Sustainable Urban Development in the Age of Climate Change by Ali Cheshmehzangi & Ayotunde Dawodu

Author:Ali Cheshmehzangi & Ayotunde Dawodu
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789811313882
Publisher: Springer Singapore

3.6.1 Kitale: Building in Partnership—Participatory Urban Planning Project

The Kitale project was termed Building in Partnership: Participatory Urban Planning Project (BIB: PUP) and was funded by the UK’s Department for International Development. The project took place between 2001 and 2004, and was aimed at reducing poverty in three slums located in the rapidly growing city of Kitale. The main issue was that a rapid increase in population and migration superseded the supply of formal housing. This case study looks at one of the three slum areas located in Kitale, named Kipsongo and housing 4000 residents as of 2001. The project started with the establishment of a BIB: PUP committee, which represented all stakeholders invested in the improvement of slums. The participants were the local government, development practitioners and the citizens of Kipsongo community. The committee identified two main issues faced by the residents—infrastructure (i.e. water and sanitation) and service issues (i.e. employment creation and increasing business productivity). The citizens were already using polluted water from the local river streams, which led to the outbreak of numerous diseases. There were also no sanitation facilities available within the locale. Youth unemployment rates were also very high, a prevalent issue in African cities. This particular issue was due to low levels of education and the limited skill sets of the residents (MacPherson 2013).

To attain this information, surveys took place in the community, as well as including non-governmental organisations, community-based organisations, faith-based organisations and a range of private businesses (Majale 2009). As in the case of Botswana, the participation of citizens tends to link social and economic issues with environmental issues; and the latter does not tend to come before the former. The SDG that is predominant here is poverty reduction, but also addressed are the community’s issues of water and sanitation (SDG 6), economic prosperity (SDG 8) and institutional partnerships (SDG 17). By tackling these SDGs, climate change (SDG 13) is also considered. In terms of the ladder of participation, partnership and possibly even citizens’ delegation are achieved. This is because at the very beginning of the project a committee was formed to give people significant decisionmaking power, with a seat at the BIB: PUP delegation table. This partnership was also via various sectors and arms of the government, in other words public, private and civil society, allowing for the better flow of information and increasing trust. Note that building trust is key to developing the nation, particularly when most members of the public have lost faith in the government’s ability to legitimately do the right thing for them. Moreover, early participation plays a key role in the identification of context-specific issues. Questions were brought to the residents, so they could identify and weigh the issues. These were addressed through a process much like the Botswanan case of indicators development. This allowed residents to contribute effectively and highlight issues that were ignored or unknown to developers. Furthermore, residents in the locale were noted to have developed unique, resilient and sustainable forms of survival, and

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