Strategic Thinking

Divided City: Information Poverty in Nairobi's Slums
by Rasna Warah
grasp@nbi.ispkenya.com

From the Abstract
The last decade has offered enormous opportunities to shorten the information and communication gap between governments, development agencies and ordinary citizens. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have the potential of either widening this gap or making it disappear. ICTs have led to more egalitarian forms of governance. E-governance and e-mail pressure groups have been able to transform the way cities are run. The Internet, mobile phones and other new information technologies have offered more opportunities to those who have been able to harness and use the technology to improve their own livelihoods. Because of their ability to rase geographical, social, economic and cultural barriers, ICTs have the potential of overcoming inequalities in society and becoming a catalyst for development. Sam Pitroda, India's visionary technologist, referred to ICTs as "the most democratising tool ever devised".

ICTs can also be a dividing factor in society. For the urban poor, they can be a blessing or a curse. In many cities, the urban poor now have to deal with another form of social exclusion - the digital divide. Language, education and infrastructure barriers continue to ensure that the poor in cities such as Nairobi remain untouched by the information revolution. Because connectivity and informational capacity will determine wealth and power in our time, the urban poor risk being even more marginalised and impoverished.

Slums - the most obvious manifestation of urban poverty - can be the sites of digital inclusion or digital exclusion. The sheer concentration of people in slums and their proximity to infrastructure such as electricity and telephone lines, make them an ideal target for ICT development initiatives. Any intervention in a slum area is not only likely to affect large numbers of people, but is also likely to have a multiplying effect.

This study is an attempt to look at how slum dwellers in Nairobi obtain information, and also to examine what mechanisms exist in slums to access media and information in the absence of ICTs. It also explores various options that can be adopted to promote ICT development in slums.

Chapter 1 provides an overview of the major development challenges in the information age and how they have impacted the policies of development agencies. It argues that the new "informational paradigm" presents new and exciting development challenges that, if not confronted head-on, can lead to increasing poverty and social exclusion in countries that have been unable to make full use of the opportunities offered by ICTs. It also introduces the concept of "divided cities" and how the backlash against urban exclusion has resulted in new forms of governance.

Chapter 2 is devoted to providing data and information on Nairobi's slums in the context of the growing urbanization of poverty worldwide and Africa's digital exclusion. It is intended to introduce the reader to the state of the city's slums and the various political, financial and infrastructure obstacles that countries such as Kenya have to overcome to democratise access to media and ICTs.

Chapter 3 discusses methodology and the strengths and weaknesses of the methods used in the study. It also argues against narrow definitions of poverty by showing that poverty has many dimensions and that deprivation in one area can mean wealth in another. It makes a case for distinguishing knowledge from information, arguing that lack of information does not necessarily mean ignorance in all aspects of life.

Chapter 4 analyses the results of the study and presents a summary of its key findings. It examines in depth the role of social networks in providing information in slum communities and concludes with concrete proposals on how access to information and communication can be improved in slums. Underlying these proposals is an explicit recognition of the fact that ICT access may be a remote dream for slum dwellers, but that the dream can only become a reality if ICT development forms the core of development initiatives at the national and community levels.

In addition to summarising this study, Chapter 5 offers some recommendations on how ICT and media access can be improved in slum areas, including best practices and lessons learned in other developing countries.

To request the full report please e-mail Rasna Warah at grasp@nbi.ispkenya.com

Source: E-mail from Rasna Warah April 14 2004.
Placed on the Soul Beat Africa website April 15 2004.
Placed on the Communication Initiative site June 09 2004.
Last Updated June 14 2004.