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Inclusive Resilience-Building to Floods in Informal Settlements

Full project title
Flood Resilience in Slums: Community-Responsive Adaptation in Kibera, Nairobi.
 
Funding organisation
The research is funded under the research programme “Sustainability and resilience – Tackling climate and environmental changes”, which is is jointly funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet), Sida and Formas.
 
Project timeline
2016–2019.
 
Project leader
At LUCSUS, the project is coordinated by Christine Wamsler, Professor at LUCSUS. The overall project coordination has Assistant Professor Anna Tompsett, Stockholm University.
 

Project partners
The Technical University of Kenya, Kounkuey Design Initiative, Stockholm University, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, the Stockholm Resilience Centre and Lund University.
 
Project summary
A large and growing number of the world’s population live in so-called informal settlements or slums, where the twin trajectories of rapid urbanisation and increased flooding driven by climate change collide. Top-down policies designed to reduce flood risk in informal settlements have to date been largely unsuccessful, yet many of the vulnerabilities faced by slum-dwellers cannot be addressed by local action alone. Many observers posit that a fundamentally important part of the solution is to integrate government and community resilience initiatives, so-called“Community-Responsive Adaptation”. However, real-world examples of this type of integration are scarce, and have not been systematically evaluated, either in terms of cost, or impact. In this project, we partner with an award-winning non-governmental organization, Kounkuey Design Initiative, and with local residents and government, to co-design, build and evaluate three integrated adaptation projects in Kibera, Nairobi. We we collect and analyze both quantitative and qualitative data to help understand the socio-cultural, economic, structural, institutional and political mechanisms and drivers behind success or failure of the interventions.

News


Kibera

Contact

Project leader: Professor Christine Wamsler