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.

By Jerry Okal, Rosebella Apollo, Jack Makau, Amollo Ambole, Susan Mwanzia, Wavinya Mutua, Inviolata Njoroge and Lilian Otiso

Background to the school feeding programme in Kenya

Kenya’s track record in implementing a school feeding programme for nearly 30 years is a testament to its evolution. Over the decades, the programme has been pivotal in providing meals for pre-primary and primary school children.

The first documented school feeding programme was initiated in 1979 by the late President Moi, who provided fresh milk known as “Nyayo Milk”. This initiative aimed to increase enrolment and attendance amongst pre-primary and primary school children in public schools. It set the stage for subsequent national and local governments to continue this legacy – although not necessarily providing milk – by initiating similar programmes or collaborating with different development partners, NGOs and private sector organisations to provide school meals.

The legal and policy framework

The National School Meals and Nutrition Strategy 2017-2022 in Kenya serves as a crucial framework for implementing school meals and nutrition programmes. It aligns with national and international obligations and is supported by key documents such as the Kenya Constitution, Vision 2030 and various education plans.

These documents underscore the government’s commitment to providing resources for school meals and addressing health and nutrition needs in schools. The national school meals strategy includes implementing National School Health Policies, ensuring adequate nutrition for school-age children and addressing specific micronutrient deficiencies that can affect students’ performance.

Gaps in the regulatory framework

While the school feeding programme in Kenya has a long history, there is a pressing need for clear guidance from the national and county governments on how to run the initiative effectively. Challenges such as inconsistent political commitments, limited resources and a lack of a clear operational plan could impede the implementation of the National School Meals and Nutrition Strategy.

Both past and current governments have prioritised the school feeding programme to address issues such as high school dropout rates, poor academic performance and increasing cases of malnutrition. If managed well, the initiative’s benefits far outweigh its costs, offering hope for a brighter future for learners in Kenya.

In 2010, the country changed its constitution to give county governments a crucial role in bridging the services gap with the central government. This change allows them to position themselves as key links in ensuring that vulnerable learners have access to school meals. Evidence suggests that without proactive linkages among communities, the political class and policy influencers, and the effective implementation of public policies, social and economic change is unlikely to occur.

Models for school feeding programmes in Kenya

According to the National School Meals and Nutrition Strategy (2017–2022), there are five modalities for implementing the school feeding programme. These modalities include:

1. Decentralised modality: Funds are transferred from the national or county governments to local levels, such as devolved government units, schools, community committees or other stakeholders.

2. Centralised modality: Procurement is undertaken at either national or county levels, and the food is distributed to schools for preparation.

3. Outsourced catering services: The supply and provision of meals is outsourced and catering services may be contracted by schools or governments for food supply and delivery.

4. Community-based modality: This presents several options:

• Parents may contribute to school meals and nutrition activities with either food or money.
• Parents may contribute specific funds to school meals and nutrition activities as part of the school levies.
• School farms (also known as school gardens) may supplement the existing food supply and use the farming initiatives as learning projects for health and nutrition education within the school’s pedagogical plan.
• Parents may pack food for their children based on an acceptable standard food basket and guidelines.

5. Mixed modality: This enables different stakeholders to organise their school meal and nutrition initiatives according to regional peculiarities, while adhering to national policies and guidelines.

Government commitment to school feeding programmes

In 2023, the Kenyan government signed a Ksh 17.32 billion Intergovernmental Partnership Agreement to expand the school meals programme. The aim was to provide meals for over 1.9 million learners in public schools. The government announced that the initiative would be implemented through a 50:50 partnership between the Nairobi County and the National government. Additionally, Ksh 5 billion was earmarked by the government for the expansion of the programmes to other counties. Nairobi County was allocated Ksh 1.2 billion to feed 250,000 children, with parents contributing five shillings daily and the county covering the remaining costs.

However, there are doubts about whether school children throughout the country can still access meals through the programme in 2025, as this is dependent on whether recently introduced budget proposals associated with the 2024 finance bill – which sparked a wave of protests in Kenya – are implemented or withdrawn. Despite the uncertain national outlook of the school feeding programme due to funding challenges, the Nairobi County initiative, dubbed “Dishi na County”, appears to be on track to meet its objectives.

The Dishi na County programme

Nairobi County has partnered with Food for Education – a well-known NGO with expertise in cooking and delivering food to school children across Kenya – to implement the Dishi na County school feeding programme. Since its inception on 28 August 2023, they have set up several kitchens and provided meals to 184,000 school children from public primary schools and Early Childhood Development Education (ECDE) centres.

So far, 106 schools have been onboarded and receive daily food provisions. Furthermore, the completion of ten central kitchens marks a significant milestone, with plans underway to construct seven more to expand the programme’s reach further.

Food for Education prepares nutritious meals from the central kitchens, packing them in specially sealed containers to keep the meals warm and safe from contamination as they transport them to neighbouring schools in specialised food trucks for transporting hot food.

Parents pay for subsidised school lunches using mobile money, which has nearly 100% penetration in Kenya. The amount is credited to a virtual wallet linked to a near-field communication (NFC) technology-enabled smart wristband, which students use to “tap to eat” every day, taking less than five seconds. Dishi na County does not accept any cash payments for Tap2Eat food.

How can action research help optimise the successes of Dishi na County?

In the case of Dishi na County, the ACRC action research project in Nairobi can answer various questions related to the programme’s reach, cost, cost-effectiveness, quality of a healthy diet, maintenance and sustainability. These insights will be crucial for scaling up the intervention.

The research can also help build an important understanding of how students from informal schools in urban settlements like Mukuru, Mathare, Kibera, Dandora and others can benefit from and participate in the Dishi na County programme.

Why should the school feeding programme be extended to include informal schools?

UN-Habitat estimates that 60-70% of Nairobi’s almost 4.4 million residents (as of 2019) live in informal settlements. In 2020, 382,237 students were enrolled in primary schools across Nairobi City County, and over 60% could not access government schools due to distance. Out of the 850 primary schools, only 24% are government schools.

Informal schools, therefore, provide alternative basic education to many children in informal settlements who cannot attend formal public, private or faith-based schools and early childhood development education (ECDE) centres due to various circumstances. Whether registered or not, these schools and ECDE centres operate under the umbrella of Alternative Provision of Basic Education and Training (APBET) Schools which are often excluded from national and county programmes, support and interventions.

None of Nairobi’s informal schools currently benefit from the County feeding programme. A preliminary study conducted in 2022-2023 in Mathare and Viwandani informal settlements of Nairobi by ACRC identified children as most vulnerable to food insecurity, resulting in poor health and developmental outcomes. The school feeding programme was identified as one of the most impactful interventions for addressing children’s food insecurity.

To bridge this gap, ACRC plans to develop collaborative and sustainable solutions to improve learners’ health and nutrition outcomes in Nairobi’s informal settlements. This will be achieved through action research initiatives in the city, providing actionable evidence on sustainable solutions for learners in informal primary schools, ECDE centres, and home-based daycare centres. The evidence gathered from these initiatives aims to advocate for policy change, support local initiatives and encourage community-driven efforts to strengthen the school feeding programmes.

Header photo credit: Denis Onyodi / KRCS / Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0). School children in Kenya.

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, Jerry Okal and Jack Makau

Kenya has recently witnessed a unique series of protests, distinct from typical political demonstrations. These protests, known locally as “Maandamano”, have transcended regional, political, ethnic, social, and economic boundaries in Kenya. They reflect a growing concern among Kenyans about the high cost of living, persistent governance issues, corruption, foreign debt and an increasing inflation rate.

The country’s escalating debt and its impact on service delivery and the economy have been a major worry. Despite various unsustainable measures and coping strategies, Kenyans have quietly continued to bear the burden of unpopular political decisions. The ruling class and elites have taken advantage of this silence to push through unpopular legislation and rulings, making the economic situation even more dire.

Rising above the repression

A few months ago, the reality of Kenyans rising against punitive economic challenges seemed farfetched – let alone the idea of young people being able to meaningfully organise and participate in political processes. However, the contested Finance Bill of 2024 triggered unforeseen countrywide demonstrations to protest the finance bill, a punitive piece of legislation which sought to raise revenue of KES 3.7 trillion through taxation and acquisition of additional public debt.

Unlike the long history of the political elite-led demonstrations, the nationwide protests were led and headed predominantly by young people, known as Generation Z (Gen-Z) – those born in the late 90s and early 2000s – who demanded rejection of the finance bill. Over time, these demands evolved to decry the state of corruption, escalating public debt, accountability, impunity, incompetence, cronyism and wastage of public resources in both the executive and legislative arms of government.

Technology as a positive disruptor and an organising tool

The recent Gen-Z protests in Kenya have led to various outcomes and repercussions, including the rejection of the 2024 Finance Bill, changes in the cabinet secretaries, dissolution of 47 cooperatives, suspension of re-appointments in the civil service, and the abolishment of unconstitutional offices.

But what are the implications of these events for Kenya and the African continent as a whole? 

Firstly, the youth have challenged the established political order and tested the traditional political settlement theories that suggest power is primarily held by political elites. These events in Kenya could potentially lead to a shift in political power and the onset of a “co-shared political power” era of governance and public scrutiny on the affairs of the state.

Secondly, Gen-Z has redefined the organisation and conduct of protests. By using technology, especially social media to coordinate and validate their concerns, garner support from allies – including millennials and civil society – as well as communicate and orchestrate peaceful nationwide protests, they have reshaped the negative perception often associated with protests involving violence and destruction.

A sense of deepened accountability

The elite have long taken advantage of young people to further their own agendas. In the past, politicians used the youth majorly to win elections and cause disruptions for their own selfish gains. However, the recent Gen-Z protests signal a shift. Young people are no longer apathetic to political processes – they are politically aware and are willing to self-organise and rally support for issues that directly impact their future.

As seen in these ongoing protests, Gen-Z consistently raises valid concerns, supported by evidence, and proposes solutions. This pressure from the younger generation is pushing the government to increase transparency, accountability and improve service delivery.

Beyond the youth, we can expect to see other interest groups – such as registered professional bodies, university student organisations, organised civil society and human rights groups – rising to boldly and decisively challenge the status quo demand change. These actions are helping to open up the civic space, giving people a voice and agency.

Challenging dominant power configurations

The traditional political base in Kenya has been largely organised along tribal lines, with tribal alliances playing a key role in forming the ruling leader’s block. However, recent events, including the Gen-Z protests, suggest a shift towards issue-based politics that transcends ethnicity and emphasises the push for change.

The Gen-Z protesters have presented themselves as tribeless, leaderless and partyless, making it challenging for the ruling class to engage with and quell the protests. In response to relentless pursuits from peaceful Gen-Z protestors, the Kenyan police force resorted to using excessive force, brutal crackdowns, abductions and detentions, leading to at least 50 fatalities.

In the face of threats and deaths, the young people have been resilient and focused on their demands for greater accountability by the government. If this trend continues, it may lead to significant changes in power dynamics, challenging the dominance of tribal kingpins and other leadership figures. It is also becoming increasingly apparent that power ultimately belongs to the people, highlighting the need for political and ruling elites to strike a balance between serving the electorate’s aspirations and pursuing their own interests.

A young man holds a Kenyan flag at a protest in Nairobi

Leading the way for other African youth to challenge the status quo

Since the historic protests began in mid-June, 2024 the rest of the continent has been closely following the Gen-Z protests. The challenges that triggered Kenya’s wave of protests are experienced in other African nations, and youthful voices are being heard across the continent – through movements such as #EndBadGovernance and End SARS in Nigeria, protests against corruption and human rights abuses in Uganda, and #FeesMustFall in South Africa, among others.

Plans for protests are slowly percolating in different forms and shapes. Inspired by the recent protests in Kenya, which led to President William Ruto declining to sign the Finance Bill 2024 and implementing significant government reforms, Nigerian youths took to social media to call for change in their own country. A series of protests by the Gen Z youths in August, 2024 to demanded better governance from the ruling administration.

Beyond Africa, there were recent protests in Bangladesh led by young university students. The protesters were opposing the reinstatement of a quota that reserves 30% of government jobs for children of independence war veterans, which they argue favours supporters of the ruling party. The protests were intense and eventually led to the Prime Minister fleeing the country.

Given the prevailing circumstances of each country’s civic space, it is likely that more youth will attempt to use demonstrations as a way of igniting political activism – expressing their dissatisfaction and raising their voices to address critical issues that negatively impact their lives.

In Africa, young people in their numbers are an invaluable strategic resource. As rapid urbanisation and youth bulge continue to proliferate the African continent, there is a need to find more practical ways of including traditionally marginalised youth in co-creating urban transformation initiatives, to provide opportunities and harness the benefits associated with a youthful demographic.

> Read more about the challenges facing young people in African cities in our youth and capability development domain report

Photo credits: Sarah Ouma / SDI-Kenya. The header photo shows a young woman holding a placard at a protest in Nairobi.

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 Smith Ouma, postdoctoral research fellow at the Global Development Institute (GDI)

Recent floods in Kenya have left at least 270 people dead, displaced more than 200,000 and destroyed property, infrastructure and livelihoods across the country. In Nairobi, hundreds of people in informal settlements were left homeless and thousands were displaced. And now, the government has been evicting people from flood-prone areas.

Smith Ouma is a legal expert with a focus on urban governance. His research has covered land and tenure rights in Nairobi’s informal settlements. Moina Spooner, from The Conversation Africa, asked Smith to share his thoughts on the government’s response to the flooding in Nairobi’s informal settlements and how it can be improved.

Why are Nairobi’s informal settlements vulnerable to flooding?

Nairobi’s informal settlements sprang up in the colonial period. Colonial authorities used various laws and public health concerns as a way to remove Africans from areas considered commercially attractive. They were pushed into marginal areas of the city that were prone to hazards like flooding.

This continued after Kenya gained independence. Planning tools (like city master plans) were used to force low-income groups to relocate to the city’s peripheries.

Today, informal settlements cover only 5% of Nairobi’s total residential land area, but they are inhabited by at least half of the city’s population. Because they offer cheap living options, people end up crammed into this small space with minimal basic infrastructure and services.

Informal settlements continue to be vulnerable to hazards like floods because development plans haven’t considered their residents’ needs. The vast majority of informal settlements residents are left to cope in whatever way they can, often against established standards. For instance, residents will use whatever cheap material they can find to build their homes or improve infrastructure, like roads and sanitation facilities.

To make matters worse, as I’ve found in my previous research, there’s been a decline in city institutions. This has weakened the city’s ability to enforce rules and work with residents in low-income neighbourhoods towards creating effective solutions.

For instance, the County Assembly, the primary legislative institution at the county level, has been sidelined. This has created room for unaccountable institutions. The Nairobi Metropolitan Service, for example, was established as part of the president’s office rather than as an independent office in the county government system.

What did the government do to support those affected by flooding?

The government has used forceful evictions in low-income neighbourhoods. President William Ruto ordered the evacuation of all homes along the nation’s waterways.

In the immediate aftermath of the floods, residents of informal settlements and community groups banded together to support each other. Community health workers helped affected households with essential services and medicines. Food and other essential items were distributed by social movements, using donations.

But, rather than acknowledging, applauding, and supporting these efforts – which are the government’s constitutionally mandated duties – the administration came out with reactionary policies and proclamations.

Despite the constitutional guarantee of the right to adequate housing and numerous court judgments reaffirming citizens’ rights against forceful evictions, the government has resorted to heavy-handed tactics.

There are concerns that the new affordable housing programme – aimed at constructing 250,000 affordable housing units per year – might serve as a cover for evicting people from their land. This would create space for investors to build houses for an exclusive market.

Are these forced and arbitrary evictions legal?

No. Based on applicable laws and the constitution, in my view Kenya is violating local laws and other international treaties in carrying out these forced evictions.

First, the state, through the National Land Commission, failed to provide adequate notice to residents (three months as stipulated in the Land Act), which renders the evictions arbitrary.

Second, under the Kenyan constitution, the state has a duty to ensure all Kenyans have a right to adequate housing.

The loss of lives and property as a result of the state’s actions is a violation of residents’ right to life and property. Indeed, the Supreme Court has ruled that landless individuals who establish housing on public land have a protectable right to housing on the same land. This includes public land that is along riparian reserves. Any evictions that are to be carried out by the state must respect these rights and procedural requirements.

Third, Kenya is a signatory to various international treaties and conventions which say that any evictions carried out by the state must be in accordance with the United Nations Guidelines on Evictions. States must take all appropriate means to promote the right to adequate housing and prior to carrying out any evictions, explore – in consultation with the affected persons – all feasible alternatives with the view of avoiding or minimising the need to use force.

Also, as determined by a high court case in 2013, the state was to develop appropriate legal frameworks for evictions. The Kenyan government failed to do this, leading to a 2018 ruling by the Supreme Court affirming that in the absence of such guidelines, the UN Guidelines on evictions would be applicable as soft law.

How should the government have prepared and reacted instead?

The government has invoked its duty to protect lives as justification for the ongoing evictions in low-income settlements. This is a duty that existed even before the onset of the heavy rains. The government received early warnings of possible heavy rains and floods from the meteorological department but did very little to act on these warnings.

The government is also aware of the current national housing deficit of more than 8,888,626 units. This contributes to the expansion of informal settlements.

Armed with this knowledge, the ongoing catastrophe could have been avoided, or at least mitigated.

The state should have mobilised a coalition of actors to develop and implement protective measures for the residents.

Through the work I’ve done in various informal settlements in Kenya, such as Mukuru, I’ve seen how there are already long-standing initiatives by social movements and community groups which could have helped. These could be tapped into to identify risks and build community capabilities to respond to the flooding challenge.

These communities could also help with planning to prevent this situation from happening again. For instance, they’re already undertaking restoration activities along the rivers.

Additionally, in places like Mukuru, residents are actively seeking community-driven solutions to the land and housing challenges that are at the root of informal settlement development. These residents are the climate, environmental and universal housing champions who the government ought to have been working with even before the floods started.

Instead of forcibly evicting communities that have already experienced great hardship, if the government has no alternative option for them, policymakers should tap into their knowledge.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Header photo credit: Chris Jordan. A waterway running through the informal settlement of Mukuru kwa Reuben, Nairobi before the 2024 floods.

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.

The African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC) has confirmed the cities going forward into its implementation phase: Accra, Ghana; Harare, Zimbabwe; Kampala, Uganda; Lagos, Nigeria; and Nairobi, Kenya.

This follows the foundation phase research and engagement work in 12 cities, which has taken place over the last few years. The holistic exploration of city systems, political settlements and urban development domains enabled city teams to identify priority complex problems. Their proposed strategies to address these problems played a pivotal role in determining the cities moving ahead. 

With pilot projects and the first four selected cities announced in November 2023, Kampala is the final city chosen to proceed to ACRC’s next stage. 

Along with action research project proposals during the foundation phase, the final city decision took the overall balance of implementation cities into account – ensuring diversity in geography, size, income levels, fragility and political context. 

Over the next few years, local ACRC city teams will implement a number of urban development interventions in the selected cities, designed to address challenges identified in the foundation phase research and advance urban reform. Initial projects being rolled out in the cities are outlined below. 

The Kampala project will focus on Ggaba food market, a key source of fresh produce for the city and one of seven major markets owned by the Kampala City Council Authority (KCCA). Vendors at Ggaba market face multiple challenges related to inadequate sanitation, poor hygiene and substandard food safety practices. 

This action research intervention is aimed at enhancing the market’s food safety and sanitation systems. Through establishing a coalition of key stakeholders across public, private and civil society sectors, the project will build on previous experience to improve sanitation by developing a community-led approach and employing technologies for faecal sludge management. The system will generate gas to meet some on-site energy needs and support business enterprises, while compost byproducts will enable urban farmers to generate sales income. The project also aims to establish and formalise food safety certification processes. 

In Accra, the first action research project aims to develop an innovative business model for a community-led organic waste management system. Old Fadama – a historic informal settlement, with a growing population of over 120,000 – is the location of one of the city’s largest fruit and vegetable markets. Waste is a highly politicised issue in Accra, dominated by large private contractors. As a result, informal settlements like Old Fadama are excluded from the formal refuse collection system, meaning that waste – mostly organic – goes uncollected. Informal settlements and markets therefore depend on informal collectors. 

Promisingly, there is appetite for change. Initiatives by the city assembly to support and formalise informal waste collectors, together with policies that foster climate resilience and the green economy, are shining a spotlight on the critical importance of recycling and better waste management. This community-led waste management project therefore seeks to establish an organic waste value chain – including household waste separation, sorting and collection – along with a composting business, which will provide employment and better working conditions for waste collectors. 

Researchers in Lagos are currently developing several action research proposals, centred around improving access to housing for low-income families, implementing climate resilience action plans to provide flood protection in low-income neighbourhoods, and tackling violent crime hotspots with better street lighting.  

As shared previously, pilot action research projects are already underway in Nairobi and Harare, which were the first two cities confirmed to be proceeding to ACRC’s implementation phase. 

In Nairobi, the pilot intervention is focused on improving children’s access to healthy diets, by strengthening and expanding an existing school feeding programme to encompass schools located in informal settlements. 

The Harare project centres around upgrading and regularising informal enterprises located in the Glen View Eight complex, by supporting informal traders to mobilise, establishing a technical working group to address key challenges and conducting action research to inform negotiation and implementation processes. 

Although the five cities selected for the implementation phase will be ACRC’s primary focus in the next phase, the consortium is continuing to work with the seven cities not going forward to maximise the positive impact of the work undertaken so far. This will include supporting city teams with smaller action research projects, continuing to provide support around research uptake and engagement, and providing funding for other interventions.

Header photo credit: vlad_karavaev / iStock. A street vendor selling pineapples at a market in Kampala, Uganda.

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.

Header photo credit: Diana Mitlin. Mathare informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya.

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.

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.

Header photo credit: Diana Mitlin

By Charity Mumbi, projects officer at SDI-Kenya

African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC) research aims to unravel the complex challenges that impede urban development. It recognises that there are different actors and political interplay that influence the shape of urban development. These agencies may enable or suppress the speed and form of urban reforms. On 2 November 2022 a workshop brought together a variety of actors to review progress of ACRC research in Nairobi.

The Nairobi research teams have actively adopted a co-production research mode, and are identifying the Nairobi’s priority complex problems (PCPs) that encumber its economic development. Through the involvement of the uptake team, the research has created a pool of actors, including local communities, county technocrats, county political agencies, civil society organisations, private institutions, professional bodies, academia, bilateral and multilateral agencies, and individual researchers – all with an expressed interest of driving urban reforms in their various areas of specialty.

The uptake team is keen to bring all these players together, as it is aware that the city operates as a system. A multidisciplinary co-creation approach is therefore needed to achieve coordinated city programming, policy influence and gradual urban transformation.

Why the workshop?

This purpose of the workshop was to review research in the domains of housing and safety and security, and to help define the identified PCPs per domain. The workshop aimed to:

• Increase partnerships and stakeholders’ commitment to supporting the research.
• Align research and PCPs to the new county/city priorities, including integrating the research into the County Integrated Development Plan (CIDP) for 2022– 2027.
• Co-identify areas of programmes positioning informed by the research.
• Identify policy alignments, policy gaps and how to fill these gaps. For instance, it was identified that Nairobi lacks a renter market policy, and that social and affordable houses are constructed with an ownership orientation. The uptake requirement here is to collaborate with the county housing department in the existing housing policy review, to ensure inclusion of the renter markets. This reviewed policy will then be approved by the county assembly.

There were two further positive outcomes of the workshop:

• There is immense goodwill for different actors, including government, political and technocrat bodies, to take up the research and identify actionable programmes for implementation.
• Stakeholders were keen to co-develop an implementation matrix for the overall Nairobi research, to ensure that research is actioned, through strategic implementation. So the next uptake meeting will create sessions for the matrix development and prioritisation of actions.

Download the report below for a more in-depth summary of the discussions and outcomes from the workshop.

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.

Header photo credit: Isaack Wambua and Janet Wairimu (Know Your City TV Kenya)

Researchers from ACRC’s structural transformation and health, wellbeing and nutrition domain teams in Nairobi engaged key city stakeholders in a full-day workshop, to facilitate the co-production of knowledge, discuss and validate emerging research findings, and drive forward progress on priority complex problems (PCPs).

The stakeholders provided valuable insights around framing emerging PCPs within prevailing county and national government priorities, in order to gain political buy-in. The meeting was also instrumental in identifying crucial opportunities for collaboration, where evidence from ACRC research can be applied to rationalise for change in policy, programme and practice within related areas in the city.

This recap video from Know Your City TV – SDI’s youth collective – provides a summary of the day’s discussions, with insights from Rosebella Apollo, ACRC’s research uptake officer; Susan Kimani from the Nairobi City County’s youth affairs department; and Veronica Mwangi, an ACRC researcher from the health, wellbeing and nutrition domain.

Photo and video credits: Quassim Javis Kasandi, Nicera Wanjiru and Isaack Wambua (Know Your City TV); Martina Odhiambo (PASGR)

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.

In September, Nairobi city research and uptake teams were joined by CEO Diana Mitlin for a full day workshop, to deliberate on preliminary research findings and strengthen researchers’ ideas of emerging priority complex problems (PCPs) to urban transformation in the city.

Safety and security

Using research diaries from eight respondents spread across different neighbourhoods in Nairobi, researchers attempted to gain a better understanding of expansive and interconnected notions of security in the city. Overall, the research identified security as spatial issue with contextual response measures. Police officers, landlords, shopkeepers, askaris (security officers from private security firms manning residential gates), criminal gangs and police bases were identified as key security actors in Nairobi.

Security was found to be highly contextual for the different respondents, largely influenced by factors including societal position, age, access to certain services and infrastructure, and the nature of prevailing events at the time – with evictions and political campaigns reportedly worsening insecurity, for example.

In response to security threats, residents responded by building gates, using WhatsApp groups to monitor activities, employing security guards and resorting to rumour mills. Except for high-end residential areas, police were not considered an effective form of security in the city. 

Housing

For housing, researchers engaged in a diagnostic study to establish whether housing challenges in Nairobi were prototypical, or rather a series of detached, spatially contextualised issues. It was established that at least 91% of Nairobi residents were renters with minimal levels of ownership across the different neighbourhoods. To own property, middle-income residents resorted to construction, while inheritance was the main means of house ownership for low-income groups.

The largest population in the housing market was identified as the 20-34 age set, who were optimistic in house ownership. Additionally, low and middle-income settlements were found to be more populated compared to the high-income settlements. Large disparities relating to rental and ownership costs were identified across the different suburbs, creating an affordability challenge that resulted in urban sprawl. Cumulatively, glaring gaps in the ownership-driven national housing policy ought to incorporate renter protection to address rental affordability and standards of rental households.

Health, wellbeing and nutrition

While most respondents had a clear understanding of healthy diets, they experienced challenges accessing them. Some of the enablers for healthy diets include availability of nutritious food, intergenerational knowledge on health diets, availability of street food and the presence of community health volunteers. Research in Nairobi revealed that low income, limited knowledge on nutrition, cultural barriers, rising cost of food and fuel, unemployment, alcohol and substance abuse, and family sizes affect access to healthy diets.

Despite the barriers, NGOs, health facilities and school programmes were highlighted as crucial actors for promoting healthy diets. As means of adapting to harsh economic times, residents had resorted to street food as a viable alternative for their daily food rations. But the research further revealed that street food was often prepared under unhygienic conditions with contaminated water. In some instances, to maximise profit margins, street vendors even used cheaper but potentially harmful substitute ingredients to speed up cooking, exposing residents to a myriad of health-related complications.

The meeting concluded by encouraging all research teams to realign their PCPs based on an incentive structure to speak to the current priorities of national and county governments, in addition to prioritising uptake engagements for visibility and dissemination of research findings.

All in all, the workshop provided a platform to identify potential areas for reform in Nairobi, and position ACRC to augment ongoing work with sustainable interest and influence. The research findings presented in this forum will feed into the robust knowledge on the urban challenges facing African cities, which will seek to inform policy, programmes and practice.

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.