research - ACRC

A necessary balancing act: Household microenterprises and mobile money taxation in Africa

Hannah — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 07:00:00 +0000

The taxation of mobile money transactions has become a popular policy in many African countries in recent years. This drive is largely motivated by rising national debts and the growing popularity of mobile money transactions on the continent, especially amongst low-income earners, notably household microenterprises (HMEs).

HME operators not only enjoy the convenience of mobile money transfers, but they also find it beneficial to have the safety of not having to handle cash, as well as health advantages in the light of the Covid pandemic. Furthermore, mobile money is particularly attractive to many HMEs which do not have formal bank accounts for various reasons, including a lack of trust in the formal banking system, and logistic issues, due to a lack of bank outlets in close proximity. The possibility of carrying out financial transactions securely and conveniently on a basic mobile phone is particularly useful. Therefore, amongst other things, mobile money has also served to boost financial inclusion in Africa.

National tax, local tensions

Across Africa, many national governments desperate to raise revenues – due to mounting debt burdens worsened by the impacts of Covid – are continuously resorting to the taxation of mobile money transactions. Authorities see the growing popularity of mobile money as a unique opportunity to raise additional revenues, especially from HMEs, which they perceive as being under-taxed or evading taxes. In the view of national governments, mobile money taxation represents a convenient way of raising tax revenues with limited extra effort, as the tax is remitted directly by mobile money operators, who charge users based on their transactions. Therefore, the tax requires no significant effort, as might otherwise be the case if informal enterprises were to be formalised.

In the last few years, taxes on mobile money transactions have increasingly been implemented in various African countries, with Uganda, Zimbabwe, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya and the Republic of the Congo having implemented this tax prior to the Covid pandemic in 2020, while Tanzania, Cameroon and Ghana have done the same since. This is despite widespread opposition to the introduction of the tax, including from HMEs, who see the tax as an extra burden cutting into their already limited profits with no clear benefit to them. This is even more pertinent, considering the tax is generally being collected by national governments, while the direct management of HMEs’ activities is mainly the responsibility of local levels of government. This situation will therefore potentially worsen existing tensions between HMEs and local government authorities, who often apply stringent urban management practices towards such enterprises, largely with the aim of formalising them.

A new tax on mobile money in Ghana has led to a reduction in use among HMEs. Photo credit: Peeter Viisimaa / iStock

Widespread implementation, widespread discontent

Despite the controversies surrounding this new tax, national governments continue to push for its implementation, notwithstanding the significant backlash. These contentions have been observed in a number of cities where the ACRC is active.

In 2019, for example, the government of Malawi withdrew the proposed 1% tax shortly after its proposal, following widespread opposition. In Ghana, the 1.5% tax implemented in 2022 has been reduced to 1% in 2023, following extensive complaints. In Zimbabwe, due to the persisting financial crisis, authorities charge a 2% tax for local currency electronic transfers, and 4% for all domestic foreign currency transactions, which has worsened tensions. Even in Kenya, which is seen as the pioneer of the mobile money revolution in Africa, discussions are currently ongoing in parliament regarding the introduction of the tax following the budget presentation in January. This is despite widespread discontent, as the recently elected president seeks funds to address mounting debts and fund spending plans.

Mobile money tax is particularly aimed at capturing more revenues from HMEs and workers in the informal sector generally, who are key users of mobile money. However, in many instances, the immediate impact of the implementation of the tax has been a significant drop in mobile money transactions, with HMEs keen to avoid it, which is counter to the aims of the tax. For example, the implementation of the tax in Ghana in 2022 saw an immediate drop in transactions, as customers sought to avoid the tax, with HMEs exploiting loopholes in its implementation, as described by an Accra-based ACRC researcher:

“Initially after the e-levy was implemented, mobile money transactions reduced significantly because everyone thought that it affected all transactions. However, people later realised that if you go to the mobile money vendor with cash and transfer through them and not through your personal e-wallet, the e-levy does not apply, then people started using mobile money transfers again… so after the initial drop, transactions picked up… However, from January 2023 the tax now covers all transactions, although at a reduced rate… and again there has been a reduction in the use of mobile money.”

Which way forward?

Clearly, many national governments have identified HMEs and the informal sector as a viable avenue to increase revenues. What is unclear, however, is what benefits HMEs will gain from their potential new tax contributions. There is little evidence of engagement with HMEs in the development of these new tax policies, or an elaboration of the inherent benefits that will accrue to them if the proposed new taxes are successfully implemented.

A further concern is the fact that these proposed taxes are collected centrally and not locally, and with no available evidence that revenues generated will accrue in any form to local governments who are most directly involved in the management of HMEs. Not only will HMEs potentially experience a reduction in profits but they will also probably continue to suffer from unfavourable policies at the local level, as has often been the case. Also concerning is the potential harm that implementation of this tax could do to the progress made in financial inclusion through mobile money. The impact of the new tax, at least in the short run, as witnessed in Ghana, has been a reduction in the use of mobile money by HMEs.

Yet again, as has often been the case in the past, what authorities aim to gain from HMEs is clear. However, the benefits that will accrue to them in return, to aid their enterprise and boost their productivity and profitability, remains in doubt. This balance must be addressed if HMEs are to continue being the important source of employment and livelihoods for a large share of Africa’s population, as well as a potential source of substantial revenue for governments, and also if the desired vision of economic inclusion is to be achieved.

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Doing research with disadvantaged people: Navigating challenges and intricacies

Hannah — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 07:00:00 +0000

By Elizabeth Dessie, Smith Ouma, Patience Adzande, Nicola Banks, Ezana Haddis Weldeghebrael, Joshua Magero, Miriam Maina, Diana Mitlin and Ademola Omoegun

The nuances of working with marginalised individuals and communities are plentiful, with some parallels and many differences cutting across geographies and intersectional realities. This blog post draws on the authors’ experiences of researching disadvantaged people, the strategies devised to address challenges and questions raised through these encounters, and thoughts on how researchers can safeguard against generating and/or reinforcing vulnerabilities during fieldwork and moving forward.

Vulnerability, marginality and reflexivity in research

The complex nature of vulnerability, its diverse ideological constructions, and the gaze that it continues to attract from international development research and policymaking, provide strong grounds for examining harm in the context of research encounters. Research discourses remain haunted by intractable questions around how to recognise vulnerabilities and structure the research process in ways that do not create new vulnerabilities, or compound existing ones.

Silence around vulnerability can deepen marginality. It fails to provide conditions for a proper understanding among researchers of potentially harmful practices and how to respond to them within the research environment. Reflexivity is therefore a necessary precondition to any research exercise and can act to protect research participants from potential harm. This reflexive piece from ACRC’s postdoctoral fellows and researchers draws on our rich experiences and insights from fieldwork encounters across different domains and contexts.

Challenges identified in researching disadvantaged people in Africa

One key challenge raised through conducting research with and on underprivileged communities in African cities relates to the very nature of research itself. By engaging in the collection of data outside of our usual social, economic, classed and geographical remits – and as affiliates of a UK-based research institution that supports and validates our work – we manifest and embody inherently extractive practices and derive ethics from the unequal power dynamic that characterises the researcher–informant relationship. We acknowledge that the marketplace for knowledge is intrinsically imbued with power relations and the enactment of power by different social actors.

When dealing with vulnerable populations, imbalances will often persist in conditions for engagement, which is likely to affect the capacity of certain groups to participate in these processes. Walking this tightrope requires an acknowledgment that those being observed are able to reciprocate the gaze and challenge any flawed epistemological accounts and premises. It then requires a candid conversation with all stakeholders involved in the research process to set the terms of engagement and open channels for feedback.

Another challenge raised related to the problematic nature of remunerating study participants for taking part in our individual studies. Remunerating participants can undermine the voluntary nature of their participation, potentially deflecting their attention from critical deliberations on the issues at hand. It can make participant groups docile and malleable to the whims of the research convenors and can also lead to those more advantageously placed securing participant roles, with others missing out.

However, failure to provide some form of token to research participants is equally problematic, as it assumes that all participants have disposable time to lend to the research activities. It can in turn expand vulnerabilities. While remunerating participants was not an established practice for any of us, we agreed that providing refreshments was a natural part of certain data collection scenarios, such as focus group discussions (FGDs). In such settings, all forms of financial remuneration were deemed best avoided, to circumnavigate tricky territories of study participation becoming casual income-generating activities. The boundaries that we establish with informants can, however, become difficult to maintain when working with individuals who are particularly disenfranchised, including those who are food insecure – we may experience internal conflicts in delineating our roles as researchers and our primary human solidarity.

It is also the possible that some research undertakings may inadvertently contribute to the erasure of certain groups, by overly focusing on one group. This is especially relevant when we pay attention to the intersectional realities often presented within the research setting. Vulnerability occurs along a spectrum, meaning that individual characteristics and contextual factors may place a person at greater or lesser risk of harm. Depending on the methodological approaches that a researcher adopts, their work may draw in particular kinds of participants, while leaving out others who may not fit into the set parameters. This potentially generates a situation in which some vulnerabilities are overlooked, or other problematic hierarchies of vulnerability are created or reinforced. To avoid falling into this trap, researchers should critically interrogate the methodologies they adopt and the potential outcomes that these may generate. Going back to the study context may also be useful, to reengage with participants and others not originally engaged with in the first instance.

Patience Adzande conducts a focus group discussion in Maiduguri, Nigeria, as part of her fieldwork.

The difficulties of drawing the line between us and our informants also relate to the aftermath of data collection, through the resonance and impact of various life stories. Critical safeguarding issues arise here, particularly where the research undertaking is liable to potentially generate backlash for the research participants. The challenges posed by research – outside of our responsibility to “do no harm” – also concern our ability to deal with the nature of information shared with us and to process the stark differences defining our lives and those of our study subjects, as individuals and communities. While this may be more pronounced when working with people who are particularly disadvantaged economically, the weight of sitting through accounts of trauma related to war, displacement or gender-based violence is equally impactful.

It is therefore essential for researchers to recognise and declare their commitment to taking all necessary steps to prevent harm from resulting to their research participants. In addition, the potential impact of the research process on the researcher, especially during and after data collection, should be adequately considered. Researchers must give these issues adequate forethought before engaging in their research undertakings and make ethical decisions on how or whether to conduct their proposed research.

Navigating issues associated with researching disadvantaged people

While there are no definitive answers to the issues raised here – or to the many other questions left unaddressed – it is important to acknowledge their existence and engage with the persistent presence of discomfort that surrounds the data collection process. One way of navigating this discomfort is to approach research subjects as “human lives” and not just data, and to design methodologies around exchange rather than extraction. This may be instinctively done by conducting interviews and FGDs as reciprocal conversations, while maintaining boundaries and recognising the power configurations that shape our positionality in relation to informants and the knowledge and experiences they share.

Building on the need to integrate reciprocity into the process, another approach could be to engage in more participatory research. This would also require validation sessions with study participants through follow-up fieldwork. Sharing research findings with individuals and communities – in a language accessible to them – would allow them an insight into the research process beyond the interview and FGD setting. It would also enable them to observe how raw data is processed through sharing findings via presentations and publishable outputs.

Takeaway insights and lessons learnt

Regardless of the particular strategies we chose in navigating the intricacies of research with and on disadvantaged peoples, honesty and transparency are central in ensuring that our roles are clearly defined and that informants’ have realistic expectations of us. Through building authenticity into our interactions with informants, we may become better equipped at setting targets that acknowledge the lengthy journey to impact through publications. At the same time, we can challenge the normative nature of research as extraction, by critically reflecting on our relationship with our research participants and adopting more inclusive approaches to data collection.

This blog post is a joint output based on discussions that took place as part of a seminar the authors attended on 31 January 2023, at The University of Manchester, entitled “Doing research with and on disadvantaged peoples”.

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Can African Cities help to decolonise knowledge?

Hannah — Thu, 29 Sep 2022 07:00:00 +0000

Since the start of the African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC), we’ve been interested in trying to create more equitable partnerships and processes through the process. The rupture of the Covid-19 pandemic (which saw us establish ACRC almost entirely online) provided us with some opportunities, plus added impetus following reflections within the sector catalysed by the Black Lives Matter movement.

From the outset, we’ve been exploring ways in which we could decolonise the ACRC approach by helping to shift the culture and practice of knowledge creation, which is currently built upon hugely unequal power systems. Of course, we are not starting from scratch but building on traditions of knowledge co-production between diverse groups involved in urban research.

We’re fully aware of the inherent tensions and potential contradictions of trying to do this via a programme initiated and funded by the UK government with strict accountability requirements by the lead agency responsible for the contract. But as FCDO’s recent development strategy makes clear, the ultimate aim of programmes like ACRC is “unleashing the power of people and countries to take control of their own future”. It’s a goal we’re fully committed to, so we’re looking at how ACRC can be best organised to help deliver it.

As such, we’re focusing on three main areas:

Structural issues

The current phase of research is largely characterised by UK-based researchers leading or directing the work in a way that is consistent with the framework of the African Cities programme, with Africa-based researchers implementing within these boundaries. Within these constraints, we have sought to develop the space for community-based researchers, in addition to a range of contributions from African professionals and academics. For the next phase of work, as we move into nurturing urban reform, we need to ensure that ACRC’s agenda and work are owned by those in the cities in which we are active. This requires us to explore a more decentralised structure for decisionmaking and resource allocation.

Communication practices

Language is a powerful tool for communicating research, that can determine who benefits in multi-stakeholder partnerships such as ACRC. All forms of ACRC communications, including images, will be regularly reviewed to address potential unconscious bias issues. We also need to ensure that the dominance of the English language does not skew the understanding of specific experiences of inequalities and marginalisation within ACRC cities.

Methodological practices

In order to ensure co-production of research, local knowledge and experiences should drive the implementation of ACRC research, including spaces for methodologies that challenge Eurocentric approaches. African researchers must have their “voice” and agendas expressed in the agreed research processes and must lead the communication and use of results. ACRC approaches need to be intentionally empowering to all stakeholders involved in the research. This includes community-based researchers whose voice is often excluded in traditional academic practices.

None of this is easy. We’ve not got everything right so far, and many of the issues don’t lend themselves to immediate solutions. Balancing our accountability to both our funder (and ultimately UK tax-payers) and to the reformers we’re partnering with in African cities is a constant challenge. That said, we’re committed to continuing this dialogue throughout the programme and actively looking for practical ways to push things in the right direction.

To explore some of these issues, our uptake director Martin Atela and strategic alignment group member Professor Ola Uduku sat down with our communications manager Chris Jordan, to give their perspectives on decolonisation.

Transcript

The full podcast transcript is available below.

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Chris Jordan Welcome to the African Cities podcast. My name is Chris Jordan. I’m the communications manager with African Cities and I’m joined today in Nairobi by Ola Uduku, who’s from Liverpool University, and Martin Atela, who’s ACRC is uptake director but his day job is at the Partnership for African Social and Governance Research in Nairobi, PASGR. So thank you very much, both of you, for joining me.

Chris Jordan Really interested to get your thoughts and hear your experiences around issues of decolonisation. It’s an issue that has grown in prominence over the last few years, but I’m sure you both have kind of a long history and experience of dealing with these issues day to day, and it’s something that we’re trying to grapple with within the African Cities Research Consortium. So, Ola, if I could turn to you first. You’ve been working in development-related work for a long time. How do you come to the issue of decolonisation and particularly as it’s currently being conceived?

Ola Uduku Well, it’s a hard question, but I guess the whole decolonisation discussion is a long discussion, but it’s also part of a longer process. And I think probably in my academic life there have been times when issues around decolonisation have come up further and certainly since the Black Lives Matter movement, certainly in the UK, I think academically there’s been a significant push towards looking at how we decolonise the way we teach, the way we research and indeed the ways in which we see ourselves. So yeah, I’ve been engaged with it throughout and I think this is certainly a high point again where we’re being asked to really think carefully and it’s from everything from indeed how we teach undergraduates right through to postgraduate research and also the ways in which we frame our research questions. So yeah, it’s a continuing journey, I would say, and most of us are engaged with it in some in some fashion or the other, and I certainly support the process.

Chris Jordan And Martin, you’re based in Nairobi. You’re an African researcher. How do you come at these issues?

Martin Atela Yes. I think through working in the development field, PASGR is my third job, postgraduate, so to say. The issues of decolonisation, you sort of deal and reckon with almost in everyday relations, because most of the work involves working very closely with partners in the global South as well as partners in the global North. And most of our partnerships tend to be around issues around knowledge generation, issues around knowledge creation and the use of evidence for policy and practice. And decolonisation, as Ola rightly put, it’s not a new thing. It’s found a new growth, so to say, because of the Black Lives Matter movement. But even going back and looking at development discourse all through, it’s been at the centre of the conversation around, for instance, aid and how we do aid and development, how we do development assistance, how we do bilateral relationships. And it’s now more highlighted in research because I think academics and funders who fund academics and research are coming to terms with the reality of the fact that those relationships are never equal. And it is time if research processes have to produce the outcomes that they are intended for so that we make relationships a lot more equal and equitable.

Chris Jordan And I guess for all African researchers and academics, it’s a very personal issue, right? This is not just a theoretical, abstract sort of interesting thing. This is day to day reality.

Ola Uduku Yeah. I guess as African researchers, or at least as an African researcher or academic placed in a Northern university, it is our day to day. I mean, when the idea about positionality comes very much into the discussion, I mean, one is effectively employed by a Western body. One is interested in doing research in the South. And where does that place one in terms of both research, research subjects and also, if you like, for those whom the research is being done. And I think that’s probably a good way to bring in the work that the ACRC is doing, which is really, I think, beginning to work much more collaboratively and beginning to look at co-creation of research objectives. Certainly at the beginning of my time as a young academic, it was very much you went and did research there in the South, and it was development research, and there might be a small research fund to do it, but it was very clearly the there and the here, and the fact that this was being done as an aid project to a large extent. So I think that has changed over time, which is good, but there’s still that need to critically think about, you know, the I would call it the “symmetry”. Is it a really symmetrical relationship is there asymmetry, which is often the case.

Martin Atela Yeah. I suppose for, you know, an African academic or researcher based in Africa, you grapple with a number of things. The imbalance in the sense of research funding. So most of our research still is funded from organisations or institutions from the global North, as we would refer to them. And most of what is currently seen as top-tier journals where you publish that research are also based in the global North. So in a way, you’re doomed on both sides because funding is tied to specific ideas. If you look at most calls for proposals, the ideas have already been, you know, outlined for you. You’re responding to other people’s ideas. As you do the research there are conditionalities that are attached to it, so if you want to publish and compete with the global world, you have to publish in journals that have been given premium by, you know, sort of Western academics. So it’s a real challenge, but perhaps even more real in the sense that when we’re talking about decolonising knowledge and knowledge processes or even partnerships, we are starting from the point of view that there is a history and that history has shaped the way things have been done to the point where we are. And that realisation means that beginning to challenge power structures is often not a welcome move, and it means that it begins with you as an individual to self introspect and position yourself, rightly put by Ola, in all this conversation before even engaging with others in it. So it’s a very personal thing because some African academics lived through the process. Some of us have experiences through sort of bequeathed to us.

Chris Jordan So let’s turn to the African Cities Research Consortium, because some of the issues that you highlight, they’re present in this research effort. You know, we at The University of Manchester originally responded to a call from what was then DFID, you know, that kind of marked out the territory. And ultimately we are funded as a consortium by them. So I know you two have both been looking at some of the issues that we need to grapple with, if we’re going to do better as a consortium and if we’re going to move research practices forward. Could you just outline some of the terrain or some of the issues that a research consortium like ACRC needs to be grappling with?

Ola Uduku I guess in some ways, starting from the consortium itself, who are the partners? If we look at the banding of the consortium, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think most of our partners are from the global North. But then I guess it’s that as we put together the bid, I think there was a lot of consultation, but possibly again consultation from partners in all forms, from all those involved in what has now become the partnership. I think some partners were possibly consulted at a later point than others. Obviously, it’s very difficult to put in a large bid. But it’s interesting that as we’ve got to this stage, there are partners who are just beginning to understand the extent of the consortium. So I think at the get go, as the Americans would say, I think there’s an issue about making sure that all those involved have, I guess, at least equal knowledge and ideally equal participation in the task of creating the bid. That would be a start in terms of beginning to dissect things.

Martin Atela Yeah. I suppose ACRC like most research partnerships that bring together these different parts of the world would be grappling with not only the way it is structured, but the way it was created. And for me, I think that’s where the biggest challenge begins, that, Chris, you rightly put it, this was a call by FCDO that defined clearly what is needed. So what is the space for ACRC to deviate from any of that original thinking? So that has to be an ongoing conversation. And it means FCDO, if I could just use the blunt terms, the coloniser, has to be willing to engage with that conversation. And then, Ola’s referred to, you know, how did the partnership come together? We have to recognise that ACRC is made up of partners who enjoy very different capacities and powers. So Manchester for instance, is a highly resourced, globally known university, has been at the forefront of the development of some of the theories we are testing under ACRC; ESID, for instance, a ten-year plus project looked at political settlements and doing politics smartly. And then you bring in SDI, for instance, which is a community-based organisation with deep knowledge and expertise in engaging community at the local level. Those are very different dynamics. So it’s the consortium to find a way of sort of bringing everybody to the table and creating an atmosphere where each partner feels respected, trust can be built and recognise that indeed, we are dealing with an animal here, which is about unearning ways of doing things which we see were unequal. We recognise they are unequal.

Chris Jordan And I guess the other thing, just in practical terms to reflect on, is the experience we’ve had, we’ve all had over the last couple of years of the global pandemic. You know, as if issues of decolonisation and partnership and developing relationships of trust weren’t difficult enough already, we’ve all been stuck in our homes and, you know, two years in, just about this is the first time that we’ve all been able to get together and talk about this face to face rather than through Zoom. Just do you think for you, is there something about that? Have you noticed the difference in conversations when you’re face to face rather than mediated through a screen?

Ola Uduku Oh, definitely. I mean, I think that yeah, I mean, the world basically stopped or paused for at least the first nine months. But then again, in some ways, it again highlights the asymmetries in terms of as the world has got back to business, it is still much more difficult for the South to travel to the North versus the North travelling to the South. So that highlighting about yeah, the differences and divisions in the world in terms of how a global disease affects different places differently must come through the process of being part of ACRC. But I mean, the positives are that, as I have said anecdotally, the first place I heard about Zoom was back in Lagos in November 2019, well before the pandemic. So in some ways, some parts of Africa have been resourced enough in terms of the both the infrastructure and the technology to go onto Zoom. So that has been a positive in some ways. But now that we’re coming out of it, I can see the challenges, still for travel across for particularly our African partners. But it’s been positive definitely to be able to get back together, and it’s been really nice to be in a space together and out of the box, or the computer screen.

Martin Atela Yeah, I agree. Totally. It was amazing, to say the least, that groups such as ACRC could leverage on technology, could leverage technology to connect such a large group of people. Obviously, it comes with its own challenges. One that I would highlight, for instance, is the time difference. So the planning around most of ACRC’s workshops were done in consideration of the UK timings, the British standard time, and for a lot of researchers in Africa and other parts of the continent, they had to stay quite late in the evening to keep up with it. But for me, the opportunity to engage and not allow the pandemic to stop engagement I think overrides these challenges. The issue that Ola raised about I’ll just call it blatantly open discrimination around global travel, still does highlight the inequality that we face in the world. We saw it with HIV and now it’s even more highlighted with Covid and what we call, you know, the discrimination in terms of access to vaccines. Yeah.

Chris Jordan Yeah. And even before Covid, you know, it was difficult enough to get visas for African researchers who wanted to come and visit the UK or participate in workshops or conferences. So yeah, it’s a whole other podcast probably. I just want to turn finally to the agenda going forward. So lots of issues, lots of contradictions, lots of stuff that we’re just going to have to keep on addressing and talking about trying to find a way through. But what do you see as the sort of the positive agenda? What can we be doing as a research consortium to make sure that we really do try and do this research in a different sort of way?

Ola Uduku I think it’s building on what’s gone on so far. I think being able to have sessions like these, apart from the niceness of being face to face, really beginning to address difficult questions about power. Power and indeed, if you like, post-colony as opposed to colonisation. But I would always say in terms of research that I do, particularly in Africa, what is the legacy? So it’s that fundamental question about what’s really good is we’re talking about uptake and so on. So we’re saying the right words. But in reality, as the person I was sitting next to who’s part of the SLD group here, when a project ends, a good project means that the researcher really becomes part of that community, so it’s almost anthropological. And often the researcher has his or her own task and is seen as a very important elder or whatever in that community setting. But when the elder moves, who takes that role on? So if it’s a successful one, it’s back to the whole development discussion. A good development project means that it sustains itself when the developer or the person bringing the aid leaves. So it’s that embeddedness in the existing communities in which we are working with and how the ACRC consortium has its own future, which is not mediated by the North, it’s probably mediated by the cities that we’ve been involved in in the South and grows further.

Martin Atela A good point to start, actually. I remember. I think it’s one of the SDI members who put for us that challenge. What does ACRC want to be remembered for after the five or six years? And perhaps to respond to your question, Chris, what is it that we need to do to ensure that we do the research on the problem differently and better? But I think we have to, as a consortium, decide to go to Beth’s words, what is it that we can achieve? Right. So with very clear indicators around at the end of this five years, we committed to decolonise our processes and do our research better. Who will own the knowledge, you know, who will own the data? Yeah. What’s the balance or share of all of what do we call it, the intellectual property rights, to the publications that are coming out of this, not just to African scholars, but the community as well. Do they feel they own the data? Do they feel they own the solutions that are coming out of this? And for me, it would be a marker of success, of having done things differently, if in our 13 or the five or seven or eight last cities we can leave pointers of real changes that ACRC brought, you know, communities that our evidence transformed, examples of policies that benefitted from our evidence. The number of research projects that were genuinely led and co-designed by policymakers and community members and African researchers. That to me would be a true example of a well done global South/global North research project.

Chris Jordan Thank you. So it’s clear that we’re at the start of this conversation and hopefully something that we’ll come back to over the life of ACRC and beyond. Martin and Ola, thank you very much for joining me today.

Ola Uduku It’s been a pleasure.

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Webinar: Understanding the economic power of Africa’s cities

Hannah — Fri, 23 Sep 2022 07:00:00 +0000

Friday 14 October, 11:00-12:30 BST

Register to attend via Zoom or in-person at The University of Manchester

People living in Africa’s cities benefit from higher socioeconomic outcomes and standards of living than the countries in which they are located. Urbanisation is an opportunity for Africa, and governments should maximise its benefits by investing in cities of all sizes.

Philipp Heinrigs is head of unit at the OECD and co-author of Africa’s Urbanisation Dynamics 2022. He will discuss the findings and implications of this important report, which provides a new perspective on Africa’s urban economies that is unique in its breadth and level of detail. Based on data from more than 4 million individuals and firms across 2,300 cities in 34 countries, it presents compelling evidence that urbanisation in Africa contributes to better economic outcomes and higher standards of living.

Kunal Sen, director of UNU-WIDER and part of the African Cities Research Consortium, will provide further insights. The event will be chaired by ACRC’s CEO, Diana Mitlin.

Speaker bio

Philipp Heinrigs is head of unit at the Sahel and West Africa Club Secretariat at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and co-author of Africa’s Urbanisation Dynamics. He has over 15 years of experience working on African economies with a focus on regional integration, rural and agricultural development, structural transformation, cities and urbanisation. Prior to joining the OECD he worked in the Economic Policy Department of GIZ and the Kiel Institute for World Economics. He studied economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

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Lagos TV channel covers ACRC city workshop

Hannah — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 07:00:00 +0000

By Taibat Lawanson, Lagos city lead for ACRC and professor of urban planning at the University of Lagos

On Tuesday 6 September, researchers and stakeholders met to discuss urban challenges in Lagos and offer insights into how to address them.

Collaboratively, the participants discussed evidence from preliminary reports presented by research leads on political settlements, city of systems, and research domains including housing, safety and security, structural transformation as well as neighbourhood and district economic development.

While noting the interconnectedness of the issues discussed, the meeting identified two key areas deserving intense interrogation: the complexities of local nuances as obstacles to effective governance, and the realisation of globally endorsed frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Lagos news broadcasting station Channels Television reported on the workshop discussions – watch the coverage via YouTube.

Read more about the workshop and ACRC’s research in Lagos and Maiduguri via The Guardian Nigeria:

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ACRC Harare team engages city council in an uptake-related session

Hannah — Thu, 16 Jun 2022 07:00:00 +0000

By George Masimba, head of programmes at Dialogue on Shelter

ACRC’s research activities in Harare have gone up a gear following an interim workshop hosted in March this year and, more recently, an uptake meeting with City of Harare officials. Organised by Dialogue on Shelter Trust – an affiliate of SDI, which is the local uptake lead for Harare – the workshop was also attended by other ACRC city researchers.

The city officials were drawn from housing, finance, health, works, water, human capital and town clerk’s departments, to cite some examples. Consistent with the uptake agenda, the workshop sought to introduce the ACRC project, provide updates and establish potential ACRC connections with City of Harare priorities.

A presentation delivered by the uptake team on ACRC’s background outlined the shortcomings of sectoral urban development approaches that had necessitated the need for more holistic and, therefore, sustainable strategies to address the myriad challenges faced by African cities. The presentation also explained how ACRC is deploying political settlements analysis to enable a more politically nuanced understanding of the complex urban challenges in most African cities.

ACRC’s Harare team is exploring a total of four domains: structural transformation, neighbourhood and district economic development, informal settlements, and land and connectivity.

Further updates in the workshop focused on the preliminary work done so far, including production of city of systems and informal settlement domain mapping papers, which have largely been based on secondary data.

The political settlements and land and connectivity teams shared their progress updates, with the former highlighting how diverse groups of stakeholders with different forms of power were instrumental in shaping how urban services were being accessed in the city. Meanwhile, the land and connectivity update showed how the study had identified conservation and urban resilience, city consolidation, and the notion of an inclusive city as conceptual themes through which to explore the domain.

The final session of the engagement focused on linking the ACRC programme with the City of Harare’s research, policy and practice-oriented priorities. Groups organised around the city departments were used to draw out city insights and thoughts for connecting ACRC work with the council’s development agenda.

Three broad groups were arranged, including two or more related departments – namely planning, social services and the town clerk’s department. The following priorities were extracted from the group session:

Understanding off-grid water provision in the capital, specifically borehole-centred research (including coverage, quality and actors).
Impacts of water pollution on water supply in the city (including sources, extent and mitigation).
Decongesting Harare via research on transportation system.
Vulnerability and needs assessment for Harare to better inform development responses (including food security).
Developing a national and a Harare master plan.
Understanding the root causes/drivers of informal settlements in the city.
Understanding the feasibility and sustainability of slum upgrading.
Consolidating lessons from past informal settlement upgrades.
Examining how social services are being provided and accessed in the city vs town-planning standards.
Contribution of the informal sector to the city’s economy.
Unlocking infrastructure financing in the city.
Understanding linkages between the city and its dormitory towns.
Integrating cross-cutting issues in urban services delivery.
Contribution of external stakeholders to Harare’s food system.
Improving road infrastructure in the city – trafficability, mobility and connectivity.

The uptake engagement concluded by formulating next steps. These were linked to lined-up activities, such as data collection through city key informants and establishing a city focal team for easier coordination.

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Understanding Covid-19 responses: Political settlements and community initiatives

Hannah — Thu, 09 Jun 2022 07:00:00 +0000

Two new working papers, produced under the Covid Collective, explore and compare the politics and social and economic impacts of Covid-19 as it evolved in three East African capital cities – Kampala, Uganda; Nairobi, Kenya; and Mogadishu, Somalia – and its legacy in terms of possibilities for positive and lasting change.

The Covid Collective is a multi-partner international group whose mission is to provide evidence on the social dimensions of the pandemic to inform decisionmaking on Covid-19-related development challenges.

‘Understanding the politics of Covid-19 in Kampala, Nairobi and Mogadishu: A political settlements approach’ draws on desk research, focus group discussions and interviews in the three capital cities, to analyse and compare the politics of their Covid-19 responses. It highlights significant differences in the stringency of control measures and the seriousness with which the governments attempted to mitigate the pandemic’s impacts.

Different political and economic considerations in each city depended on the degree of influence of health scientists on Covid-19 policy, and the different perception of the capital city in its country’s political settlement. Kampala was perceived mainly as a threat to be contained, Nairobi as a political prize to be gained, while Mogadishu was a comparative sanctuary for the top political leadership, whose population should not be unduly antagonised.

‘Towards a comparative understanding of community-led and collaborative responses to Covid-19 in Kampala, Mogadishu and Nairobi’ focuses on the pandemic’s evolving impacts and wide-ranging local initiatives in the three cities. Low-income residents often experienced Covid-19 less as a health crisis and more as a series of devastating socioeconomic, political and violent impacts. A range of Covid-19 responses at different scales included national taskforces, philanthropic and private sector initiatives, aid agency initiatives, and grassroots and other civil society interventions. They were involved in emergency relief distribution, risk communication, service delivery, livelihoods strengthening and data collection.

New collaborations emerged between state and non-state groups, from top-down coalitions to bottom-up community solidarity networks. Non-state actors – including community health volunteers (CHVs) and private firms, along with youth, women’s, faith-based and refugee-led organisations – were key in assisting marginalised residents, and would benefit from additional government support and recognition. Some interventions – such as enhancing health systems, countering police brutality, supporting multi-sectoral upgrading and engaging constructively with informality – may open newfound possibilities of more lasting, equitable change.

Accompanying these working papers is a series of Covid Collective briefing papers, focusing on findings from the individual cities:

Supported by the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), the Covid Collective is based at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS).

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Reflections from Nairobi: ACRC’s first consortium-wide workshop

Hannah — Tue, 31 May 2022 07:00:00 +0000

By Hannah van Rooyen, African Cities Research Consortium digital communications officer

It has been an exciting month for the African Cities Research Consortium, as members from across the consortium met together in person for the first time in Nairobi. Running from 17 to 19 May, our workshop brought together more than 80 delegates – mostly research teams from our focus cities, along with those from The University of Manchester and other partner institutions.

Vibrant discussions were held over the three days of meetings, exploring a vast array of topics including ACRC’s conceptual framework, urban reform, community knowledge, capacity strengthening, research uptake, decolonisation and priority complex problems.

After more than 18 months of meeting and collaborating remotely, the workshop was the first time that many colleagues were meeting in person and provided a brilliant opportunity to share updates on progress, ideas for improvement, and ambitions for the next stages of work.

The key objectives of the workshop were to:

Review and assess progress to date on city and domain studies, enabling experiences to be shared across cities, domains and cross-cutting themes (climate, finance and gender).
Identify which processes are working well and what needs to be improved.
Develop processes for cross-city and cross-domain analysis at the city level, along with cross-domain and thematic analysis at the programme level.
Share information and ideas for the implementation phase.
Review ACRC knowledge generation and knowledge use processes in terms of equitability and inclusivity, including issues related to decolonisation.
Advance a culture of sharing and build knowledge around the contribution of others involved (including cities, domains and uptake) to facilitate engagement going forward.

Outside the Star of Hope School in Viwandani, Mukuru

Mukuru community leader Dorice Moseti welcomes the group

Construction site in Mukuru kwa Reuben

Mukuru field visit

The week of meetings started with an optional field visit for consortium members to the informal settlement of Mukuru. We were separated into two groups and shown around Mukuru kwa Reuben and Viwandani by community members and organisers from Muungano wa Wanavijiji, the Kenyan federation of slum dwellers and an affiliate of Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI).

To help upgrade the settlement, Muungano has long been involved in a process of engaging both the communities and local authorities. This has led to significant progress in Mukuru, especially following its designation as a Special Planning Area (SPA). Over the last 18 months, clean water kiosks have been set up, water and sewerage piping networks extended and many roads improved.

While there have been many challenges and obstacles to overcome, the reform coalition between the community members, civil society organisations, local government, land and structure owners, researchers and national government has been crucial to driving progress.

And the hard work continues. With a vision to improve access to housing for residents in the settlement and deliver further training on community organising, we’re looking forward to seeing what Muungano achieves next.

Day 1 | ACRC overview, urban reform, domains + crosscutting themes

The first day of the workshop began with an overview of ACRC’s research approach and theory of change from Diana Mitlin, followed by a group session discussing the necessary and sufficient conditions for urban reform in African cities.

Next up, we had a round of “turbo talks” from our domain teams, providing the wider consortium with an overview of the issues being explored, updates on progress, overlaps with other domains and exciting findings so far.

Sam Hickey, Seth Schindler and Tim Kelsall then talked through our conceptual framework, with valuable insights provided by Joseph Macarthy, executive director of the Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre, into the work being done in Freetown.

The group split into parallel sessions in the afternoon, discussing domains, city of systems, political settlements and uptake work across our focus cities.

And the final session of the day focused on our three crucial crosscutting themes – gender, finance and climate change – with presentations and smaller group discussions led by Rachel Tolhurst, Gundula Löffler and David Dodman.

Day 1 of our workshop in Nairobi kicks off with an icebreaker – consortium members placing themselves along continua of political economy vs urban systems, research vs programming, and more ↔️

All agreed that effectively communicating evidence is key to driving policy change 🗣 pic.twitter.com/p0WlKQJJvj

— African Cities Research Consortium (@AfricanCities_) May 17, 2022

Day 2 | Decolonisation, community knowledge + uptake

After an overview from Sam Hickey, our second day of meetings commenced with a session on decolonisation, led by Ola Uduku and Shuaib Lwasa. The group explored questions around decolonising research structures, overcoming unconscious bias and prioritising community and practitioner voices.

Next up, Beth Chitekwe-Biti moderated a panel on community knowledge, featuring Nancy Njoki, Dorice Moseti, Nicera Wanjiru, Joseph Muturi and Eva Muchiri from Muungano wa Wanavijiji. The team talked about their experiences of partnering with researchers, NGOs and government on data collection and the importance of community-generated interventions.

ACRC’s uptake director Martin Atela and communications manager Chris Jordan then led a session on research uptake, looking at its role in addressing priority complex problems, the key components of uptake, and next steps in the consortium’s uptake strategy.

Parallel sessions in the afternoon focused on bilateral linkages across domains – or domain “speed dating”, as it came to be known – and the lessons that set 2 cities can learn from set 1 cities. These were followed by open space discussions on capacity strengthening and publications strategy, operations and safeguarding.

The day ended with an update on Covid Collective work and findings, along with a meeting for informal settlements and political settlements leads to agree on an approach for wider discussion and action.

Day 2 of our consortium-wide meeting is underway here in Nairobi! 🙌

⁦@IIED⁩ ⁦@ODI_Global⁩ ⁦@GlobalDevInst⁩ ⁦@PASGR_⁩ ⁦@sdinet⁩ ⁦@UNUWIDER⁩ ⁦@ICLEIAfrica⁩ ⁦@LSTMnews⁩ ⁦@LivUniArch⁩ pic.twitter.com/EOZ0xn05in

— African Cities Research Consortium (@AfricanCities_) May 18, 2022

Day 3 | Priority complex problems, reflections + next steps

Our final day of workshops started with an introduction from Martin Atela, who looked back on the previous day’s discussions and ahead to the remaining few sessions. Diana Mitlin then took over to deliver an overview of priority complex problems (PCPs) – covering the identification process and next steps – and answering questions about the coordination across domain and city teams.

The dialogue around PCPs and the next phase of ACRC continued with group exercises and a “fishbowl” discussion, giving domain leads initially and then everyone else a chance to air thoughts, ideas and queries in an open forum.

Moving on to reflections on progress so far, Shuaib Lwasa invited the group to think about ACRC in terms of its impact on individual members and whether/how the three-day meeting had lived up to its purpose. The general consensus was that simply meeting in person had been invaluable for deepening understanding, and that holding the meeting in Nairobi had been critical to shifting the locus of expertise to Africa.

Wrap-up remarks from Sam Hickey and Diana Mitlin were then followed by an insightful presentation on the development of the Mukuru SPA from urban planner Peter Ngau and consultant Mary Mutinda – focusing on the planning, consultation and implementation process and highlighting the importance of community participation to influence change.

After two days filled with conversations about driving ACRC forward, our third and final day of meetings is underway!@PASGR_’s Martin Atela gets things moving with a run through of today’s activities, followed by a session on Priority Complex Problems from @DianaMitlin 🎯 pic.twitter.com/cYqTRIDmCg

— African Cities Research Consortium (@AfricanCities_) May 19, 2022

Despite a packed agenda and a huge amount to discuss, the levels of energy and investment only built as the days went on. We still have a lot to unpack from the workshop and a healthy amount of feedback to channel into our processes as we drive ACRC forward. But encompassing many of the thoughts, queries, challenges and ideas was a resounding question put forward by Muungano wa Wanavijiji: “What will ACRC’s legacy be?”

As we reflect on lessons learned and look ahead to our implementation phase, it’s a vital question to keep in mind.

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Grant awarded for land value study in Kigali

Hannah — Tue, 12 Apr 2022 07:00:00 +0000

We are pleased to announce that ACRC postdoc Matthew Sharp has been awarded a Young Researcher’s Grant by the International Growth Centre, worth £7,950.

The project intends to explore the potential for land value capture and taxation through zoning in Kigali, Rwanda, and is being undertaken with researchers at the London Business School, the London School of Economics and the University of Oxford.

Rapid urbanisation in Africa and other developing regions increases demand for urban services, which local governments often struggle to provide. Land value capture and taxation through zoning presents an underexploited opportunity to mitigate this problem. Rwanda, with its fast-growing cities, first adopted a comprehensive land use zoning law in 2013.

The project aims to answer two central questions:

How much land value is created by the implementation of the 2013 zoning regulations in Kigali?
How much value could be captured by the local government through taxation and fees?

The broader policy research question is:

How could governments in rapidly-urbanising developing countries design policies to raise revenue from urbanisation to fund better service provision?

While organisations such as the World Bank have recently put out major reports advocating for local governments to adopt land value capture policies, no existing studies rigorously evaluate the land value capture potential of zoning regulations.

Matthew Sharp said: “We hope this study will inform the design of future zoning plans in Rwanda and in other developing countries. It is also relevant for discussions on the preservation of scarce agricultural land and on environmental conservation in Rwanda, which is the densest country in sub-Saharan Africa.”

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Community mapping in Kenya improves state Covid-19 response

Hannah — Thu, 13 May 2021 07:00:00 +0000

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

This case study – originally published as part of the Covid Collective Research for Policy and Practice series – shows how an urban social movement was able to produce the knowledge that state agencies needed when the pandemic struck, securing more inclusive policy responses and building legitimacy for alternative knowledge processes and associated development ambitions.

As soon as the Covid-19 pandemic struck Kenya, the Muungano Alliance began to collect data from its community leaders, who are based in 313 informal neighbourhoods across 21 counties. From March-June 2020, the Alliance collated information from hundreds of community leaders and produced regular reports of the situation on the ground. As the data collection processes were fine-tuned, the collection process tracked six informal settlements in Nairobi County, three settlements in Kisumu County, and one in Nakuru County.

The Alliance is a coalition of three agencies working closely together. Muungano wa Wanavijiji is a social movement made up of 1,360 grass-roots savings groups in informal settlements across Kenya. These groups attract women residents who are unable to save within their home and who are keen to secure development opportunities for themselves, their families, and communities. SDI Kenya is a small technical assistance NGO that supports the work of Muungano in respect of advocacy and material improvements (tenure security, access to basic services, and housing developments). The Akiba Mashinani Trust is a loan fund which provides the capital Muungano savings groups require to expand both income generation and housing investment.

Ensuring conditions in informal settlements were well understood by county and national governments was an immediate concern of the Muungano Alliance. In addition, the Alliance wanted to help provide appropriate advice to the 89,153 Muungano members in savings groups as well as all their neighbours living in informal settlements.

The data collection process was focused on three main areas: incidence of Covid-19 (cases, deaths, testing), government and community responses that reduced the health emergency, and access to the resources needed for survival. Narrative reporting was carried out by youth documenters in Muungano covering what was going on in their settlements.

Underpinning the Muungano Alliance’s work is the objective to amplify the voice of women within Kenya’s urban development policy and planning. As information triggers understanding, women and men who are part of Muungano begin to organise their families and neighbourhoods to address the pandemic. As a programme of required activities becomes clearer to local activists, their demands become stronger that government address health and economic emergencies. The speed and depth of the Alliance’s collection and aggregation of data reflects capabilities built up over decades.

Once information began to flow upwards from the community to government and downwards to community leaders, then action was catalysed. Community groups began to improve access to handwashing stations and masks. They identified isolation centres and provided emergency access to food. The relevant authorities began to reach out to the Alliance, recognising the value of the information, which triangulated well with other sources, and the significance of their work.

SDI Kenya was invited onto the Ministry of Health’s taskforce on Covid-19 in informal settlements. Earlier findings from the West African Ebola outbreak highlight the importance of local ownership of decision-making by informal settlement leaders (working closely with the health ministries) for the required action to be taken.

Youth in Korogocho informal settlement, Nairobi, put up public health posters in their neighbourhood. Photo: Muungano KYC.TV

Muungano representatives distributing personal protective equipment to community health volunteers in Nairobi. Photo: Muungano KYC.TV

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).

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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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ACRC Harare team engages city council in an uptake-related session

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Understanding Covid-19 responses: Political settlements and community initiatives

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Reflections from Nairobi: ACRC’s first consortium-wide workshop

Mukuru field visit

Day 1 | ACRC overview, urban reform, domains + crosscutting themes

Day 2 | Decolonisation, community knowledge + uptake

Day 3 | Priority complex problems, reflections + next steps

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Grant awarded for land value study in Kigali

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Community mapping in Kenya improves state Covid-19 response