Header photo credit: peeterv / Getty Images (via Canva Pro). Traffic and street market in Ikorodu district, Lagos.

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.

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 Haruna Ayuba, Abubakar K Monguno, Wilson Joseph, Kingsley L Madueke, Imrana Buba, Babakura Bukar, Abdulmutallib A Abubakar, Yahaya Abubakar and Stephen B Ajadi

On Tuesday 10 September 2024, Maiduguri city residents woke up to an unparalleled natural disaster: flooding that severely damaged over half of the city and resulted in the significant loss of lives. The five bridges that connect the city’s two sides overflowed, dividing it into two blocs that were unable to reach out to each other. Almost the entire lower portion of the city remained under water for over two weeks before the flood waters began to recede.

The Alau Dam – situated a few kilometres away from Maiduguri city – collapsed, leading to a flood that killed an estimated 77 people and displaced 300,000. As a city still recovering from the scourge of the Boko Haram insurgency, the flood has further compounded the economic and social challenges that city residents were already facing. The victims were faced with challenges of health care, infrastructural needs, mental health and psychosocial support needs, shelter and food.

Flood risk

In June, the ACRC team in Maiduguri published an extensive report analysing the politics, systems and key domains across the city. One of the main issues highlighted was the risks associated with flooding, particularly for marginalised groups:

“Poor residents settle on more affordable land along the flood plains of two rivers that drain the city. This land is only affordable because it is prone to flooding… The lack of provision of basic infrastructure including water, sanitation, drainage, electricity and solid waste management appears to have resulted in poor health outcomes (such as a high incidence of malaria and typhoid fever), high transport costs, insecurity and general urban squalor.”

The recent flood was on a different scale, affecting 400,000 people and damaging property worth billions of Naira. Without understanding the key factors that contributed to the flood and taking decisive steps to address them, this tragedy will happen again in the future. 

Impacts of the flood

One of the most immediate consequences of the flood has been the damage to the environment and disruption of connectivity across the city. Major roads, including the Post-Office Roundabout, linking other locations in the capital city, were flooded, leaving many areas inaccessible. Residents have reported being stranded in certain parts of the city, with limited access to emergency services.

Although devastation has directly or indirectly affected every residence of the city, it obviously has far-reaching consequences on the youth, given that the youth make up a greater number of the city’s population, with over 43% of the population under the age of 30.

1. Risk of diseases

Risks to human health, the environment, personal safety and property have all increased. This is particularly true in wards and areas such as 505 Housing, Custom Area, Gwange, Bulabulin, and others where there is a high reliance on compound wells, weak or non-existent pipe water supply, and a high prevalence of pit latrines.

Pit latrines overflow and clog during floods, contaminating wells, which poses further risk. In the aftermath of this flood, when there is a greater chance of water contamination, epidemics are more likely to be prevalent – particularly of water-borne illnesses including typhoid, dysentery and diarrhoea. Another health issue is dependence on polluted water, causing water borne disease incidents to increase. Wetting of walls in the warm weather of Maiduguri leads to mould growth, which triggers asthmatic attacks for asthma patients, while stagnant water allows for mosquito breeding, with consequent increases in malaria cases.

At the time of compiling this blog post, there were no outbreak of health risks. Nonetheless, medical practitioners have expressed concerns over the looming threat of malaria and cholera outbreaks and other related disease in Maiduguri following the devastating floods. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has called for increased support in water, sanitation and medical care to protect a population already grappling with severe malnutrition and insecurity.

2. Infrastructure

The flood swept away people, cars, homes, businesses and other kinds of property in a flash. Both humans and animals were drowned, and goods and property destroyed. The flood has also caused erosion on some bridges and riverbanks, which has created structural damage to houses, roads and trees. Moreover, the destruction of key infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, has further isolated communities and disrupted supply chains, complicating recovery efforts.

Rebuilding homes, farms, and infrastructure will require significant financial investment from the government, private sector and international organisations.

Access to shelter is also one of the major challenges arising out of floods, which often result in the temporary or permanent uprooting of victims, many of whom are too impoverished to pay for accommodation in safer locations. These flood victims take shelter in camps for internally displaced people (IDPs), or in houses of friends or family, which results in overcrowding.

While affected residents are displaced, their properties also become vulnerable to theft. As a result, a number of security and safety issues have been reported, including stealing by miscreants who took advantage of the circumstances to commit vandalism and theft in communities like Galtimari and Gwange regions.

3. Food and economy

The economic impact of this disruption has been felt in markets and businesses that rely on agricultural produce. The flood in the Jere Bowl – one of Borno State’s most productive areas – has completely destroyed rice farms, which heavily depend on the irrigation from the dam, resulting in food insecurity and the loss of thousands of farmers’ livelihoods.

Conclusion

The repercussions of the September flood in Maiduguri are catastrophic and multifaceted. Businesses and markets that depend on agricultural produce have been negatively impacted, and the destruction of important infrastructure, like roads and bridges, has further isolated communities and complicated recovery efforts.

Along with the loss of life and property that the present flood disaster has caused – devastating thousands of people, regardless of religious belief or ethnicity – it will also exacerbate the economic pain that many Nigerians are already going through, especially those in Maiduguri.
More of these tragedies await the city in the future unless immediate action is taken by the relevant authorities in charge of maintaining the infrastructure at the dam site, as well as to improve coordination and the early flood warning system.

Header photo credit: Mr Snatch / Wikimedia Commons (public domain). Image showing a flooded area of Maiduguri, 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.

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.

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Header photo credit: Namnso Ukpanah / Unsplash. Cracked window pane in Lagos, Nigeria.

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.

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Makoko, a coastal informal settlement in Lagos. Photo credit: peeterv / iStock

Development initiatives are many, but they seem unworkable or unsustainable in the face of systemic state performance deficits. As resources become constrained, criminal networks could potentially fill the cracks left by overstretched and undercapitalised regimes. The risk of natural and manmade disasters – compounded by climate change, unregulated urbanisation and substandard infrastructure – will amplify challenges for humanitarian support. As inequality increases, traditionally conflicting religions, tribal groups and ethnicities will be brought into close proximity in these cosmopolitan cities. Low productivity will coexist with unprecedented population growth, as informal settlements rapidly expand alongside modern and highbrow settlements.

Within African cities, multiple stressors exist which challenge the cities’ ability to cope. To ignore large African cities at the global level, therefore, is perhaps to ignore the global future. The growing significance of cities in Africa will make their stability critical for global policy objectives. Failure to focus attention on them today will create strategic vulnerability for the world tomorrow. In a world made smaller by globalisation, pressures emanating from African megacities will have the capability to spread to and threaten western nations and interests.

Safety and security risks

African megacities are potential flashpoints from which an unanticipated strategic security surprise could emerge. They may offer several benefits to discrete criminal networks and safe shelter for terrorist groups who wish to strike even beyond the city. Cities’ traditional structures and value systems that once served as buffers and restricted criminal behaviour are severely undermined and reduced by large-scale migration. Crime actors have comparative freedom of operation as they integrate with the local population. Megacities could provide terrorists with the potential to cause mass fatalities in pursuit of gaining tangible political attention, or socioeconomic and/or military objectives.

Lagos, for example, is the most affected city in Nigeria in terms of the number of crime cases. The city has been rated with a score of 80.8 out of a possible crime score of 100 and in 2022 was ranked the second worst city to live in the world. In 2017, the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics reported that Lagos has the highest percentage share of total crime cases reported (37.9%) in Nigeria. Criminal youngsters and cultists in Lagos bear names like “One Million Boys”, “Fadeyi Boys”, “Awawa Boys”, “Para Gang Confraternity” (comprising mainly teenage girls). In different parts of the city, gang members rob people, break into homes and burgle shops. They also commit arson on properties and businesses, and murder. Some have elite patronage, as powerful actors use them as protectors and political ambition enforcers. Concealed in these groups is their capacity to transform into full criminal networks of terrorist groups. With improvements in the city’s healthcare and education systems, Lagos has now moved up two places to fourth worst city in the world ranking. But crime and insecurity remain problematic.

In addition, Lagos has been placed on high alert, following intelligence reports that Boko Haram terrorists and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) have plans to attack the city and create a base in Lagos or nearby. Some spontaneous happenings suggest that this may not be a mere threat. Just few days after the alert, terrorists launched two attacks on Owo – a cosmopolitan town in the same southwest area as Lagos. On 5 June 2022, they targeted worshippers attending church, and conducted a second attack on 27 July 2022. Although dismissed as speculative, the federal government claims that attacks have been traced to the terrorist group ISWAP. Previously, no such large-scale attacks had occurred in the Lagos southwest area. Therefore, beyond the Lake Chad Basin at the intersection of Cameroon, Chad, Niger and northeastern Nigeria, it not unlikely that ISWAP and the like are gathering momentum around Africa’s most populous city.

Time for strategic change

The good news is that there is time to enact key policy changes to prepare for this complex environment. Security agencies must take responsibility for this urbanisation challenge. They need to build a community of interest, focusing on large cities, and formulate new strategic, operational and tactical approaches. All indications show that the security organisations are currently unprepared.

A decade of fighting Boko Haram and ISWAP terrorism in northern Nigeria should be a lesson that its security agency must shape itself to the complex African environment. Security agencies in Africa must immediately begin the process of understanding large cities and challenge themselves across their organisation, including training, leadership, personnel and modern facilities.

This blog calls for interventions including enhancing multistakeholder cooperation between state and the organised private sector, and reforming budgets to prioritise safety and security. Another key solution is to empower low-income neighbourhoods economically to reduce inequality and boost local community resilience by improving the city labour force. A bottom-up approach is required, to enable local communities to address security challenges, as opposed to top-down strategies. Community-led approaches can make good use of local knowledge and gather better community buy-in, thereby reducing implementation costs – which is vital in African economies, where resources are scarce and deficits remain extreme.

The present conditions of African cities call for some form of foreign aid and intervention, as the current risk poses a threat to global sustainability and global interests. Establishing an ongoing understanding of the dynamics of African cities is essential. Failure to understand these places will produce operational and tactical vulnerability. Thanks to ACRC and other institutions undertaking research projects, we have a critical opportunity to add greater depth to the understanding of the implications of African cities for the global future.

Header photo credit: peeterv / Getty Images (via Canva Pro). Busy streets of Lagos, Nigeria.

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.

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Tayo Bello Avenue, Ikorodu – a peri-urban gated community in Lagos. Photo credit: Gbenga Jephthah

Youth are mostly the perpetrators of these crimes. There are several drivers and enablers of youth crime, including youth unemployment, inequality, proliferation of small arms and drugs. Our study shows that the inadequate and under resourced police department is making efforts, but this key institution is narrow-concentrated. The state (particularly, the federal government) has the power to act decisively on security infrastructure and investment issues, and as a result, the limited safety and security resources are oriented towards the benefit of the elites and VIPs.

Our study shows that Lagos residents have been coping with this situation through a combination of the few available state safety and security services, as well as individual actions and community responses. One example of such individual and community efforts is to construct gates at different scales, from the micro realm of individual houses to broader areas of streets, neighbourhoods and communities.

Figure 1: Map of Lagos indicating geographic divisions

The growing popularity of gated communities

Gated communities (GCs) are increasingly fashionable in Lagos and have become pervasive in many areas of the city. There is hardly any building, street or neighbourhood without a fence or gate. These restricted access housing areas are planned to privatise usually public spaces. Such developments are found in newly developed residential areas on Lagos Island, as well as older mainland and peri-urban areas that are being reconstructed to provide adequate safety and security. During our 2022 survey, we met home suppliers who estimated that at least 4-5 million, and potentially many more Lagosians are seeking this new form of shelter from the threat of violent crime that has engulfed some parts of the city.

While early GCs were restricted to the areas where the political and economic elites lived on Lagos Island, they are now spreading to new residential developments in the middle-class areas of Lagos mainland and peri-urban areas. In addition, existing housing areas of both rich and poor residents are increasingly using perimeter fences and gates to segregate themselves.

Status, security or segregation?

Based on the residents’ primary motivation, gated communities in Lagos can be classified in two ways. In elite localities, the gates indicate distinction and status. By creating and protecting a secure place on the social ladder, these neighbourhoods become territories of the elites, the very affluent and the political class.

The second type is the security area, where the key motivation for gating is fear of crime, which is the primary justification for most new forms of GC. In Ibeju-Lekki, Ikoyi, Victoria Island and other areas where gates and perimeter fences have become the pattern, some respondents argued that certain forms of crime, such as theft and burglary, have reduced. On the other hand, some respondents indicated that the crime rate in the gated communities is only slightly altered by gating and fortifications. Nonetheless, people report less fear in such community settings.

The increasing phenomenon of GC in Lagos has benefits andalso raises concerns. While the reduction in fear is essential, since it can lead to increased social contacts, which can in turn reduce crime and fear in the long run, we should also be mindful that GCs are fuelling the drive towards exclusion, political instability and citizen alienation – all of which define crime and insecurity in Nigeria. Lagos has become more fragmented and unequal than ever before in terms of access to urban space and public services. GCs have continued to exacerbate inequality in Lagos, as public services are narrowly concentrated and privatised, and where the community of responsibility stops at the subdivision gates. Street gates increase community safety within the gates, while worsening traffic situations, and diminishing mobility and sociality of city dwellers more generally, particularly in neighbourhoods where gated streets are meant to serve as alternative link and emergency routes.

Implications beyond the gates

It might be argued that GCs in Lagos are becoming a small-scale version of the separation mindset that defines Nigeria as a country, with its larger spatial separation by religion, ethnicity, political ideology and socioeconomic opportunities. As citizens of Lagos divide themselves into homogenous, independent compartments, their place in the regional, national and greater political entity and society becomes weakened. This in turn increases resistance to efforts to resolve issues around local crime, conflicts and communal crises, let alone state, regional and federal problems.

There is a risk that GC residents’ feelings of insecurity will become heightened as people outside the gates feel relatively deprived. Then the desire for safety and security becomes a mirage, as the harsh socioeconomic conditions for a large stratum of the Lagos urban population living in informal settlements and outside the gates worsen. There is a need for realistic legislation for the regulation of gates, perimeter fences and walled communities. In addition, government and non-government sectors must vigorously pursue efforts to increase access to safety and security resources and reduce socioeconomic inequality among Lagos residents.

Photo credits: Header photo by Ganiya Oresanwo shows the opened gate of Home of Grace Estate, Ikorodu – a peri-urban gated community in Lagos.

Ganiya Oresanwo, John Akinleye and Gbenga Jephthah are research assistants for the ACRC safety and security domain in Lagos.

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.

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Figure 1: Spatial symbols of the presence of informal security providers in Maiduguri

The communities selected for the study were Gwange, Mairi Kuwait, Bulumkutu, Old Maiduguri and Old GRA (Figure 2). The first four communities are low-income areas, with high population and building densities, and poorly developed infrastructure like roads and electricity. Gwange, Old Maiduguri and Bulumkutu have significantly high proportions of unemployed and informal sector-based residents.

On the other hand, Mairi Kuwait has a higher number of residents who are employed in the formal sector – especially at the University of Maiduguri, which is adjacent to the community. Although the Old GRA is a middle to high-income community, it was included in the study in order to compare the perceptions and experiences of informal security provisioning between low- and high-income communities. It was equally important to see how conditions of inequality disproportionately affect residents’ experiences of crime and shape responses to safety and security in urban communities.

Figure 2: Locations of the selected communities

Local culture and experiences in the field

The African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC) team in Maiduguri assisted in identifying suitable research assistants for my fieldwork, and having local partners proved to be very helpful. Maiduguri is a city with deeply rooted cultural and religious beliefs, and my field assistants gave me tips on behavioural conduct. For visits to some of the communities detailed above, I was advised to wear ankle-length gowns, and to have a veil handy. For other communities, no strict dress code was required but I was expected to cover up decently and again have a veil to hand.

As a female researcher, reliance on only one other female research assistant was unfeasible, as it was culturally inappropriate for two women to approach a man for an interview. Nor could I go into the field with only a male assistant, as female respondents might feel uncomfortable answering questions posed by a man. To address these issues, I recruited and worked with a male and a female research assistant.

Access to communities

An ISP leader offered to provide an ISP field guide and a vehicle for my fieldwork in Maiduguri. After discussing this tempting offer with my research assistants, I turned it down. We felt that being accompanied to the communities by an ISP could affect respondents’ willingness to participate in the research (for fear of retribution). It could also undermine their ability to answer questions honestly. And our “fear” was confirmed in one of the communities, where we sensed that the ISPs’ presence during interviews affected the responses given by the interviewees. The research team had to ask the same questions repeatedly and in different ways to extract reasonable information from the respondents.

My research assistants had previous work and data collection experience in Maiduguri, and so had some contacts in the communities. Since my team and I were “strangers” in the selected communities, I relied on these local contacts to accompany us, for security reasons, and to negotiate meetings with the research participants. In some communities, our local guide led us in and out through different streets whenever we visited, so as not to attract undue attention.

Selection of research participants

Research participants included traditional rulers, whose permission we sought to conduct interviews within their communities (see Figure 3). Respect for the hierarchy or chain of command was important to these traditional rulers. In one of the communities, a Bulama (ward scribe) was our contact, but our interview session was disrupted by the Lawan (ward head), who felt that we had disregarded his authority and obtained permission from his subordinate. We apologised and admitted that it was an oversight before the Lawan allowed us to continue with the interviews in his “domain”. Our experience here showed that local power relations (in)directly shape participant recruitment.

While it is helpful in fragile contexts to depend on local contacts for the selection of research participants, it had its downsides. In one community, three of the six women invited for a focus group discussion (FGD) session were from the same household, indicating selection bias. During the interview, they signalled to the other women not to disclose information to the research team. Though the three women spoke less, two others (not related) were quite vocal and spoke extensively about their experiences of insecurity and with the ISPs.

Figure 3: Seeking permission from the Lawan (Ward Head) of Gwange II

Interviews and locations for sessions

Interview length varied. Some respondents were not so expressive, but we let chatty respondents speak for as long as they wished. This often helped to draw the less expressive respondent(s) back into the conversation, enriching the information disclosed. For some respondents, the interview sessions seemed “therapeutic”, helping them to relieve the trauma they had experienced while the insurgency raged in Maiduguri. Even though issues of insurgent attacks were outside the scope of my research, respondents often linked their current experiences with the past. The research team allowed the respondents to speak freely, and this extended the time for some interview sessions.

It was also important for the research team to correct the respondents’ assumptions that we were generating information to “solve the security issues” in Maiduguri. As communities that had experienced violent insurgent activities, the level of despair was palpable. Thus, every visitor was seen as a staff of an international humanitarian organisation that had come to the rescue of the community. The research team clearly explained the purpose of the interviews before commencing any session. In addition, to minimise the risk of getting “pre-coded” answers to the research questions, my team limited the information we gave about the research to the local guides.

Interviews and FGDs were conducted mainly in open spaces and primary school premises, which were considered safe spaces by the respondents (see Figure 4). While men had no issues with having interviews in open spaces, women felt more comfortable having interviews in enclosed spaces away from the prying eyes of passers-by. On one occasion, the local contact even insisted that we hold the FGD with women in the sitting room of one of the respondents’ homes, as this was viewed as “culturally appropriate”. Women preferred enclosed, more private spaces as part of religious considerations – especially for Muslim women, whose religion places restrictions on their mobility and visibility. On the other hand, the preference for enclosed spaces ensured that the female respondents were not seen speaking to “strangers” – a situation that could potentially place them at odds with other community members.

Figure 4: FGD sessions with men (outdoors) and women (in a classroom) in Maiduguri

Adjusting research plans to prevailing conditions

Flexibility is key when conducting research in fragile contexts. My initial plan was to have 20 interviews with residents, 12 key informant interviews and eight FGDs. However, this changed to 15 interviews, 22 key informant interviews and nine FGDs, in addition to informal chats with the locals. We made impromptu adjustments, as issues arose during fieldwork. On one occasion, for example, field assistants asked us to reduce the number of interviews we had planned because the community was unsafe, and they did not want an extensive visit. Instead, we held FGDs in that community, which allowed us to cover a wider range of residents in a shorter time.

Informal interactions were useful in understanding the local context and confirmed some respondents’ narratives. Open to learning from everyone, I had random conversations with people I encountered during my daily fieldwork routine. One time I stopped a keke (tricycle) rider and asked him to take me to Mairi Kuwait – one of my study sites. He hesitated and narrated an unpleasant experience he had had in the past after conveying some passengers to the area. He told me that young male passengers “disappear” (run off) into the neighbourhood without paying their transport fare. If the driver tries to pursue them, he is threatened with mob action by armed youths. This account was instructive and was confirmed subsequently by interviews revealing that the community was notorious for knife fights, often involving young male rival groups.

Lessons learnt and next steps…

Generally, the fieldwork experience in Maiduguri was worthwhile. I found that the current perceptions of the state of security in Maiduguri by people living outside the city were quite different from the actual feelings and experiences of those living in the city.

While I formed my views of safety in Maiduguri during my month-long stay there, in some ways, I also constructed opinions of the city through the narratives of my field assistants. So, I felt comfortable visiting the areas that my field assistants considered as safe and avoided communities that they thought were unsafe. This is quite instructive, as researchers need to evaluate the safety of a place from the viewpoint of those living there and not from external assessors. As a first-time visitor to Maiduguri, I felt relatively safe going around some parts of the city in public transportation. Although I was easily identified as a visitor because I could not communicate effectively in Hausa, which is the language generally understood by residents, that did not affect my feelings of safety in the city.

Visiting the communities physically and interacting with the residents first-hand brought clarity to their living conditions and perspectives on informal security providers. I also learnt some valuable lessons from this fieldwork, particularly around engaging with local contacts and the practicality of research in fragile contexts. My take-home insight is that it is vital to have a back-up plan in situations where the local contact’s choices might undermine your research and result in selection bias. This can be accomplished by introducing an on-the-spot random selection of research participants apart from the pre-selected participants, in order to compare the information generated. It is also useful to be adaptable, so that changes can be made to the interview questions, choice of interview method (for instance, switching from individual interviews to FGDs), research strategies and number of interviews. While these lessons are important, contexts and experiences may vary. It is crucial to approach fieldwork in fragile contexts with an open mind, willing to make decisions and adjustments as the work progresses and with an understanding of the context and local culture.

Finally, researcher, fieldworker and participant safety are paramount, particularly when researching insecurity. Research for me is about bravery, being inquisitive and facilitating respectful mutual learning, but not taking unnecessary risks. The account above offers insights for other researchers on ways in which this can be achieved.

For the next steps, I sent the interviews to be translated and transcribed.  And while waiting for the transcripts and preparing for the writing up phase of the research, I am reflecting on how to make the research findings meaningful to the research participants, so that the exercise is impactful, rather than extractive.

Header photo credit: Patience Adzande

Sources: Figures 1, 3 and 4 are drawn from the author’s fieldwork, August 2022.

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.