Co-producing knowledge to address disaster risks in informal settlements in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: pathways toward urban equality?

In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, small-scale and everyday disasters are a manifestation of the multidimensional inequalities faced by residents of informal settlements. The co-production of knowledge about disaster and other risks, bringing together residents with local NGOs and local government representatives, is a potential entry point for addressing inequalities. This paper reports on such a co-production process in two informal settlements, carried out by the Centre for Community Initiatives with the Tanzania Urban Poor Federation and local government at the Mtaa level, and it looks at how community assessments of risks travel into local governance and policymaking. The involvement of Mtaa officials in this process has led to incremental changes in local governance, for example better linking of local budgets with disaster risk reduction (DRR) priorities and the representation of civil society on the municipal disaster management committees. The paper also points to the challenges of achieving integration of DRR and development activities at the local level

Environmentalism in Ghana: the rise of environmental consciousness and movements for nature protection.

The modern wave of environmentalism that swept most of the Western world since the 1960s, has generated considerable academic interest and has been widely documented. However there are apparent gaps in the knowledge, understanding and academic coverage of the phenomenon in the developing world, particularly in Africa. This thesis is an empirical exploration into the nature of environmentalism in Ghana, West Africa dwelling on the phenomena of environmental consciousness and movement activity. It identifies the presence of a small yet viable indigenous environmental movement. The movement is most visible through the partnering and collective networking activities of small, institutionalized local organizations that came together to form coalitions, share resources and work together on broad thematic issues that were of common concern

Sustaining Community-Based Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Learning Platforms at Work in Freetown, Sierra Leone

In Freetown, Sierra Leone, despite the progress in the official response to the COVID-19 outbreak, there remain concerns about the limited involvement of local communities and the use of bottom-up participatory approaches in the response. While the official response has been characterised by restrictive public health measures such as partial lockdowns and the declaration of a state of a public health emergency, for the urban poor, the implications have been wide-ranging including the deepening of inequalities, especially among residents in slum-like informal settlements who already suffer from pre-COVID-19 structural challenges and vulnerabilities. This includes challenges linked to health systems fragility, environmental risks and uncertainties around livelihoods in the informal economy, which forces many to live from hand to mouth. Ultimately, these vulnerabilities challenge the acceptance and compliance of the restrictive state-led health measures, which puts them at risk of infections. To address these structural inequalities and foster an inclusive dialogue, a City Learning Platform, comprising the Freetown City Council, local community residents and their groups, and a few non-governmental organisations have been working creatively to respond to the COVID-19 challenges faced by the urban poor. But, while this alternative bottom-up approach has allowed the coordination of response to address community-level priorities more effectively, how well the platform has been able to successfully sustain the interest and commitments of vulnerable groups and to build their capacities, co-create knowledge and explore new opportunities has yet to be understood. This article highlights the strategic value of Community Learning Platforms in sustaining local responses to the pandemic. It also explores how social protection measures are shaped into the local response and help tackle deeply entrenched inequalities in the communities. The article additionally reflects on the challenges and opportunities for using the Community Learning Platforms in the COVID-19 response

Pathways to the ‘Good Life’: Co-Producing Prosperity Research in Informal Settlements in Tanzania - with Swahili translation

Residents of informal settlements in urban centres in Africa are known to suffer disproportionate burdens of environmental and socio-economic inequalities and are often excluded from macro-level visions and policies that seek to make cities safer and prosperous (Birkmann, 2007; da Silva & Braulio, 2014; Dodman et al., 2013). This tension undermines the validity of orthodox, ‘expert-led’ visions, policies and measures of prosperity that are distant from the lived-experience of marginalised urban residents. Based on new empirical work with communities in three informal settlements in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, this article argues that novel methodological and theoretical approaches to co-producing context-specific policy-relevant knowledge about pathways to prosperity (translated by the communities as maisha bora, ‘the good life’) creates inclusive spaces for both community participation in processes of urban knowledge production and critical social enquiry that can lead to grounded theory building. By co-producing both an agreed and relevant methodological approach for the study, and its subsequent documentation and analysis, this work contributes valuable empirical insights about the capacities and capabilities of local communities to shape and influence urban policy-making and in this way speaks to calls for a global urbanism (Ong, 2011; Robinson, 2016) that brings diverse voices and geographies to urban theory to better account for the diversity of urban experiences and processes found in twenty-first century cities

Understanding the Impact of COVID-19 Partial Lockdown in Tanzania: Grassroots Responses in Low-Income Communities in Dar es Salaam

This article aims to understand grassroots responses to COVID-19 and how they impacted the well-being of low-income informal communities in Dar es Salaam. An exploratory qualitative research design, using semi-structured questionnaires, was adopted for use in Ubungo Kisiwani and Hanna Nassif settlements. Focus group discussions with select members of the community, including women’s groups, and mtaa (sub-ward) and ten-cell leaders, were held. The selection of respondents took into account the socio-economic and spatial characteristics of the two communities. Although Tanzania’s response to COVID-19 was based on a partial lockdown, these measures led to decline in income and loss of livelihoods among the poor. Likewise, several low-income persons, particularly those working in the hospitality industry, were temporarily retrenched owing to the poor business environment, severely undermining their ability to pay for basic services. The largely collective but limited social capital deployed by grassroots actors were crucial safety nets for the most vulnerable. These have to be acknowledged and coordinated. Mixed land use in informal settlements also proved useful in providing convenient access to the basic needs of households; reducing the need to travel outside one’s neighbourhood, thus enhancing the resilience of the communities

Urban risk readdressed: Bridging resilience-seeking practices in African cities

Throughout the Global South, urbanization is increasingly coupled with the production of risk accumulation cycles or urban “risk traps”, which are not exclusively driven but exacerbated by climate change. This is the case across many cities in sub Sahara Africa, where biophysical and socio-economic risk drivers combine to produce vicious cycles of unequal risk exposure and displacement, with severe impacts on the lives, livelihoods and assets of the urban poor and the city’s ecological and socio-economic future. Focusing on two case studies characterized by different approaches to the governance of disaster risk management (DRM) – Freetown (Sierra Leone) and Karonga (Malawi) – this chapter seeks to untangle the processes that drive risk accumulation over time and to appraise the resilience-seeking practices deployed and resources mobilized to mitigate, reduce, and prevent risk. It reflects on the findings from an action-research project conducted in the aforementioned cities, as part of a wider program entitled “Urban Africa Risk Knowledge” (Urban ARK). As such, it provides fresh insights into how the governance of urban resilience currently works in both contexts and on how to enhance the capacity to act of those most vulnerable to become trapped in risk accumulation cycles to disrupt these traps strategically, inclusively, and collectively. Our central argument is that the capacity of emerging DRM governance frameworks to disrupt urban risk traps is defined by the extent to which resilience-seeking is actually practiced in a relational way – that is acknowledging the multiple practices that converge in responding to risk and their relative capacities to disrupt the risk accumulation cycles that impact the most vulnerable. We further hypothesize that the differential ability of ongoing resilient-seeking practices to disrupt risk traps is shaped by the extent to which their governance expands the political space to enable abridged collective action among the urban poor, customary authorities, local governments and external agencies

Co-production outcomes for urban equality: Learning from different trajectories of citizens' involvement in urban change

The involvement of citizens and communities in processes that affect their lives and livelihoods through co-production methods has gained currency in recent years as a method to deliver place-based action capable of advancing the Sustainable Development Goals. Co-production represents a promising approach that addresses criticisms leveraged against community-oriented and participatory planning approaches. In this paper, we investigate the potential of co-production methods to advance different dimensions of urban equality in urban environments, including progress towards equitable distribution of resources and services, the reciprocal recognition of communities and institutions, the access to political and decision-making processes, and the recognition of multiple forms of knowledge and perspectives. First, the paper reviews what is unique about co-production as a method in urban development planning. Co-production is distinct because it focuses on delivering a shared outcome. In doing so, it challenges epistemic injustices. Second, the paper presents a collective assessment of the outcomes of co-production practices in six different cities. The comparative analysis of these experiences shows that multiple co-production practices can help to establish long-term, adaptable partnerships to deliver urban equality. However, such a process requires constant adjustment and trade-offs to achieve equality gains in different domains. For that reason, the transformative impacts of co-production are not always measurable, even when its role in social change is evident