies Association (DSA) Conference in June 2024, motivated me to apply for the Visiting Writers Scheme to further develop the paper.

The scheme provided a unique opportunity for me to engage with Sam and Nicola’s leadership in a professional, hands-on, one-on-one context. Nicola was exceptionally supportive, offering invaluable insights that greatly enhanced my professional and personal development. She facilitated introductions to several researchers at the GDI, who provided constructive advice on a wide range of topics.

Furthermore, both Sam and Nicola offered meticulous feedback on my draft working paper, drawing on their extensive expertise in publication and Ugandan politics to guide me in making effective improvements.

Additionally, Diana Mitlin, the CEO of ACRC, generously dedicated time to connect with me, sharing insights from her distinguished career in urban development to assist me in navigating my evolving professional trajectory.

At its core, the Visiting Writers Scheme has been a transformative experience for me, fostering a dynamic exchange of knowledge between myself and the host institution. The insights I gained extended far beyond the technical knowledge acquired from attending lectures at GDI and the invaluable feedback on my draft working paper. I was fortunate to connect with a diverse group of researchers at GDI, whose shared experiential knowledge enriched my understanding and perspective. This collaborative knowledge sharing not only reflects ACRC’s commitment to supporting the next generation of African scholars but also highlights the importance of building meaningful connections within the organisation. My time in the scheme has truly deepened my appreciation for the power of collaboration and mentorship in advancing my career.

Participating in the Visiting Writers Scheme has been an immensely rewarding experience. I strongly encourage fellow scholars to embrace this invaluable opportunity for personal development, knowledge sharing and academic growth. The insights, connections and support I received have significantly enriched my career, and I believe that others will find similar benefits in participating in this transformative programme.

Header photo credit: Chris Jordan. Patricia Liola Tona Katto presenting at the DSA Conference in June 2024.

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 Diana Mitlin, CEO of the African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC)

A recent conference on African Urbanism has provided a useful space for me to reflect on what the African experience has brought to my work and that of my colleagues. This has included academic scholarship, professional and policy engagement and activism. Given their potential to improve development in Manchester and the role the University plays in this, two lessons are immediately worth sharing.

1. Grassroots action and community mobilisation

My first engagement with the richness of grassroots actions in African neighbourhoods to address interventions was in 1993, when I took part in a meeting of informal settlement leaders in Cape Town. These were, for the most part, residents who had been ignored by the organisations which represented residents legally entitled to live in Black townships. It was also shortly after activist Chris Hani was assassinated by a right wing extremist. The meeting had originally been planned to be held in an informal settlement but in this traumatic context, the scale of unrest meant that community leaders from elsewhere were not comfortable visiting informal neighbourhoods.

What was immediately apparent was the depth of community care – with activists who interspersed discussion by articulating their grief and fears, and a coming together in regular song throughout the meeting. Also evident was their ability to both recognise the significance of the accountability of leaders to members, and their interest in new tools and approaches to open up alternative development options.

Over the next months, the community leaders – already active in following up ideas about SDI savings groups (originally crafted in India) – agreed to network their groups and create the South African Homeless People’s Federation.

And over the next two decades, the ideas shared in this meeting have spread across Africa – with other informal settlements in Asia and Latin America also experimenting with these tools and methods. In 1996, the network Slum/Shack Dwellers International was born, linking these national federations into a transnational group.

An articulate representation of what this approach offers to poverty reduction was explained to me by a women in a small town in Namibia, Omaruru, during a group discussion about the experiences of SDI organising:

“Before I was a member of the savings scheme, I was alone. Now I have a friend in every house on the street. When Namibia became independent, I did not feel independent. Now I can go into the office of the governor.”

Much of the academic literature on SDI focuses on the experiences and consequences of externally funded development interventions. But relatively little captures the experiences in smaller towns or more isolated neighbourhoods, where there is relatively less professional support and fewer opportunities for externally funded interventions.

One core premise of SDI is that poverty reduction programming needs to be reworked from below:

• Organising processes need to be redesigned to strengthen accountable community groups (often via saving schemes).
• Groups need to be networked to enable citywide strategising and avoid residents’ associations being played against each other (by federating).
• Mobilisation needs to be built across all residents in each neighbourhood and across the city (though data collection with settlement profiling and household enumerations).
• Peer-to-peer learning (to build confidence, capabilities and reduce the power of professionals).
• New modalities of poverty reduction need to be designed, tested through implementation and refined (involving co production with local authorities and other state agencies).
• The community networks need sensitive and strategic professional support to link to city council officials, to:
  • Document learning for external audiences.
  • Raise funding from donors for networking, data collection and project experimentation.
  • Provide or contract project professional expertise, and supporting learning (absorbing failures, anticipating difficulties and blockages that will emerge).

African approaches inspiring Manchester community organising

Annual visits of SDI Federations to The University of Manchester from 2011 linked to GDI’s teaching programming provided a platform for the sharing of these ideas with community groups in Manchester. Over time a local network, Community Savers, has developed with its own support NGO (CLASS).

Community Savers has been supported by multiple engagements with SDI – first from South Africa and then spreading to Kenya – which have catalysed community leadership in Manchester (and now also in Sheffield) in a way that replicates processes in Africa. While I am always nervous to claim that things are unique, what is clear is that for a group of mainly women leaders – who have long resided in low-income neighbourhoods, and previously been ignored by many external agencies – this organising methodology is different from what has previously been offered and makes sense to them.

From 2016, a group of women’s led community groups in Greater Manchester began a more deliberate path of peer-to-peer learning with Kenya. Supported by the emergence of a small professional team and the formation of a charity, CLASS, these ideas have been taken forward.

In just eight years, nurtured by this reversal of learning hierarchies, African practices have catalysed a strong, vibrant, community-led movement in both Greater Manchester and Sheffield. Just as in Africa, academic expertise has been used (where appropriate) to challenge exclusion and enhance the legitimacy of community demands – and amplify the scale of the community voice.

The African context – with limited community accountabilities, inadequate public services and socially distant local authorities – has nurtured approaches to addressing poverty and inequality, which maintains relevance when transferred to the UK.

2. The potential of urban reform coalitions

My second example is homegrown African learning about urban reform coalitions, which are challenging poverty and inequality in the continent. This practice is potentially of interest to The University of Manchester, as it builds a new strategy for a civic universitythat is suited to the challenges of urban development the 21st century.

City-based coalitions have previously been associated with business and local authority elite deals to strengthen economic opportunities in cities. Yet these are often at the expense of low-income groups, who may be displaced by infrastructure improvements, and who are rarely included in these deliberations.

African practices have built on innovations within and beyond Africa to experiment with coalitions and alliances that seek to find new development options to strengthening inclusion and accountability. Universities are important here. They act both as hosts and/or support processes located outside academia. Examples include the Urban Action Lab at Makerere University in Kampala, the Sierra Leone Urban Resource Centre in Freetown (linked to Njala University as a catalyst), the Urban Informality Forum in Harare (with the University of Harare as co-founders), and the Centre for Housing and Sustainable Development at the University of Lagos. More short-term efforts include the Mukuru Special Planning Area which included academics from the University of Nairobi and Strathmore Law School (Kenya) as well as UC Berkeley (US). And now, institutionalised efforts include Municipal Development Forums in Ugandan towns and cities.

These initiatives share common features. They are orientated to a more just and inclusive city that address the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and more. They recognise that informality – both in terms of the economy and residence – is a way of life for the most marginalised and disadvantaged urban residents. More than 56% of residents live in informal neighbourhoods across sub-Saharan Africa, and in most cities, more than 80% of workers are informally employed or informal entrepreneurs. It is clear why this is a major area of attention.

Such coalitions include multiple stakeholders – including the private and public sectors – who all have an interest in improving urban performance. The common experience in the examples above is that local government responds well to these initiatives. Governments are reassured by the inclusive multistakeholder approach to addressing poverty and inequality, and redefining economic growth options so they benefit all. Academics provide essential knowledge, and help to reassure all parties that there is space for debate and discussion of potentially contentious issues.

Such coalitions are changing the dynamics between academics, professionals and local authorities, and the communities whose development is the purpose of these platforms. Experience suggest that they contribute in multiple ways, two of which we highlight here.

1. Accountability
Academics and professionals are rarely accountable to the communities for the work that they do. Communities are frustrated with being researched with no tangible increase in development options. They feel used – conscious that they are providing the knowledge that academics use to write papers and secure personal advancement – without being either recognised or benefited. And they wonder who determines research priorities and why their communities’ needs and interests are not addressed in these knowledge processes. Bringing diverse community groups together through coalition meetings, and sharing information across these networks improves the accountability of academics and professionals to the disadvantaged marginalised groups they seek to help. These spaces are not so that communities can comment on academic priorities, they are there to co-create a new way of engaging around a common agenda.

2. Information and knowledge
The mantra “information is power” is widely repeated. Less frequently repeated is the use of disinformation and partial information to disempower, manipulate and control. Many grassroots leaders are denied the information they need to act effectively and strategically in addressing the needs and interests of their members and other residents or workers. Participation in urban reform coalitions helps community leaders because they are connected to well-informed individuals. The academic presence helps to ensure that coalitions are public platforms placing information and knowledge, with the public space facilitating a rich discussion.

What can we in Manchester learn from this African experience?

I suggest two main insights to consider.

First, the UK context is one where academic and professional expertise has failed to address structural poverty and been seen to fail. The populist turn to politics is associated with an anti-expert narrative, offering promises of inclusion that are not dependent on knowledge and evidence. The danger of this is self-evident.

Local reform coalitions can provide a tangible basis that challenges this narrative and the practice of expert failure. A closer engagement, incorporating multiple stakeholders, results in a rich dialogue between academics and organised communities.

Knowledge priorities from communities can be presented, discussed and potentially addressed. The engagement of the local authority helps to ensure that a more equitable relationship is nurtured between such communities and the councillors and city hall. The presence of academics serves to legitimise and amplify the community voice.

Neighbourhoods proximate to the university may be invited to change their relationships, address their frustration with their elite neighbour and define new options for collective development, student education, individual employment and co-management of space through this collaboration.

Second, discourses of the civic university in Manchester to date have often been centred on the relationships between the university and local government. As shown by the examples from Africa, there is an alternative practice in process – one with a more inclusive understanding about who should shape development priorities and solutions.

The rapid urbanisation process in Africa has highlighted major spatial and social inequalities. But it has also provided an opportunity for academics who want to address them to raise their game, through inclusive urban reform coalitions.

Coalitions provide an opportunity to aggregate academic efforts, and make space to respond to the interests, demands and needs of other residents in the city. In Manchester, as in African cities, there are a multitude of individual academics who prioritise these themes in their work. However, institutional processes have often fractured rather than aggregated their efforts – resulting in marginal benefits to those living in local neighbourhoods.

The extensive experiences of African academics and urban reformers shows us what is possible, and how engagement with both local communities and councils can transform inner cities for the better.

This blog post originally appeared on the Global Development Institute’s blog and is republished here with permission. Read the original article.

Header photo credit: Hannah van Rooyen. Diana Mitlin along with ACRC colleagues and community leaders in Mukuru Viwandani informal settlement, Nairobi in 2022.

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.

Evaluating the impact of streetlighting

Explorative research was carried out with residents of Lagos communities along the city’s main geographical areas – Lagos Mainland, Lagos Island and the peri-urban areas of Lagos – as well as with the city’s key stakeholders, including state, non-state, security and academic institutions.

Interestingly, economic and social benefits were particularly prominent in the research findings. Residents feel safer going out after dark when streets are well lit, while workers feel safer walking to and from their homes early in the morning and at night.

Businesses on newly lit streets have seen increased revenue as a result of being able to operate for longer after nightfall. A small-scale business owner on one of these newly streets said: “Streetlighting has changed my business operations. I can now operate for more hours without fear of intimidation by the area boys. I now have higher incomes.”

A previous case study, focused on the impacts of solar-powered lighting in Kampala and Jinja in Uganda, established that extending trading times beyond daylight hours could add tens of thousands of working hours daily to the economy. Such an increase in productivity was highlighted by another Lagos respondent in our research, who said: “I have seen a tremendous increase in the number of people that patronise my goods beyond daylight hours. Because of this, I have to employ another sales attendant to be able to handle this increase.”

Another respondent commented: “Policing work is now better in the night and we do not necessarily need to rely on battery-powered torchlight in communities.”

Streetlighting can evidently lead to a variety of socioeconomic benefits, such as lower crime rates and a more vibrant nighttime economy. However, these impacts are not currently being evenly felt or enjoyed across the city, with power and politics playing a significant role in who benefits.

Narrowly concentrated streetlight infrastructure

Highlighting the quid pro quo of public lighting infrastructure in Lagos, our research findings show that streetlight provision and maintenance by the state could at times be related to patronage politics or client politics, used to garner community or residents’ votes and/or reward community political support. But informal settlements do not always have the capital and political pull to attract infrastructure, unlike the areas where city elites reside. Hence, we found the provision of streetlight infrastructure to be narrowly concentrated – orientated to benefit elites’ neighbourhoods.

As one resident explained: “The people in power only fix streetlights where it benefits them. When you are a minority or in opposition, you get scraps or even nothing. The criterion of distribution that the people in power use is simply – did you or will you support me?”

Nevertheless, many disadvantaged neighbourhoods have been able to install and continue to preserve their lighting infrastructure through community self-help, philanthropic gestures of individuals, and partnerships with non-governmental and civil society organisations. According to one resident, the very few streetlights provided by the state are “foni ku, fola dide” (epileptic) – due to negligence and lack of maintenance effort from the provider (state), as well as a lack of involvement from the community at the project inception, making it impossible for the community to own most of the state-provided streetlighting. But the Lagos “Own your Street Light” initiative is gradually changing this narrative in some places.

Tackling inequalities and maximising safety and socioeconomic impact

Our research has shown a variety of socioeconomic benefits of streetlight infrastructure and the lack of attention paid to informal settlements. Because of their lack of political capital, finance and other forms of social support, informal settlement communities face multifaceted deprivations.

Tackling these challenges entails a multidimensional approach, which ACRC action research and other future interventions should consider:

1. Approaches and principles must be people-centred, with stakeholders driving change. Ensuring that a diverse range of actors, including local communities, are involved in planning and implementation will help to maximise social impact and economic returns, as well as supporting bottom-up maintenance and management.

2. Interest should be garnered from state actors and other elites, so that the approach and implementation can be scaled up to other communities. Engaging community members who have developed skills in streetlight installation will also create employment and knowledge spillovers, enabling lighting technologies to be rapidly scaled up. These should be supported by capacity building for community members and local governments, for improvement in project delivery, maintenance and budgeting capabilities in order to deliver scaled-up, sustainable public lighting infrastructure.

3. Alternative and sustainable solutions should be prioritised to overcome challenges posed by the energy crisis, limited public finance and, crucially, the limited maintenance funding available to residents of informal settlements. A total transition to solar-powered streetlights could be the best option. One sub-Saharan case study has shown that installing and maintaining solar-powered streetlights instead of conventional options could reduce upfront installation costs by at least 25%, streetlight electricity consumption by 40% and maintenance costs by up to 60%.

4. Solutions should consider longevity and resistance to vandalism, through the use of technical innovation, durable materials and impact-resistant features. Additional security measures, such as attaching special patrols to the streetlight facilities, should also be factored in.

Having completed the foundation phase research on safety and security, as well as the explorative research evaluating the impact of streetlighting on safety and socioeconomic activities, ACRC Lagos is currently planning a streetlighting action research initiative. This aims to answer various questions related to streetlighting, covering reach, cost, quality of facility, maintenance, impacts and sustainability. These answers will be crucial for scaling up the intervention.

Together with residents, NGOs and community organisations, we aim to boost safety and socioeconomic activities by co-producing lighting strategies to improve life after dark in Lagos. Collectively, we will be working in the informal settlement of Ajegunle-Ikorodu. By forming a community of practice through our action research project, we will be able to learn, grow and form an evidence base aimed at influencing streetlighting policy specific to informal settlements, supporting local initiatives and encouraging community-driven efforts to strengthen the public lighting programmes.

We will be incorporating the above four key issues that require attention in streetlighting solutions for our project. We hope that this will garner interest – especially from the state and elites – so that implementation can be scaled to new communities through the community members who will develop skills and capacities through our action research project. This is a very exciting initiative and has much potential for scale.

Header photo credit: peeterv / Getty Images (via Canva Pro). Lekki-Ikoyi Link Bridge in Lagos, Nigeria.

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.

Theory of change and conceptual framework: A dynamic duo

ACRC’s ToC serves as a roadmap for achieving desired outcomes, while the CF serves as a tool for understanding the complexity of the urban context in which projects operate. Together, they empower project teams to identify the enablers and inhibitors of urban systems functioning in Kampala City, develop targeted interventions, anticipate challenges and monitor progress. 

The workshop emphasised the importance of aligning the ToC and CF with ACRC’s broader goals, to ensure that the portfolio of action research projects being implemented in Kampala will contribute meaningfully to improving the lives of urban citizens in the city.

Key takeaways and next steps

The team further explored the practical application of the frameworks, examining how projects interact with various city systems (for example, water, energy, waste management, transportation, healthcare, education, food distribution, law and order) and specific urban development domains (for example, youth and capability development, health wellbeing and nutrition, land and connectivity, and informal settlements). The team was also mindful of the crosscutting issues, including climate change, municipal finance and gender.

Discussions focused on leveraging opportunities within the political settlements framework and city systems to achieve project goals, fostering collaboration, and co-producing knowledge among diverse stakeholders (such as researchers, policymakers and communities).

Following on from the workshop, the team’s next steps include incorporating the ToC and CF into their next set of project proposals and actively engaging with the frameworks throughout the project lifecycle.

Key (re)learnings

The workshop was not just about frameworks and theories; it was about igniting a passion for urban transformation. The discussions were lively, the insights were sharp, and the atmosphere was electric. It was a reminder that academic research can be both rigorous and engaging, as well as informative and inspiring.

Key workshop outcomes included:

• Underscoring the importance of understanding the political context in which urban development systems and projects operate;
• Participants gaining a deeper understanding of the ToC and CF and their practical application in project planning and implementation;
• Fostering a collaborative learning environment, encouraging knowledge sharing and exchange of ideas among participants.

The workshop was also an opportunity for the land and connectivity team to refine its project idea around forming a reform coalition with land stakeholders. The team is in the process of developing a proposal for their project.

A collective endeavour

The ToC and CF will guide the work of the ACRC Kampala team, ensuring that projects contribute to the creation of inclusive, productive, safe and sustainable cities. The journey of urban transformation is a collective one, and the workshop was a testament to the power of collaboration and shared learning.

Photo credits: Hafisa Namuli

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 Rosebella Apollo, ACRC research uptake officer

ACRC held its second city managers meeting in Accra, Ghana from 11-15 November 2024. The five-day engagement convened a total of 15 delegates, including ACRC’s senior management team (SMT), city managers and representatives from the operations and research uptake teams.

The biannual convening provided an opportunity to collectively reflect on the implementation phase of the programme, taking stock of the action research (AR) portfolio projects, harnessing cross-city learning across our implementation cities and sharpening understanding of ACRC’s theory of change.

A preview of ongoing action research initiatives

Currently, the portfolio of action research initiatives that have kicked off include a zero-waste project in Accra, which seeks to organise women into cooperatives to manage waste at the Old Fadama informal settlement, with an element of compost production. Nairobi is running with a school feeding initiative targeting the informal schools that have been left out of the mainstream school feeding system in the informal settlement of Mukuru. Harare has been working on a proposal targeting the informal sector to upgrade the Glenview 8 furniture complex, with potential for a city-wide scale-up across other informal markets.

In addition to a plethora of pipeline projects across the different cities, progress is being made around a sanitation project at Ggaba market in Kampala, and streetlighting initiatives in Lagos.

Inclusivity in the zero-waste project

The first day of the Accra meeting provided an opportunity to engage with People’s Dialogue on Human Settlements (PD, ACRC’s lead implementing agency in Accra) for insights on the zero-waste project. Working closely with the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), traditional rulers and the Old Fadama community, PD has made great strides in securing land from AMA to set up a sorting and compost facility for processing compost manure from organic waste.

PD has been keen on changing the narrative on waste management by introducing women into waste management – a space that has been dominated by men. Currently, the team is organising women into cooperatives to run the waste management initiative and exploring linkages to access markets for compost manure.

Strengthening portfolio development of action research initiatives

As traction builds around ACRC’s implementation phase, the city managers are constantly looking out for ideas to spark proposals for new action research initiatives. The meeting therefore included time dedicated to deepening understanding around portfolio development and management.

Operationalising ACRC’s theory of change

The city managers meeting reiterated the centrality of ACRC’s theory of change to the design of portfolio initiatives and research uptake activities across the implementation cities. The four preconditions for urban transformation outlined in the theory of change are: greater elite commitment, enhanced state capacity, mobilised citizens and strengthened reform coalitions. These are deemed by ACRC as integral elements in advancing the reform frontier.

Elite commitment emerged as a crucial factor in scaling up action research initiatives, either through state programmes or market driven interventions. To further operationalise the theory of change, there might be need to adapt it to city and perhaps even project level contexts. With respect to uptake, the theory of change was found to be a useful tool in defining strategic partners for advancing reforms. Further, research uptake tests how well the theory of change is working with potential for refining it.

Launch of the Accra city report

As part of broader uptake initiatives, PD organised a launch for the Accra city report at the San Marino Hotel. The launch attracted 120 participants, including traditional rulers from Accra and Old Fadama, representatives from government agencies, ministries and departments, FCDO, UN-Habitat, civil society organisations, members of the community, academic partners and friends from the media.

The two-hour event was moderated by Accra’s city manager with brief presentations from the Director for Local Governance and Decentralisation, Samuel Seth Passah; ACRC’s CEO, Diana Mitlin; and professors Nana Ababio and Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai from the University of Ghana. The launch was presided by the Minister of State for Local Government Decentralisation and Rural Development, Hon. Osei Bonsu Amoah.  

According to Hon. Amoah, the report provides an assessment of the current situation with a vision for the future and practical guidelines to steer progressive policies. Overall, the city report highlights how Accra is facing non-sustained growth and development, due to failures relating to politics, institutional fragmentation and siloed city systems, in addition to other coordination challenges. On the brighter side, Accra housing deficits have reduced from 2.8 million in 2010 to 1.8 million in 2030, even though informal settlements have proliferated in the city.

A glimpse of urban agriculture

Later in the week, the ACRC team visited an urban agriculture site in Accra. The farm is located behind JA Plant Pool – along a 30-metre-wide railway reserve in the heart of the city – and is divided into neat rows of farming beds allocated to 35 registered members (farm holders). Using water pipes connected to a borehole, the farmers can sustain agricultural activities throughout the year.

PD is exploring collaboration with the farmers’ association to test feasibility of compost manure from the zero-waste initiative, as well as opportunities for the market end of the compost manure value chain.

A personal highlight from the week-long engagements in Accra is that in addition to advancing the reform frontier, ACRC is nurturing some serious soccer talent! This was eminent during an epic seven-aside soccer match with fellow ACRCers at the Peduase Valley Resort. Research directors Tim Kelsall and Shuaib Lwasa, along with uptake director Ismail Ibraheem, are certainly ones to watch…

Photo credits: Rosebella Apollo and Know Your City TV

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.

Why is locally led development so important?

There is growing recognition that projects fail when local knowledge is not sufficiently incorporated. This can be seen in many different examples within communities. For instance, a water point being placed in a community next to the leaders’ house, which then ends up being controlled by that leader for their benefit, once the project finishes. Or houses being constructed without recognition of flood risk. Or support being given to certain microenterprises to strengthen their capabilities in tailoring or street foods, without acknowledging the plethora of other enterprises all competing for customers.

It can also be seen in research findings that “float” above local realities – often because the interviews were undertaken by researchers with insufficient knowledge to probe and challenge senior politicians, therefore failing to uncover the complexities of local processes.

Moreover, outcomes need to be fairer and to favour those who are the most disadvantaged. That is most likely to be achieved when disadvantaged people are themselves involved in decisionmaking. Improving representation of marginalised communities is important as a goal in itself – for equitable inclusion – and will help to make the development assistance system more effective in reaching those most in need.

What does development research get wrong?

Development research also needs to be more equitable – both as a principle and to enhance understanding, through combining multiple ways of knowing (via new methodologies) as well as generating new knowledge. Equitable research partnership requires changes in systems and processes. Success is less likely where local knowledge has not been adequately included and where relevant local lessons are not effectively shared. It is worth unpacking both of those statements. 

A street in Mathare informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya

On top of this, development research has also often failed to invest in local impact and uptake expertise. In urban development practice, lesson sharing takes place when knowledge is placed in the public or private domains by individuals who are locally respected and trusted by others, due to their shared lived experience. Findings or recommendations from outside are not received in the same way.

External messages may have a status because of the significance of the individual sharing the knowledge – for example, a famous US academic. Such outside validation may even help to reduce the risk officials face when adopting new ideas. So, when used strategically, external contributions may be significant. But local experts need to adapt this work to the local context and build reform coalitions to support new initiatives.

The importance of community knowledge

The decolonisation of knowledge is often reduced to an issue between Northern and Southern academics. In reality, dysfunctional hierarchies often become engrained into all “academic” ways of working, resulting in community – or urban “indigenous” knowledge – being ignored or erased.

Community leaders know a lot about how change happens: who innovates, who blocks and where power lies. But, simply put, they are rarely asked to contribute this information. Even where they are engaged, community members can be nervous about the consequences of speaking out and realise their perspective may not appreciated. Such hierarchies can even encourage experts within the community to act as subservient, infantilising their potential.

In a blog published earlier this year, we set out the six key actions that ACRC is taking to make our approach more locally led and decolonial. Six months on, these are my initial reflections on progress.

> Foundation phase researchers

We have been broadly successful in our ambition to prioritise the intellectual contribution of African-based researchers. Building on established relationships and collaborations has been critical.

Experienced Africans working on issues of relevance to urban development and urban reform recognised the potential in ACRC and added considerable value immediately. In some cases, we could not identify someone with such seniority, and we have worked with early career African researchers. In terms of gender balance, we initially struggled to recruit equal numbers of male and female researchers, but have become more successful over time.

> Implementation phase city managers

With respect to the leadership of African-based implementers for ACRC’s action research phase, we have been successful in two respects. First, our Africa-based city managers are a talented bunch, with decades of experience in managing urban reform, including programming and policy initiatives. We have decentralised budgets, nurtured local advisory processes and established a co-development approach to ensure that proposals are emerging from those best able to judge how to move forward the urban reform frontier. Second, our individual action research projects are being led by a wider range of researchers, academics, NGOs and community organisations, all embedded in the cities in which we are working.

While we are still very early in the implementation phase, we are delighted with progress so far. There have been no substantive difficulties in ensuring we meet the required standards for due diligence; we have to navigate the requirements from both FCDO and The University of Manchester. We may draw in appropriate Northern expertise as African project leaders identify capabilities that are not available locally.

> Community knowledge

Finally, we are continuing to invest in community knowledge by setting up a community research team in each city and embedding these teams within action research projects. We have made efforts to ensure that the community research team is comprised of predominantly grassroots researchers, with a small professional component to enable their effective integration into learning and knowledge development processes. We are also keen to build the analytical capabilities of the community researchers, to enable them to move beyond being data collectors.

This has been the trickiest element to get right. There are no existing modalities that we can ask researchers to adopt – although there are some useful tools. We are asking academics to acknowledge their need to work in more participatory ways, and to innovate when doing this.

Community researchers are frequently hesitant to demand inclusion because their previous experience in education has trained them that they do not have a leadership role in knowledge development – although they are keen to engage when offered space. The ways in which professionals and academics support this process is critical. It is easy for them to dominate the process, and in so doing prevent capabilities from being enhanced.

As peer-to-peer learning enables effective tools and methods to be strengthened and grassroots voices to be amplified, then we hope that we will be able to develop, articulate and demonstrate the significance of their contribution.

Photo credits: Chris Jordan, Diana Mitlin. Header photo shows a community meeting in Accra, Ghana.

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 Chris Jordan, ACRC’s communications manager

The 12th World Urban Forum took place in Cairo last week – only the second time it has been held in Africa since its inception in Nairobi in 2002. A record 24,000 people attended from 182 countries – and it often felt like it (particularly while queueing for lunch)!

WUF (as it is universally known) came at the perfect time for us at ACRC. We are currently finalising the publication of all our foundation phase research on cities and domains, at the same time as scoping the action research projects that address key problems we highlighted in a number of locations.

Unlike some of our colleagues at SDI, who have attended every single WUF, it was my first time. So here are some of my reflections as a WUF newbie.

Urbanists are an extremely diverse bunch

Throughout the week, we ran an ACRC booth in the Urban Expo. The Expo took up two enormous conference “hangars”, featuring country booths, NGOs, universities, projects, campaigns, companies and more.

 We talked to hundreds of people – and in stark contrast to the more development-focused crowd at other events, the diversity of the attendees really struck me. There were far more planners, architects, designers and engineers than I had anticipated. This gave a richness to the conversations and reminded me that the overall approach of ACRC – with its focus on the catalysing politics of urban change for the most marginalised communities – provides a really distinctive contribution.

We’re in the process of developing an online course, based on our foundation phase research findings and I’ve returned home with a positive bounce for its potential. ACRC really is adding something new to urban debates and thinking.

Community voices can’t be taken for granted

We hosted an official “voices from the city” side event with SDI and IUSD Cairo on “learning from community voices, universities and knowledge processes”. The speakers emphasised the importance of hearing directly from people living in cities, rather than relying solely on poor quality national data, particularly across African countries.

Sheila also highlighted the vital role of the Urban Informality Forum in Harare. Hosted by the University of Zimbabwe, it provides a platform for dialogue and debate between city officials, companies and community groups. The forum has helped all parties to move beyond previous deadlocks on issues of informality, and allows current issues (like the recent fire at Mbare market) to be meaningfully addressed from a range of perspectives.

The scope and scale of the task means that reform coalitions are essential

As the final Cairo Call to Action emphasises,

“The magnitude and interconnected nature of urban development challenges and opportunities requires stronger collaboration for progress. Local action is more impactful when driven by coalitions that bring together communities, local and national governments, the private sector and civil society. Empowering local actors through these partnerships and coalitions is a powerful tool for addressing community-specific challenges while aligning with broader national and global goals.”

Given ACRC’s work to better understand and catalyse urban reform coalitions, it’s perhaps unsurprising that we heartily agree. However, there’s also a huge challenge to put this into practice, particularly at the scale required to create substantive change for people across urban areas in Africa – and further afield.

Many of these issues were discussed in a Habitat Village discussion session, facilitated by ACRC’s Diana Mitlin and Shuaib Lwasa on the penultimate day. The group highlighted the important role of regular coalition spaces (like the Urban Informality Forum in Harare) to help hold authorities accountable, in addition to generating mutual understanding. We debated the varied forms of coalitions – from informal groupings of individual reformers, to formal organisational structures – as well as highlighting the potentially negative effects of coalition structures being instrumentalised by funders.

In launching the new Hub for Housing Justice at WUF, our colleagues in IIED highlighted a vital issue that has been previously overlooked on the international urban agenda. As SDI’s Beth Chitekwe-Biti remarked at the launch, genuinely affordable housing is a universal issue – for both North and South. Manchester’s Social Housing Commission, which brings together community activists, researchers and members of the city council, may provide a template for others to follow.

At the end of WUF, I managed to fit in a quick visit to the Giza pyramids, close to the centre of Cairo. Standing beneath the vast bulk and awesome height of the pyramids, constructed over 4,500 years ago, I felt that they lay down a silent challenge for us.

If an ancient civilisation could create such an enduring physical legacy, then it is surely not beyond our collective capabilities to create a radically better urban environment for all city dwellers – across Africa and beyond.

Photo credits: Chris Jordan and Hannah van Rooyen

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.

For the first time in over 20 years, the World Urban Forum is being hosted on the African continent.

The African Cities Research Consortium will be there – so if you’re attending, please come and say hello! Look out for the ACRC exhibition booth where you can chat to us and find out more about our research and future plans.

To highlight the successful urban reform efforts we’ve been showcasing via our database, we’ll be asking people to tell us about their favourite example of inclusive urban reform. If you’ve got a good story, please come to the ACRC booth and let us know about it!

Learning from community voices

On Wednesday 6 November at 13:00–14:30, we are co-convening a session in Room F: ‘Learning from community voices, universities and knowledge processes: Experiences across Africa’.

Alongside SDI and IUSD, we will be discussing the value of community knowledge in driving urban reform, practical ways it can be incorporated into research and the broader role of universities in validating community knowledge.

Panellists include:

• Beth Chitekwe-Biti, Managing Director of Slum Dwellers International, and ACRC’s Community Knowledge Research Director
• Tapiwa Maruza, Informal Settlement Upgrading Officer at Namibia Housing Action Group
• Baher Shaarawy, Technical Advisor to the Prime Minister and Minister of Housing and Lecturer at HBRC, Egypt
• Sheila Muganyi, Community Leader of Zimbabwe Homeless People’s Federation

Developing city reform coalitions, allyships and better partnerships

On Thursday 7 November at 15:30–16:30, we will be hosting an informal discussion as part of the Habitat Village at Booth 7323 in Hall 4.

We’ll debate the role of reform coalitions in driving sustainable urban transformation, exploring the potential and pitfalls of bringing together communities, civil society organisations, government officials, politicians and researchers to co-produce reform. We hope to share experiences, insights and practical solutions for working together as part of an effective urban reform coalition.

Partner events

We’re also looking forward to attending the events being run by other ACRC partners, including:

• The launch of the Hub for Housing Justice, with IIED’s Alex Frediani (who co-led our work on housing) – Thursday 7 November at 13:00
• The raft of events through the week that ICLEI Africa is hosting

Header photo credit: WUF12 logo overlaying image of Dar es Salaam by Moiz Husein / iStock.

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.

ACRC is preparing to implement four co-designed action research projects across Nairobi, aimed at improving living conditions among residents of informal settlements.

In partnership with SDI-Kenya, the Nairobi city team held a workshop on 16 October 2024 to convene key stakeholders – including reform coalitions, academics, government, researchers and community representatives beyond the ACRC network.

The main aim of the meeting was to gather insights on practical ways to influence policy and urban reform programming, strengthen the ACRC city team’s research uptake strategy, and identify key urban, political, and community actors, relevant reform coalitions and strategic policy influencers to collaborate on the projects.

Building on comprehensive studies into the political and systemic dimensions underpinning key urban development issues in Nairobi, the city team is developing these interventions in partnership with LVCT Health, Slum Dwellers International – Kenya (SDI-Kenya), Akiba Mashinani Trust and Strathmore Law School. 

The action research projects in Nairobi will focus on:

Extending the county school feeding programme to informal settlements

Aimed at improving health and nutrition among children living in Nairobi’s informal settlements, LVCT Health will spearhead the project to extend the county school feeding programme to informal schools. The intervention will focus on mainstreaming sustainable and affordable healthy diets in informal primary schools, early childhood development education (ECDE) centres and daycare centres in Nairobi’s urban informal settlements.

Establishing a holistic waste management system in Mathare

SDI-Kenya will lead the holistic waste management project in Mathare. Despite numerous interventions aimed at improving living conditions in the settlement, fragmented investment and inadequate resourcing has meant these efforts have failed to bring about meaningful change. This intervention will comprise three key components: providing 24-hour access to solid waste disposal, improving sewerage access for households and creating productive public spaces.

Improving water and sanitation in Mukuru

The project to improve water and sanitation services in the Mukuru Special Planning Area will be led by Akiba Mashinani Trust. Structured with the overall objective of improving access, affordability and governance of water and sanitation services in Nairobi’s informal settlements, the intervention will involve mobilising residents through establishing a reform coalition of agencies, institutions and community members. The project will entail a comprehensive analysis of current water and sanitation services, which will be used to determine potential interventions to improve delivery, access and governance.

Empowering communities with land ownership data

Strathmore Law School and Akiba Mashinani Trust will partner on the intervention to democratise land data, aiming to empower communities to address tenure security in Mathare. Understanding land ownership dynamics in informal settlements is an urgent political task for addressing urban inequalities. This project seeks to expand informal settlement residents’ control of land data and will also establish community-level institutional structures to advance the interventions proposed through the action research.

> What is action research – and what is it not?

Photo credits: Know Your City TV

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.