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UN
- Habitat Slums Upgrading
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©
2003 UN-HABITAT, All Rights Reserved.
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Divided
City: Information Poverty in Nairobi's Slums
By Rasna Warah - UN Chronicle Online Edition
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Rent
Crisis in Nairobi Slums
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Rents
in the slum areas of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi
- where as many as 2 million people, or 60 percent
of the city's population, live - are "exorbitant"
and "exploitative".
Much of the land on which the slums have been
constructed is publicly owned and has been illegally
"distributed" or appropriated. This
means that landlords are not legally obliged
to provide any services - which results in no
latrines or water, no electricity, no rubbish
collection, no infrastructure, totally inadequate
housing, no repairs or maintenance, and open
sewers with stinking, raw sewage floating about.
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A
new agenda to tackle urban poverty in Africa
Nairobi, 4 April 2006 – Resolving to place
their urban poverty crisis at the top of the
national and international policy making agenda,
African ministers responsible for housing and
urban development on Tuesday discussed a 10-point
game plan designed to reduce urban poverty,
defuse potential social unrest, and reverse
the perception that governments are not doing
enough, quickly enough.
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Slum
Upgrading: Lessons Learned in Nairobi - Sept. 2001 -
UN Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat)
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This
article is based on a consultative report on the conditions
of informal settlements and slum upgrading initiatives
in Nairobi, Kenya. The report, entitled "Nairobi
Situation Analysis"* (Nairobi, 2001), was a first
step in a newly launched collaborative initiative
led by the Government of Kenya and UNCHS (Habitat)
to improve informal settlements and reduce urban poverty
in the country's capital city. The report was researched
and compiled by a team of three resource experts from
the University of Nairobi: Professor Paul M. Syagga,
Dr. Winnie V. Mitullah and Dr. Sarah Karirah Gitau.
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Government
of Kenya (GOK) and UN-HABITAT to Upgrade Slums
GOK and UN-HABITAT sign Memorandum of Understanding;
Kibera-Soweto chosen for pilot slum upgrading project
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Nairobi,
16 January, 2003: Honourable Raila Odinga, the new
Minister for Roads, Public works and Housing of the
Government of Kenya and Mrs. Anna Tibaijuka, the Executive
Director of UN-HABITAT, today signed a Memorandum
of Understanding (MOU) on the "Slum Upgrading
Programme for Kenya". The programme hopes to
improve housing, infrastructure services and the overall
livelihoods of people living and working in informal
settlements. One of the major goals is to ensure that
the poor are given some form of security of tenure
so that they can participate in the improvement of
the urban environment. The programme will begin by
working on slum upgrading in Nairobi and Kisumu, the
lessons learned will then be replicated in other urban
areas in Kenya.
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Urban
poverty reduction in Kenya
By Wendy E. Taylor
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This
article draws on the findings in Kenya of Localising the
Habitat Agenda for Urban Poverty Reduction, a research project
funded by the UK Government's Department for International
Development.
The
research indicated some major barriers to localising the
Habitat Agenda in Kenya. First and foremost, knowledge and
use of the Habitat Agenda as a policy tool for poverty reduction
and local development appears limited.
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Privatisation
of Municipal Services in Eastern Africa
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Discussion
on the relative efficiency of the private and public sector in
delivering urban services has spanned the last two decades. This
report presents the findings of a study designed to determine
the nature, extent of progress and effectiveness in decentralization
and privatization of municipal in East Africa. The study sought
to identify and measure improvements, if any, that have taken
place in the provision and access to municipal services to the
population following privatization of municipal services. The
changing role of the public sector in managing the city has also
become apparent in desire by central governments to decentralize
functions, and in the increasing trend of shift of responsibility
from direct provision of services and infrastructure to regulating
and/or facilitating the private sector in accomplishing tasks
which were once the domain of the public sector.
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Nairobi's
Slums: Where Life for Women is Nasty, Brutish and Short
by Rasna Warah
 Kenya's capital city, Nairobi, hosts
some of the most dense, unsanitary and insecure slums in the world.
Slum dwellers constitute the majority of the city's population;
an estimated 60 per cent of the city's population of roughly 2.5
million people live in slums or informal settlements.
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Women's
Right to the City
 Urban struggles create the need to
include the right to the city, defined as the equal access
to the city and its benefits within a framework of sustainability
and social justice, in the international system of human
rights.
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Crushed
Homes, Crushed Lives
by Birte Scholz
For most women, the home is the single
most important place in the world. Beyond shelter, it is
a place of employment, where income is generated; it is
a place to care for children; and it provides respite from
violence in the streets. For some women, the home may be
the only place where they can participate in social activities.
The interconnectedness and particular relationship women
have with housing suggests that a practice like forced eviction
will have an acute and disparate impact on women's lives.
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Africa's
Cities May Face a Dry and Dirty Future
by Yima Sen
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Water
management and pollution are the most critical issues
affecting water access today, as affirmed by UN Secretary-General
Kofi Annan, during World Water Day, 22 May, 2002,
when he stated that, "Even where supplies are plentiful,
they are increasingly at risk from pollution and rising
demand".
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HIV/
AIDS: An Urban Challenge
Source: "Management of the HIV and AIDS
Pandemic at the local level", UN-HABITAT, March 2002
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Acquired
Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a human tragedy.
Since the pandemic began in the early 1980s, AIDS
has killed a total of about 22 million people and
orphaned over 13 million children worldwide. In 2000
alone, about five million people around the world
became infected, 600,000 of them children, and AIDS
claimed three million lives.
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Known
for its flamingos and once dubbed "the cleanest
town in East-Africa", Nakuru, has lost a lot
of its past glory. Particular environmental concerns
are caused by the inter-relation between Lake Nakuru
National Park and the residential and industrial expansion.
This situation is aggravated by the fallen standards
of urban services, requiring a new approach towards
urban planning and management. The local authority's
civic attitude and its willingness to collaborate
with community groups, NGOs and industrialists form
a foundation which the Localising Agenda 21 Programme
intends to strengthen and expand.
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The
fight against HIV and AIDS in Kisumu Kenya
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More
than10 years after HIV and AIDS was declared a national
disaster in Kenya, the adult HIV and AIDS prevalence has
dropped from 13 percent at that time to 6.7 percent
in 2003. The national response in Kenya has accelerated
over the past year with the substantial expansion
of external funding. The Kisumu communities have now
created four task forces to tackle HIV and AIDS policy
development, coordination of HIV and AIDS interventions,
prevention and advocacy, and treatment and social
support. The KNASP proposes work within the framework
of “three ones” – one strategic plan,
one coordinating mechanism, and one monitoring and
evaluation mechanism.
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Kenya's
Urban Tragedy
by Jane Weru
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In
Kenya's capital city of Nairobi, there are over 100
slum communities that are home to 2 million people.
The residents of Nairobi's informal settlements constitute
55 per cent of the city's total population and yet
they are crowded onto only 1.5 per cent of the total
land area in the city. And even that land is not theirs.
The residents of the informal settlements live in
constant fear that their homes will be demolished
or destroyed in a forced eviction.
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Cities
Without Slums - KENYA - Information Brief - UN Habitat
Sub-Regional Programme for Eastern and Southern
Africa
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Kenya's
housing sector is besieged by a formidable combination
of challenges and strains. Factors such as unprecedented
urbanization coupled with high population growth rates,
poor domestic policy performance and the associated
debt burdens have had devastating impacts on development
policies and strategies. The number of urban centres
has increased from 34 in 1962 to 277 in 1999. This
implies a rise in real number from 747,651 in 1948
to 10 million in 1999. By the year 2005, the urban
population is expected to rise to 16 million and 41.6
million by the year 2015.
The
Safer Cities project aims at developing a community-based
strategy for the prevention of crime in Nairobi. The
activity is funded by UNDP as part of the work of
UNDAF's Theme Group on Governance, Livelihoods and
Poverty Reduction in Kenya.
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New
Initiative to Clean Up Nairobi Dam Offers Hope to Millions of
Slum Dwellers
Nairobi
Dam Trust Initiative Will Mobilize Resources to Restore Kenyan
Capital’s Reservoir
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