BY BENJAMIN BRADLOWSHACK/SLUM DWELLERS INTERNATIONAL

(SDI)

KNOWING YOUR CITYPROVIDING ACCESS TO URBAN LAND AND

INFRASTRUCTURE THROUGH GRASSROOTS DATA COLLECTION

World Bank Land & Poverty Conference, 25 March 2014

A very abbreviated history of urban grassroots data collection

1976: founders of NSDF India undertake a survey of 10,000 households to claim land in Cheetah Camp and get land for relocation

1985: NSDF joins hands with women’s movement Mahila Milan and small support NGO SPARC

1986-7: First survey of slums along the railway in Bombay and first survey of Dharavi

1992: Enumeration of settlement in Piesang River, Durban, South Africa, through South African Federation

1996: Similar slum dweller federations in 8 countries come together to form the network of Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI)

Who is SDI?

The elephant in the room: the private sectorThe (silent) 800-pound gorilla: the slum dwellers

A transnational network of slum dweller federations in 33 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America

SDI affiliates are federated communities of informal settlements and groups of primarily women-led savings groups in informal settlement communities. Active saving membership of over 1 million people in urban slums worldwide.

In most countries the affiliates are supported by a small group of professionals

SDI has a secretariat based in Cape Town, South Africa

What does SDI do?

Collects data Profile, map, and enumerate informal settlements to build collective

identity and leadership to address development issuesEnsure women’s participation through savings

collectives which women manage at settlement level.Use demonstrated critical mass of organised informal

settlements with data to negotiate effectively with formal authorities, especially at the city level, to access land, services, and shelter

Build national movement that is able to influence policiesExchanges and peer learning at city, national, and trans-

national scalesGlobal advocacy to bring the voices of the urban poor in

international discussions on urbanisation.

Peeling the onion: understanding informality

Settlement profiling: counting exhaustively informal settlements to understand their land ownership, their access to amenities and services and cities, their vulnerabilities Basic picture of the nature and scale of informality,

assets, poverty, and informality in citiesPhysical mapping of structures, and creating

addressing through numbering and creating physical maps

Enumeration of households and individuals

Principles

Local ownershipExpanding alliances with other actors and

institutions that keep communities at the centre

Women and youth are essential, but not separate

Challenges

Understanding what is “good quality data” The interaction produced by the research is intrinsic to the data

Legitimating the data requires advocacy Need formal institutions to commission grassroots data collection,

and allow grassroots institutions to continue to own the dataGoing to scale requires technical support

Without commitment to a people’s data collection process, communities will be alienated

Need for a consensus core of questions to ask Different communities can add additional questions to suit their

contextPartnerships for using the data

Essential to make the data lead to real changes in the lives of the poor

What is it good for?

Creating grassroots organization and institutional identity

Defining existing deficits in amenities services and connections to the city

Planning for redevelopment, relocation, infrastructure provision in cities with major pressures for infrastructure

Examples

India and Kenya Railway relocation

Examples

Uganda Nearly 70% of slum settlements in the city of Kampala have faced

a threat of eviction, with 1.5 million slum residents currently reporting that they fear this may be imminent.

55% of land in slums is privately owned (Division breakdown: Rubaga 33%, Nakawa 80%, Makindye 30%, Kampala Central 66%, Kawempe 64%)

21% is held under customary ownership (Division breakdown: Rubaga 33%, Nakawa 0%, Makindye 9%, Kampala Central 28%, Kawempe 34%);

12% is owned by the Kingdom (Division breakdown: Rubaga 26%, Nakawa 3%, Makindye 31%, Kampala Central 0%, Kawempe 1%)

7% is owned by the municipality (Division breakdown: Rubaga 8%, Nakawa 10%, Makindye 10%, Kampala Central 6%, Kawempe less than 1%).

The Know Your City Campaign

A global campaign for grassroots data and inclusive partnerships with local government Nexus of national governments, local governments,

city-wide community networksPartners

United Cities and Local Government — Africa (UCLGA)

Cities Alliance Global Land Tools

Network Universities

Reflections

Data for what? To serve whom?How up to date does the data set need to be?What value does data have if it does not

generate a critical mass of organized communities?

How are perceived mistakes to be arbitrated and governed in data sets and by whom?