Intra-settlement politics and conflict in enumerations

While traditionally an instrument of government power, enumerations are increasingly conducted by urban communities themselves to gain recognition and negotiate with city authorities. Most literature focuses on the productive relationship between communities and government enabled by enumerations, and how enumerations transfer power to communities. However, in highly unequal informal settlements, it is very important to understand who within the community gets such power. Through the ethnographic account of an enumeration promoted by a slum-upgrading project in Nairobi, this paper makes a contribution to the analysis of power in enumerations. The article reveals the strategies of local elites to shape the exercise in their favour. Often, local elites present themselves as representatives of the wider community and draw on this power and legitimacy to advance their specific claims. Therefore, rather than looking only at the relationship between state and community, analyses of enumeration processes should also pay more attention to the complexity of internal communities’ dynamics and conflicting interests, and how these play out in the relationships with the state

Transforming Institutions: The Politics of Debt Relief in Kenya

Through a multi-sited and multi-level exploration of the processes around debt relief in Kenya, and of the complex network of actors involved and their interests, the political nature of debt relief is investigated and assessed. An actor-network approach is used to investigate the political processes taking place between civil society and the state, and how global policies have been translated into the local arena and played out in the local politics. This paper will illustrate how both the state and civil society are fragmented arenas of contrasting interests and separation among the two is only analytical while in reality the borders are blurred. This paper argues that debt relief is the result of a complex political process that, once in place, can create new political processes, thus having implications beyond the economic sphere. Debt relief mobilises a high number of actors pursuing different agendas, creating new possibilities and new relationships with a transformative potential that challenges power relations and changes institutions

Collective or individual titles? Conflict over tenure regularisation in a Kenyan informal settlement

Providing formal titles to residents in densely populated informal settlements without fuelling conflict or encouraging gentrification presents several challenges. It has been argued that, in some contexts, forms of collective tenure such as a Community Land Trust may help to overcome some of these problems. This paper analyses one attempt to legalise informal tenure arrangements, minimise relocation and prevent gentrification by introducing collective titling in an informal settlement in Nairobi. The paper demonstrates how attempts to build consensus on the most appropriate tenure system were deeply embedded in local conflicts between existing structure-owners (owners of shacks/buildings on land which is not theirs) and tenants. The state was unable to carry out the land reforms it had proposed – to protect the land user rights of all residents – because they implied a redistribution that was resisted by local elite actors. This paper argues that tenure reforms are shaped by context-specific power relations; in this case the process was characterised by the implementers’ need to maintain fragile agreements with local elites in order to avoid conflict. Tenure reforms are based on different ideas of whose rights should be recognised and competing claims are both negotiated through and shaped by the implementation process. Tenure reforms for contested land in informal settlements not only require technical mechanisms to prevent gentrification and displacement, but must reflect a serious consideration of local power relations and the capacity of the state to deal with conflicts arising from redistributive plans

An analysis of well-being in urban Nigeria

Improving the well-being of Nigerians is the aim of Nigeria Vision 20:2020, the key development policy document in Nigeria. However, as well-being is an emerging and contested concept, this article explores how the well-being of urban citizens is understood in Nigeria, and identifies key trends affecting urban well-being as expressed by a selection of strategic elite stakeholders in Nigerian society. These included senior civil servants and politicians, and various senior members of civil society groups and academia. The analysis also reveals characteristics underpinning policies for urban well-being

20 years of "sweat and blood": lessons from the constitutional review process in Kenya

The process of drafting a new Constitution represents somewhat a landmark in the Kenyan political context. The new Constitution, that should substitute the old one, deriving from colonialism and autocracy, has been at the centre of the political debate of Kenya since the ’90s. Its design process has been sparked some of the most important political innovations in Kenyan politics of the last 10 years. The Policy Brief will analyze the steps of the constitutional reform and will try to draw meaningful policy lessons concerning the implication of the reform in enabling institutions to deliver growth and development. Moreover, this analysis is useful in so far as it explores the experience of an emerging democracy undertaking a popular constitutional reform process, a situation that other countries may face in the coming years

Participation of people living in poverty in policy- making: Lessons for implementation of post-2015

Throughout the last 12 months, the global community has been discussing what should replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) when they come to an end in 2015. While a range of governments have participated in these debates, with input from stakeholders across civil society and the business community, the ultimate success or failure of the new development agenda will depend in large part on its implementation in different countries. While the MDGs have often been praised as a global success for galvanising international attention around issues crucial to eradicating poverty , the reality is that many policy-makers at national or local level are unaware of decisions taken at the global level. Global policy debates and their outcomes are often disconnected from national development plans and poverty reduction strategies. Overcoming this ‘implementation gap’ poses a significant challenge. An inclusive and participatory global dialogue has helped shape the content of proposals for the post-2015 process so far but as of yet, there has been too little discussion about how these proposals will be implemented at a national level. The debate needs to deepen at national level to involve local and national politicians, policy-makers and government officials. This report proposes a number of recommendations for how the post-2015 agreement could inform national development priorities and policy-making in a participatory way, responding to the priorities of people experiencing poverty, vulnerability and marginalisation. These recommendations do not focus on what the goals and targets should contain, but the means through which they are implemented. This will help global goals and targets to be relevant and responsive to complex national realities and contexts; assist with effective interventions and resource allocation; and promote a post-2015 agenda that responds to the aspirations and priorities of people living in poverty. This report analyses the lessons learnt from 10 experiences of CAFOD partners, and is based on 10 participatory policy-making processes involving people living in poverty. The report aims to inform the design, implementation, monitoring and accountability of the post-2015 process through inclusive and effective participatory spaces and processes for women and men living in poverty

Unequal power relations in the governance of the World Social Forum process: an analysis of the practices of the Nairobi Forum

Through an ethnographic account of the decision-making process of the World Social Forum (WSF) and its governance structures, specifically the International Council and the Local Organising Committee, the micro-politics of the alter-globalisation movements will be explored. Looking at the debates around whether the WSF should be an open arena or become an actor, the paradox of the “tyranny of structurelessness” will be presented. More accurately, this paper exposes the asymmetry between the values and the practices of the WSF process by analysing the role of “social movement entrepreneurs” and the complex constellations of conflicting interests. Theoretical claims of horizontal consensual and open decision-making are used to eliminate any democratic procedure, paving the way to highly unequal oppressive power relations that dominate the deliberative space of encounter between different movements. The paper questions the capacity of the World Social Forum to articulate alternatives to neoliberalism, and to present different and more democratic ways of doing politics. After having unmasked the oppressive power structures within a social movement claiming to fight against them, this paper advocates for moving beyond the WSF discursive dichotomy of “neoliberal/anti-neoliberal”, and calls for a Gramscian resistance to the hegemonic neoliberal discourse played through direct transformative engagement with the institutions of our society. This paper offers a detailed view inside the black box of decision-making processes within social movements contributing to the academic as well as the activists’ debate on their governance. This analysis is particularly relevant in the light of the global occupy and anti-austerity movements, which have been making similar claims to those of the WSF of being a leaderless initiative, without any political affiliation, and using consensual methodologies, thus facing some of the same shortcomings and challenges