By Adrian Di Giovanni and Luciana Bercovich

Residents of informal settlements encounter a complex array of human rights violations; from systemic discrimination by public officials, to threats to physical security from forced evictions or arbitrary arrests, to a lack of access to basic services, such as housing, water, sanitation and education. 

In the face of those challenges, the book features ten powerful case studies, along with two introductory chapters, which show how people living in informal settlements across the global South are using grassroots, community-led justice strategies – known as legal empowerment – to defend their rights and secure more dignified living conditions. The case studies are written by members of the grassroots justice organisations who have supported the settlement communities for years and, in some cases, decades.

Legal Empowerment in Informal Settlements emerged out of a rich process of dialogue, peer learning and review, both online and in person. The chapters echo strong similarities in the challenges and strategies in places as far-flung as the Philippines, Argentina and South Africa. In every case, building community power to defend rights emerged as a central strategy for driving meaningful change.

These chapters speak of complexity, long-term strategies, small wins and tough setbacks. They tell stories of people who fall and rise again, and who don’t give up. More than anything, they offer hope for building systemic change by working with communities.

On a personal note, co-editor Luciana Bercovich notes:

“this project helped me reflect on my own experience. I began working in legal empowerment in 2003, supporting informal settlement communities in Buenos Aires, Argentina. At that time, it often felt like we were figuring things out on our own. In our talks with authors, I often imagined how much a space like this would have meant to a young Luciana starting her journey. I’m grateful to now be able to help create those spaces for others – to recognize, document, and learn from the work of those on the frontlines.”

The following section is an edited extract from the introduction:

The distinctive features of legal empowerment in informal settlements

Legal empowerment is a relatively new and flexible concept that continues to evolve and be redefined with breakthroughs in its implementation in practice. The language of legal empowerment first appeared towards the start of the 21st century to capture “the use of legal services and related development activities to increase disadvantaged populations’ control over their lives”.

Central to legal empowerment are efforts to support “the poor and excluded” to lead the “process of systemic change through which [they] become able to use the law, the legal system, and legal services to protect and advance their rights and interests as citizens and economic actors” (Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor & United Nations Development Programme).

Beyond the resolution of an individual or set of disputes, legal empowerment’s use of the law and legal strategies ultimately seeks to shift the power imbalances that drive the denial of the rights of affected groups and the larger injustices they face in society. Over time, a range of definitions has emerged which casts legal empowerment’s goals and methods in broader or narrower terms. The tighter definitions tend to emphasize supporting the agency and capacity of individuals to claim rights on a more case-by-case level, reflecting legal empowerment’s community legal aid roots.

A broader conception of legal empowerment is oriented towards systemic change, and links efforts to addressing structural injustices, socio-economic barriers and shifting power dynamics. Based on experiences across the chapters in this book, we adopt a broader conception of legal empowerment. This conception entails a less circumscribed set of activities, but nonetheless delineates a distinctive boundary between legal empowerment and the complementary social and political efforts to tackle structural problems – again, rooted in power imbalances – like poverty and urban segregation.

Similarly, this conception embraces what Margaret Satterthwaite terms “critical legal empowerment” which emphasizes “community-based efforts to engage the legal system in strategies to shift power downward” and how those efforts use human rights “as a means [to] fundamentally alter unjust systems”.

Addressing human rights violations

There are several common elements distinctive to legal empowerment in informal settlement contexts. The first element, already alluded to, is legal empowerment’s immediate targeting of collective and structural issues, notably the array of human rights violations suffered by informal settlement residents. The challenge at the structural level is to promote stronger social and urban integration, to improve residents’ quality of life and to overcome the visible markers that drive current narratives of stigmatisation and prevent residents from exercising their citizenship and participating in society.

For instance, public policy responses aimed at providing access to services such as sanitation, electricity or water usually encompass all or part of a settlement by their nature and are not as effectively addressed through individual claims. From a practical standpoint, a basic insight guiding several of the case study efforts is that “achieving justice and legal solutions requires multidisciplinary research (lawyers, urban planners, finance specialists, and community organizers) and a mix of legal and nonlegal interventions”. Conversely, the experiences in some of the chapters point to the limits of legal strategies and thus serve as a caution against relying too heavily on litigation or legal remedies, for instance.

The emphasis on collective struggles in informal settlements also shares strong affinities to community lawyering, which sees the need to move beyond atomised, depoliticised or overly individualistic approaches to legal support as essential to achieving systemic change. Communities are at the centre of these approaches: they are best positioned to understand the realities and injustices they face, and should therefore take the lead in any legal action and in defining their own political objectives.

A difference with traditional legal advocacy is that community lawyering mainly prioritises helping to build the capacity, leadership and power of communities more broadly, as opposed to achieving results or legal victories.

Access to public institutions and justice

A main set of challenges in pursuing structural change in informal settlements relates to how residents access public institutions, including justice institutions. Residents tend to live physically close to local governments, state agencies and services providers’ offices, yet nonetheless feel a symbolic distance or barrier. On one level, this distance arises because of the institutional complexity in urban settings. Municipal or local governments have gained an ever-larger set of roles and responsibilities in past decades. At the same time, a range of powers and responsibilities tend to be spread across multiple layers of overlapping or competing provincial or state jurisdictions, institutions and related regulatory frameworks.

Policy approaches to urban poverty and planning have in some cases resulted in contradictory legal frameworks. For example, constitutional or international regulatory frameworks might oblige the state to guarantee the human rights of settlement residents, on the one hand, yet criminal and administrative legal frameworks frequently treat settlements and many of their residents’ activities as illegal, on the other. This tension between applicable legal frameworks is particularly clear in eviction and relocation processes.

As a result, the pathway to seeking accountability is elusive and requires coordinating efforts across a complex network of institutional powers and capacities. Even when the legal protections are clear, a few of the chapters capture how stubbornly entrenched discriminatory and anti-poor government practices can be – with governments seemingly impervious to the illegality of their own practices. Additionally, sweeping changes in policy approaches are common, particularly with changes in government, which can hinder the long-term coherence needed for structural change – and wipe out hard-fought victories, as seen in more than one chapter.

Collective mobilisation

From a tactical standpoint, in the face of this symbolic distance, legal empowerment efforts take advantage of the physical closeness between residents and public officials and institutions in urban contexts and combine an arguably broader and more flexible range of strategies. One set of strategies could be described in terms of political or social advocacy, with communities and residents mobilising collective action and using their physical presence to exert pressure at institutions’ offices and front doors through demonstrations and sit-ins, for example. Similarly, in advocating for change, groups recognise the need for larger coalitions, that is, “strength in numbers” strategies, to achieve a larger and effective voice by and on behalf of informal settlement residents (such as by linking with the media, non-governmental organisations, independent public institutions and other pressure groups).

To illustrate, the team from Nairobi (Chapter 5) describes a petition drive followed by a public demonstration by thousands of women from Mukuru, who marched to the Ministry of Health to demand improved sanitation in the settlement. Physical closeness is also used as a tool to raise societal awareness of the disparities in living conditions of informal settlement residents vis-a-vis residents of the “formal” city, with whom they often live side by side.

> Read the full introductory chapter (open access)

> Read the full book – including chapters on gender equity, active citizenship and legal strategies in the informal settlements of Rio, Accra, Delhi, the Philippines, South Africa, Pakistan, Bangladesh and elsewhere

Header photo credit: Donwilson Odhiambo / iStock. The aftermath of demolitions in Mukuru Kwa Njenga, 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 Amollo Ambole, ACRC Nairobi in-city urban development research lead

The ACRC Nairobi team had the privilege of joining residents, government officials, engineers, public health experts and other stakeholders at the Water and Sanitation Policy workshop for Nairobi’s informal settlements, which took place from 30 June to 1 July 2025.

The two-day workshop was more than just another policy dialogue. It was a moment in which lived realities, technical knowledge and years of community-driven innovation finally met at the same table.

Modelling WASH solutions

For many years, Mukuru residents, supported by partners including the Nairobi City County Government (NCCG) and Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company (NCWSC), have modelled what it means to co-create water and sanitation (WASH) solutions. From simplified sewer systems (SSS) to prepaid water dispensers (PPDs) to community-led governance structures, residents and partners have shown that safe, affordable and dignified water and sanitation are possible, even in Nairobi’s most underserved areas.

The workshop marked a critical next step to ensure that the lessons from Mukuru shape formal, county-wide policy – and not as a top-down directive, but as an enabler of positive change for informal settlements. When policy follows practice in this way, it does not hinder progress; it accelerates it.

What stood out most was the diversity of expertise in the room. Whether bringing deep technical expertise on laying trunk infrastructure, local knowledge of the social dynamics within settlements, or legal expertise on designing adaptive regulations, we reflected together on what has worked, what hasn’t and where we go from here. We debated, challenged each other, and ultimately found common ground. It was a shared journey, rooted in the understanding that water and sanitation are a matter of dignity, equity and public health for all of Nairobi.

Adapting policies to contextual realities

This policy conversation is thus firmly anchored by the practical lessons and demonstrated outcomes of the co-designed service delivery model jointly piloted by NCCG, NCWSC, residents of Mukuru and civil society partners, such as Akiba Mashinani Trust. Building on this collaborative approach, the draft Water and Sanitation Policy prioritises community participation, area-wide integrated planning and a multistakeholder governance approach. It also acknowledges that solutions like SSS and PPDs are scalable and sustainable when supported by clear standards, participatory management and community buy-in.

The draft policy also introduces critical measures, such as community-led GIS mapping, technical feasibility assessments, and proposes the use of live data dashboards to guide service delivery and monitor progress. Ultimately, it underscores the importance of affordability, environmental sustainability and climate resilience as essential considerations for building systems that work for Nairobi’s fast-growing, complex urban environment.

There are, of course, challenges ahead. Scaling community-led water and sanitation models to all of Nairobi’s informal settlements will require sustained political will, investment and inclusive governance. But if this workshop showed anything, it is that change is already happening.

A special mention to Akiba Mashinani Trust and the many partners who have stayed the course on this journey. And to ACRC for supporting research that informs and strengthens these efforts. As ACRC’s Nairobi in-city leads, we left the workshop feeling hopeful. When residents and officials collaborate with mutual respect, and when technical innovations are matched with inclusive governance, urban transformation is a tangible, shared reality.

To learn more about how this journey began, we highly recommend listening to Jane Weru and colleagues tell the story of the Mukuru Special Planning Area (SPA).

Read more:

• Systems change for water and sanitation in informal settlements: The Mukuru Special Planning Area

Photo credits: Akiba Mashinani Trust

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

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.

Since March 2020, government policy and programming has shifted significantly.

First, Nairobi Metropolitan Services finally began infrastructure improvements in Mukuru, an informal settlement of 100,000 households on private land. Research in 2015-16, led by the Muungano Alliance, catalysed the gazetting of a Mukuru Special Planning Area in August 2017. Nairobi County, supported by the Alliance and a consortium of 40 agencies, finalised some sectoral plans in March 2020. Nairobi Metropolitan Services is facilitating the process for finalising the overall integrated development plan in the next few months.

Second, by July 2020, the Alliance recognised the imperative to register as many informal settlement residents as possible, in order to pressure the government to provide a universal programme of support for all informal settlement residents. When the government subsequently rolled out an emergency cash transfer programme it included, for the first time, informal settlement residents. The cash transfers represent a positive and significant shift in government response to disasters in informal settlements that Muungano hopes will continue beyond the Covid-19 response.

This rapid process of Covid-19-related information-gathering and dissemination reflects the substantive capabilities within the Muungano Alliance. Logistically, they were able to manage the initial interest by hundreds of their members, develop an appropriate monitoring framework, and roll out multimedia posts. Strategically, the information became a way of demonstrating the organisational power of informal settlement residents. It raised the profile and legitimacy of the Muungano Alliance and helped to extend and deepen relations with relevant state agencies.

It is likely that this work had a positive influence on inclusive responses to Covid-19 by the Government of Kenya.

This article originally appeared in the Covid-19: Community resilience in urban informal settlements briefing paper, part of the Covid Collective Research for Policy and Practice series published by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS). 

Learn more about: 

• Covid Collective
• Muungano Alliance

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.

Whitney Banyai-Becker (GDI), Charity Mwangi (SDI Kenya) and Jane Wairutu (SDI Kenya) explain how Muungano’s work with the Kenyan Ministry of Health is helping to find data-driven solutions to Covid-19 that are appropriate in informal settlements.

Muungano wa Wanavijiji learned long ago that data in the hands of the community is a powerful tool. For over two decades the Muungano Alliance (comprising Muungano wa Wanavijiji, SDI Kenya and Akiba Mashinani Trust) has worked to build community data collection skills in settlement profiling, mapping and enumeration.

These practices have always been central to Muungano’s activism and community support, but perhaps no one could have guessed how vital they would become this year in response to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Informal settlements in Kenya and elsewhere are characterised by high residential density, income insecurity, the prevalence of high-risk occupations, and inadequate health services – so Covid-19 poses particular hardships for people living in informal settlements (as elaborated here). The Covid-19 Home Based Isolation and Care (HBIC) guidelines provided to citizens by the Kenyan Ministry of Health (MOH) are also not realistic in informal settlements, given for example the spatial and economic pressures on their residents. In addition, governments often lack the information about the human and physical aspects of informal settlements that is needed to plan an adequate response.

These dynamics make a data-driven response to the pandemic all the more important to protect the most vulnerable from disproportionate rates of illness and death. Recognising the usefulness of its long history of data collection within informal settlements, the Muungano Alliance was therefore asked to join the national MOH Covid-19 Taskforce; working within the Taskforce to identify solutions for Covid-19 prevention, treatment and care that are appropriate in informal settlements.

Muungano’s previous work set the scene for the Ministry of Health collaboration

Over the last 25 years, Muungano wa Wanavijiji has trained countless community members to collect timely, accurate and reflective data about informal settlements in towns and cities in Kenya and beyond, mapping over 150 informal settlements across Kenya. Information has been collected about population demographics, household information, facilities like school and health centres, utilities (eg water points, electricity) and existing infrastructure like roads and drains.

In August 2017, Mukuru, a huge informal settlement in Nairobi, was declared a Special Planning Area (SPA) by the county government of Nairobi, and the ensuing Mukuru SPA process led the Muungano Alliance into various collaborations with government departments, higher learning institutions, NGOs, communities and other stakeholders. The Mukuru SPA Health Consortium worked extensively with Nairobi County’s Department of Health to document the quality and level of healthcare provision available to Mukuru’s 300,000 residents. Muungano, with support from ARISE, mapped the prevalence of different levels of health facilities in Mukuru, from hospitals and health centres to Community Health Volunteers (CHVs), and in this way documented which households and neighbourhoods in Mukuru had adequate healthcare coverage, and which did not. The level of detail and strength of data collection and reporting was recognised: when Covid-19 struck, the Department of Health recommended that Muungano be involved in the national response.

A community-based network supporting the national Covid-19 response

Early on in Kenya’s response, President Kenyatta formed the National Covid-19 Taskforce, to be led by the Ministry of Health, operating as a collaboration across key government departments and NGOs working to coordinate responses. The Muungano Alliance was asked to represent the interests of people living in informal settlements, including a focus on youth. One of Muungano’s strengths on the Taskforce is its data collection and mapping expertise, supporting the Taskforce to make evidence-driven decisions by using existing data that had previously been collected and also new Covid-19 data collected by Muungano in real-time as the virus spread throughout the country.

Muungano routinely collects profiling data on all informal settlements in Nairobi. These profiles have been used extensively by the Taskforce to identify the number of informal settlements in Nairobi and determine the extent of communities’ need for personal protective equipment (PPE) and CHVs. The Muungano Alliance’s mapping of CHVs for the Mukuru SPA showed where there were deficits in CHV coverage and the total number of CHVs in Mukuru. This was then used as a case study to demonstrate to the Taskforce that informal settlements are underserved by CHVs. In response, the MOH has recruited more CHVs for informal settlements and offered them additional Covid-19 training.

Muungano also mobilized community members across the country to collect and report on Covid-19 data in real-time throughout the pandemic. This process has involved a network of community mobilisers using a carefully designed online monitoring and evaluation tool. Throughout May and June, the Muungano Alliance reported (to the MOH and in the public domain) every 2-3 days on the situation in 10 informal settlements across three Kenyan counties. The reports summarised data about Covid-19 prevalence, testing, spread, prevention measures, basic needs support, and information/awareness-raising efforts in each settlement.

As part of its own Covid-19 response, Muungano provided handwashing stations, soap and masks to settlement communities in the counties of Nairobi, Machakos, Kisumu and Nakuru, and distributed PPE to CHVs in various Nairobi settlements. The federation has also been involved in providing civic education about Covid-19 to underserved communities, by creating and distributing educational fliers and posters with information about Covid-19 symptoms, prevention and care. The MOH’s public information was primarily in English and not widely available, especially in settlements, so Muungano translated its posters into Swahili and distributed widely throughout their community networks.

Isolation centres: doing the groundwork for innovative Covid-19 prevention and healthcare responses

Given the very different spatial characteristics of informal settlements compared to formal residential and commercial areas, eg higher densities and much smaller household dwellings, the Muungano Alliance quickly realised that alternatives to the existing prevention and care guidelines would be needed if measures were to be implemented successfully in informal settlements. Early in the pandemic, information collected from community members through the online monitoring and evaluation tool revealed that for most informal settlement residents there are few, if any, nearby health centres where they could access Covid-19 testing and treatment. There was also much discussion in the federation about stigma and fear around receiving Covid-19 treatment in health facilities far from their communities.

In response to all these concerns, and using its existing settlement profile data, the Muungano Alliance therefore began mapping facilities within informal settlements that could potentially be used as community isolation centres. An existing school, church hall or health centre in an informal settlement could be temporarily transformed to a community care point for anyone experiencing Covid-19 symptoms to use so they could self-isolate or quarantine. Such isolation centres allow people to self-isolate safely and effectively away from other family members, while remaining within their wider communities.

To date, the Muungano Alliance has identified possible locations for isolation centres in six informal settlements in Nairobi County, nine informal settlements in Kisumu County, and in two sub-counties in Mombasa County. In collaboration with the national Taskforce, the Muungano Alliance is also working to develop realistic guidelines on how to implement isolation centres. Once established, the centres will play a critical role in supporting residents of informal settlements across Kenya to respond safely and effectively to Covid-19.

SDI is a core partner of the African Cities Research Consortium. Find out more here.

This post originally appeared on the Global Development Institute Blog.

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.

By Professor Diana Mitlin, CEO of the African Cities Research Consortium 

Covid-19 has brought a new realization to many governments and development agencies. Investment in towns and cities is essential. People need to live in healthy neighbourhoods with access to basic services. With this new interest, it is critical that appropriate learning takes place so that interventions can be successfully designed.

Over 95% of all Covid-19 cases globally occur in urban areas. Pandemics are dependent on the interactions of humans with their environment and these interactions are intensified in towns and cities. Too little attention is given to the multiplicity of ways in which the “urban” nature of settlements and livelihoods influences what is possible in terms of responses to the health and economic emergencies.

Globally, at least one billion people live and work in conditions of urban informality and precarity. Hundreds of millions more people living in cities located in low and middle-income countries can just about afford formal homes with improved access to services such as piped water, electricity and access to healthcare, but these services are patchy and may be unaffordable.

In this context, some have argued that an essential response to Covid-19 is the ‘de-densification’ of urban areas. For example, the South African Minister for Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation identified 29 areas, in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Western Cape and Eastern Cape for de-densification, targeting 356 010 households to contain the spread of Covid-19. The risk is that this will catalyse a new round of evictions, displacing people from their homes.

This response is based on a misconception. The problem isn’t density itself; it is the overcrowding resulting from low-incomes, expensive housing and the lack of infrastructure and services – and this is caused by state neglect. The lowest income urban residents are facing a global health crisis. The risks associated with Covid-19 are exacerbated by debilitated – or outright non-existent – health services and infrastructures.

Overcrowding and lack of access to basic services prevent the implementation of two key measures that populations are being urged to adopt: social distancing and increased hygiene, particularly handwashing. And with limited political influence they are unable to secure adequate supplies of water, access to sufficient space for social distancing and places to isolate those who are sick.

In Nairobi, the scale of deprivation in informal settlements is evident. In Mukuru, for example, only 1% of residents have access to a private water tap and private sanitation. The lack of provision means that a public tap serves an average of 234 households, and there is one public latrine for every 547 households.

In terms of state interventions, curfews and lockdown have made income generation difficult to impossible. Informal traders have been stopped from operating, while formal shops selling food and other goods are allowed to be open. Formal manufacturing businesses have closed, laying off workers. Low-income households face acute difficulties with limited savings; the need to pay for food, rent and services; and limited access to social protection.

Low incomes make it impossible for many living in towns and cities of the global South to secure adequate accommodation. Poorly informed government strategies to reduce poverty lay too much emphasis on cash incomes and not enough on the social wage (i.e. access to affordable basic services including water, sanitation, energy, health and education). While social protection measures – when provided to those living and working informally – have helped address immediate needs, they are not a substitute for a comprehensive approach to address all needs including access to public services. While community groups have sought to improve access to the services required for health and support those in need, without state investment this cannot be done effectively and at the scale required.

The required response has to prioritize essential investment in basic services and the provision of affordable housing, assisting low income households to secure access to the services and housing that they need for good health and wellbeing. “Affordable” in this context cannot be synonymous with “low-cost” unless low-cost is indeed affordable to the lowest-income households.

There is a new attention to towns and cities in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. While at times it seems that the most likely outcome of Covid-19 responses is an ossification of pre-existing inequalities, persecutions and structural failures, some positive progress is being made.

In Nairobi, the national government has committed to informal settlement upgrading. In August 2017, the government declared Mukuru a Special Planning Area. Plans for infrastructure improvements in water and sanitation, roads, drainage and electrification have now been finalized. Faced with Covid-19 and in recognition of the need for basic services, implementation by Nairobi Metropolitan Services began in May 2020.

The Government of Kenya has shown an increased commitment to address the needs of low-income urban residents in recent years. On 14 February 2020, for example, Nairobi’s City Hall and the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure announced their intent to scale up the upgrading of informal settlements with a Special Planning Area for the neighbourhoods around the Central Station. This new-found political commitment has been further reinforced at the time of Covid-19 with an acceleration of plan implementation in Mukuru and significant new upgrading initiatives across the city. A new programme, Kazi Mtaani has provided social protection for casual and informal workers whose livelihoods have been disrupted by the pandemic and associated measures. This programme pays people to work on improving the environment and delivering services through infrastructure investments, enabling them to buy essentials such as food.

Covid-19 has highlighted the housing needs and the precarious and low incomes of many urban households across the global North and South. The costs of the health emergency have been exacerbated by the associated economic emergency. It is not possible to secure wellbeing in this context. And that reality is now exposed on streets and screens around the world.

The Kenyan response has demonstrated that it is possible for governments to use the health emergency to reset development priorities. Public works can provide essential monies for households while enabling people to work safely outside and provide the services that are required for good health. A willingness to engage with community organizations such as Muungano wa Wanavijiji has enabled local safe isolation centres to be identified in informal settlements. If we are to secure the SDGs and meet the needs of the most vulnerable citizens, the international research community needs to understand better the triggers for such progressive change.

More governments need to recognise that housing and basic services have to be affordable and accessible.  Livelihoods need to be protected; and if they cannot be protected then household incomes have to be secured. However, despite all these efforts, there is a risk that some will be left behind, more than ever in the current COVID-19 context, and these households should not be forgotten. It is more evident than before that this is not only a question of justice. It is also a pragmatic response to our interconnectedness and what it means to thrive, individually and collectively.

Read more:

• Gupte and D. Mitlin, COVID-19: what is not being addressed, Environment and Urbanization, October 2020.
• Mitlin, S. Bartlett, Editorial: Acquiring housing – understanding outcomes, improving choices and “leaving no one behind”, Environment and Urbanization, August 2020

This post originally appeared on the Global Development Institute Blog.

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