Kampala Communities Collect Data to Break City’s Implementation Impasse
Photo: On the left, the site of an eviction in Kisenyi, Kampala, contrasted with congested living conditions in Kisenyi on the right.
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By Skye Dobson, ACTogether Uganda
Images of women and children desperately splashing water on their faces to alleviate the sting of teargas in Kasokoso slum (just outside of Kampala) have been splashed on the front pages of Uganda’s newspapers this month. News broadcasts have been dominated by footage of riot police loading young men into pickups, residents setting up roadblocks of fire, and a Mayor being beaten and eventually having his car set alight by infuriated slum residents. The cause of this chaos? Land disputes: disputes that evoke a passionate and intricate set of political and cultural sentiments in Uganda and have resulted in a seemingly intractable impasse – crippling planning and development initiatives.
In Kampala, Uganda’s capital, land tenure arrangements are among the most complex in the world: intensified by one of the highest rates of urbanization (approaching 6%). Attempts by the Ugandan government to administer land have typically relied upon formal cadastral systems, which have been powerless to disentangle the webs of layered and competing land tenure arrangements. Proposed developments all over the city have stalled, completely crippled by seemingly unresolvable land wrangles.
As Kampala city moves into a new era of administration – as a result of the establishment of the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) in 2010 (which established the Authority to administer Kampala on behalf of the central government, replacing the former Kampala City Council), it remains to be seen how it will address the present impasse. Officials in the KCCA express unwavering commitment to developing the city in accordance with the recently formulated Kampala Master Plan, but – as is common with such city plans – implementation strategies are about as clear as the vision of those doused in teargas.
There is an undeniable need to generate some order in Kampala, where planning dysfunction threatens the livelihoods of the rich and poor alike. And, while the author works for an organization supporting the rights of slum dwellers, this is not a paper that will simply argue the right of slum dwellers to stay and leave it at that. Such arguments cannot and should not be enough to satisfy either the government or the slum dwellers. Posturing on the part of rights groups, planners, and politicians is doing nothing to alleviate the fundamental challenges that perpetuate the acute poverty faced by the majority of Kampala’s residents. Instead, Kampala needs creative implementation strategies based on up-to-date data, authentic and informed citizen participation, and negotiation that accepts compromise will be needed from all sides.
The National Slum Dwellers Federation of Uganda (NSDFU) has been at the center of a collection of actors – including Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI), Cities Alliance, and UN-Habitat’s Global Land Tools Network (GTLN) – trying to forge such strategies in Uganda. The efforts are only just beginning, but perhaps hold promise for an approach to planning that has a greater grounding in reality and fosters a much higher likelihood of implementation. As a member of the SDI network, slum dwellers in the NSDFU utilize tools such as profiling, enumeration, and mapping to organize their communities and catalyze informed negotiation and partnership with government toward inclusive urban development. Here I focus on three potential components of the strategy being developed.
The first relates to the information required to plan. There has been no census in Uganda since 2002. The budget has not allowed it to take place for the past two years as scheduled. Thus, development plans are formulated on the basis of data that is over 11 years old. Any resident of Kampala can tell you that their city is not the same city it was a decade ago. The prevalence of multiple and overlapping land claims – particularly as it relates to Kibanda occupants (those who have rights to the land, in addition to those of the land owner) mean the majority of land tenure claims are not documented. As a result, many claims to tenure are not visible until threatened residents express these claims through protest – often violently.
The first component of the strategy, therefore, acknowledges that up-to-date data on the city and the tenure claims of its residents is required to understand actual on-the-ground realities. NSDFU has conducted citywide enumerations in 5 municipalities in partnership with the Ministry of Lands, Housing, and Urban Development (MoLHUD) with support from Cities Alliance’s Land, Sites, and Citizenship program. It has also piloted the Social Tenure Domain Model tool developed by the Global Land Tools Network (GTLN) and subsequently incorporated the tool into the profiling and enumeration work being rolled out in 14 municipalities. These experiences have informed the Kampala profiling process completed in November 2013, which gathered essential planning data on all 58-slum settlements in the capital.
Currently, the NSDFU and its support NGO, ACTogether, are preparing the preliminary findings from the citywide slum profiling of Kampala conducted by the NSDFU in November 2013. The profiling covered 58 slum settlements covering each of the five divisions of Kampala. Information is gathered through focus group meetings with local leaders and the community in each slum settlement. During these meetings a detailed questionnaire is administered by slum dwellers in the NSDFU. The initial findings are unprecedented, suggesting extreme levels of inequality and exclusion across Kampala. Nearly 70% of slum settlements in the city of Kampala have faced eviction threat, with 1.5 million slum residents currently facing high threat of eviction. More detail on these findings is presented below and includes statistics on land ownership and threat of eviction.
Initial findings suggest that 55% of land in slums is privately owned (Division breakdown: Rubaga 33%, Nakawa 80%, Makindye 30%, Kampala Central 66%, Kawempe 64%); 21% is held under customary ownership (Division breakdown: Rubaga 33%, Nakawa 0%, Makindye 9%, Kampala Central 28%, Kawempe 34%); 12% is owned by the Kingdom (Division breakdown: Rubaga 26%, Nakawa 3%, Makindye 31%, Kampala Central 0%, Kawempe 1%); and 7% is owned by the municipality (Division breakdown: Rubaga 8%, Nakawa 10%, Makindye 10%, Kampala Central 6%, Kawempe less than 1%).
Sixty-nine percent of slum settlements have faced eviction threats, according to residents (Division breakdown: Rubaga 46%, Nakawa 60%, Makindye 88%, Kampala Central 57%, Kawempe 69%). Of the 58 slum settlements surveyed, 52% presently face the threat of eviction (Division breakdown: Rubaga 15%, Nakawa 60%, Makindye 88%, Kampala Central 29%, Kawempe 69%), and 25% of these are report the seriousness of the threat to be high (Division breakdown: Rubaga 15%, Nakawa 60%, Makindye 88%, Kampala Central 29%, Kawempe 69%).
The 32 settlements facing a high eviction threat contain approximately 1.5 million residents (Division breakdown: Rubaga 524,000, Nakawa 148,000, Makindye 633,000, Kampala Central 14,400, Kawempe 171,500).
Once verified, this information will be critical to NSDFU as it seeks to expand implementation of the strategy outlined above in Kampala and for developing a concrete partnership with KCCA – specifically as it relates to the impending formulation of detailed development plans for the capital.
The second component recognizes that this information, this data, should not simply inform a consultant preparing a development plan or the physical planning department of the KCCA. In matters of land, communities need to trust and understand the data available if it is to guide planning. The urban poor have a deep distrust of the information cited by government, which they perceive to have historically been used to crush their rights and demands. Conversely, when communities drive the data gathering process, it sets in motion a discussion with authorities that is based on information the community owns. When they begin the negotiation process, they are able to do more than demand a right to stay: they begin a discussion on strategies for a way forward for upgrading based on concrete information. Politicization and manipulation of urban poor communities by politicians, developers, and even fellow community members has proven an equally significant impediment to urban land management. This component recognizes that equipping a wider base of citizens with actual information can help to counter the tendency for rumor and mistruths to drive the discussion.
The third component, then, relates to negotiation and partnership. It is clear technocrats cannot implement their development plans without community buy-in – unless they plan to use force to evict all those opposed to their plans. The community, likewise, will not benefit from continued haphazard, un-guided developments, which threaten the safety and viability of their settlements. Neither party benefit from the present state of affairs, which is characterized by both sides shouting and neither listening. The technocrats will only – perhaps justifiably – listen to the community if it can answer the question: What is your alternative? The community, meanwhile, will only listen to the technocrats if they agree to listen.
We are already finding that the present requirements for planning approvals will need to be adapted to fit the local land tenure realities if development plans are to have any chance of implementation on the land occupied by the majority of Kampala’s residents. We will keep you updated as the profiling information is analyzed, verified, and utilized by the NSDFU.
VOICES: Women & Sanitation in Nairobi’s Slums
Back in April, we posted an article about women and sanitation in Nairobi’s slums. (“In A Risky Place: Women & Sanitation in Nairobi’s Slums” ). Recently, we revisited the audio recorded interviews with the women of Mukuru kwa Reuben to give you a first-hand account of their experiences and opinions on living conditions in the slums. Below is a short audio recording, followed by a transcription of their words for your convenience.
Doris Museti: “We are here, and then that person after 30, 40, 50 years, they are claiming the land back. Where do we go? We are not trees. You can say that ‘I am selling this land, it is 5 acres, it has 20,000 trees, so the cost of the land it is this much, the cost of the trees it is this much,’ so now, we are the trees…. When the land value has gone up, they want to develop. When the land value was down, they did not want to develop.”
Evelyn Apondi: “It has been very difficult for us, especially when there is a father, brother, big brothers & sisters in the same cube [shack] and there are no toilets. It has been very hard, but when life is like that, sometimes you just bear it because life is a gift from God. So, we have just been surviving.”
Doris Museti: “Getting to the toilet at night is very difficult. They are closed, so you have to get an alternative. So it is very risky. You have to get two or three women to escort you. If you do not come with two or three people, it is a rape case and it will never hear it reported.”
Community-Driven Solutions to Climate Change
Edith Samia of the National Slum Dwellers Federation of Uganda being interviewed at the Local Climate Solutions for Africa (LOCS) conference.
By Mara Forbes, SDI Secretariat
“Climate change is improving on what we have so we can sustain in what we are doing.” Edith Samia, National Slum Dwellers of Federation of Uganda
A delegation from South Africa, Uganda, and Tanzania attended the second biannual Local Climate Solutions for Africa (LOCS) conference from October 30 to November 1 in Dar es Salaam hosted by ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability). Over 440 delegates attended the conference from 25 African countries. Of those, 300 were local government representatives, and of that 170 were heads of local governments (Mayors, Governors and Chairpersons). LOCS is a platform that brings together local government officials, academics, NGOs, private sector, and development partners to learn from each other and understand how local solutions can address the global climate change agenda.
Climate change is most frequently discussed in terms of a larger global issue rather then than a topic of national or local concern. More frequently this view has shifted to try and understand how climate change related issues are experienced at the local level and what resilience and adaptation efforts communities can provide to combat these effects. Those hit hardest by climate change live in countries that have low carbon footprints and have not created many of problems the world is facing. The global south, and particularly the urban poor in these countries, will be affected most from its negative impacts. They live in low-lying areas that suffer from heavy flooding, frequent landslides, droughts, and the like. Climate related risks are adding to the already existing challenges faced by the poor.
How do we take these global issues of climate change that are most often looked at from the large scale and understand how local initiatives can mitigate the effects? SDI took this opportunity to showcase how communities of the urban poor are addressing issues of climate change. Edith Samia of the National Slum Dwellers Federation of Uganda shared how communities in Uganda are creating and implementing innovative methods to mitigate climate change. For example, solid waste is being used to make charcoal briquettes. Briquettes are created by compacting loose biomass into solid blocks that can replace fossil fuels, charcoal, and firewood for cooking and heating. The community is able to collect and reuse the waste that accumulates in settlements and turn it into a form of energy, at the same time using this activity as an incoming generating project for community members. In Bwaise, an area that is prone to flooding from heavy rains, the community built a sanitation unit that also harvests rainwater. This water can be used for the flush toilets or can be sold by the jerry can, also an income-generating project.
For most, these measures are not understood as climate change but rather everyday activities that provide services, generate income, and improve their livelihoods. As Edith noted, “most of the communities don’t know about climate change and need capacity building and sensitization around this.” For communities of the urban poor these everyday practices demonstrate the innovative methods being used to make the urban poor more resilient to climate change impacts.
The LOCS platform opened a space that allowed local governments, academics, and NGO’s to come together to discuss how impacts of climate change can be addressed together. Spaces such as LOCS that aim to bring together various partners need to be cognizant of who is and is not included in these conversations. Communities that are affected most by the impacts of climate change need to be involved in the co-production of mitigation efforts. As Edith stated, “With such a big gathering we need to speak out, they [local government officials] sit too much and think about what to do for us, but we should be able to tell them what we need. Although community was at least given some time to talk, it was not enough. We are part of the problem but also the solution.”
We Count: Settlement Profiling in Nairobi, Kenya
**Cross-posted from the Muungano Support Trust blog**
By Shadrack Mbaka, Muungano Support Trust (Kenya)
According to the English dictionary, the word eviction is the removal of a tenant from possession of premises in which he or she resides or has a property interest done by a landlord either by reentry upon the premises or through a court action. Eviction may be in the form of a physical removal of a person from the premises or a disturbance of the tenant’s enjoyment of the premises by disrupting the services and amenities that contribute to the habitability of the premises, such as by cutting off all utilities services to a settlement.
On the other hand “exclusion” is the act or an instance of excluding or the state of being excluded from state of affairs.
This is literally the sad state of informal settlements across the Slum dwellers International (SDI) global network. On one hand, urban poor communities are legally or illegally in a forceful manner transferred from their areas of shelter and on the other hand locked out on platforms that seek to make decision in addressing issues of informal peoples’ settlements.
Planning for development has remained an important role of subsequent governments that come into power. Unfortunately, government departments entitled with this responsibility have remained myopic to the data needs of informal settlements. For instance the Kenyan 2009 census was conducted in frequencies too sparse to accurately track the rapid growth of slum areas or informal settlements. Edwin Simiyu, a spatial data specialist at Muungano Support Trust, and Emily Wangari, a community profiler from Mathare, are a bit skeptical on the functionality of national census in making slums inclusive.
“In this kind of covenant between the urban poor and their resilience to be part of the city, more often than not data analyzed and made public by the Kenya Bureau of Statistics takes a long time to be computed and presented. By the time it is consumed it’s already outdated and does not serve its purpose”, says Emily.
Joseph Mwendo of Muungano Training Dagorretti community on the New Settlement Profile Tool piloted by SDI this year.
Edwin points out that, “the national census data may be inadequate in the overall national planning owing to the fact that most of this data does not reflect the reality on the ground as far as informal settlements are concerned.”
Over and above, informal settlements have remained excluded in the citywide planning agenda. Lack of adequate data on slums has placed the urban poor between a rock and a hard place. In every dynamic slums have remained an eye-sore to most global governments to planning. The end result is that high costs are used to justify why cities fail to install water, sewerage and drainage facilities or plan land use for slum areas.
Slum Dwellers International has continued to support the Kenyan federation of slum dwellers to fill this data void by generating accurate data touching on informal settlements aimed at influencing urban planning, decision making and placing urban poor communities at the heart of building inclusive and sustainable communities. Over the last one and a half decades, Muungano has continued to conduct settlement profiling and community led enumerations, which have painted the dire state of informal settlements.
Citywide Settlement Profiles
Sustainable development requires continual and integrated consideration and analysis of social, environmental and economic issues, as well as their evaluation and prioritization against current and planned land uses in order for potential development conflicts among those three systems to be minimized. Planning of sustainable development alternatives and making decisions adjusted to sustainable development strategies and policies requires technologies with capabilities of presenting the actual situation of informal settlements.
The year 2013 saw SDI embark on the journey of developing a standardized tool for settlement profiles, questionnaires and data management systems with the aim of making the data faster to access and quicker to map while still lending itself to be easily updated and administered by local slum dwellers. While standardization will mean a certain level of comparability across regions, local federations will still be able to add their own area and context specific questions to ensure that the profiling tool meets its core aim of providing urban poor communities with a tool that can measure and capture the nuances of their own communities’ development needs.
Jockin Arputham, SDI President, takes a tour of Kiandutu Slums, Thika Kenya
In a recent visit of SDI President Jockin Arputhum to the Kenyan SDI affiliate, his take on settlement profiling is that, “Settlement profiles tells the global network, countries, counties and governments how much land the urban poor occupy, what level of services and infrastructure we are accorded and, most importantly, who are we going to engage to ensure our issues are addressed in tandem with the national or global planning agenda”.
Jack Makau of Slum Dwellers International holds a similar view, he says, “ Looking at the global world view, settlement data is becoming an important phenomenon and various technocrats from governments, multi-sectoral organizations and NGOs have come together to look at how best this global data can be compiled to make sense. So far we have been able to look at data touching on over 7,000 cities with informal settlements.”
Profiling of informal settlements draws primarily on repeated consultations and discussions with residents of the settlement by a survey and mapping team that includes federation leaders. This produces a rich set of data about the settlement, its inhabitants and the problems they face. A settlement profile does not produce detailed data on each household but instead provides a detailed overview of the settlement, its inhabitants, brief history, land tenure, quality of housing, extent of provision of infrastructure and services, and the residents’ main problems and priorities.
Partnership Planning and Empowerment
Community planning has been an epitome of community inclusion in the planning and development of both social and physical development. Over the last two years, since the interment of the Kenyan Constitution and devolvement of resources to the grassroots, Muungano wa Wanavijiji has been in the forefront in engaging county governments in 15 counties on community planning, which drives the need of inclusion of the poor in shaping their settlements.
Hon. John Kihagi, Member of the National Assembly for Naivasha Constituency, agrees, “Settlement profiling provides slum dwellers, and we as leaders, an impeccable understanding of the real situation of our informal settlements. My interaction with Muungano informs me that this strategy is a starting point to help create visibility for informal settlements”.
Naivasha MP. John Kihagi compare notes with Jockin Arputham.
Such engagements with government departments and elected leaders have leveraged support and goodwill for communities. In Nakuru County, where Muungano wa Wanavijiji enjoys community support, Nyamarutu settlement hsa received support from the Constituency Development Fund to fast track land regularization of a 7 acre land benefitting 200 households, owing to the community’s enumeration data and strong lobbying and advocacy prowess. The federation is also working on a framework with members of the National Assembly for Naivasha and Nakuru on the need to conduct a joint settlement profile for two wards in Nakuru County.
For the last fifteen years, community-led enumeration has been one of the core rituals of the SDI network, as far as data gathering at household level is concerned. However, the settlement profile tool intends to generate very accurate socio-economic description of informal settlements. Muungano wa Wanavijiji hopes to link these surveys to citywide and county impacts.
Community driven processes are indeed exceptional planning tools to be utilized by urban poor communities and county governments to start including, analyzing and implementing the needs of the urban poor in the global planning agenda.
The continued exclusion of slums and informal settlements from the city’s planning processes, in particular the non-enforcement of existing sanitation standards, results in stark disparities in access to sanitation facilities between slums and informal settlement areas and other residential areas. Many women, for instance in Mathare Valley, have suffered rape and other forms of violence as a result of attempting to walk to a toilet or latrine some distance from their home. Sanitation facilities are inadequate and inaccessible.
Data gathering processes currently underway by Muungano wa Wanavijiji intend to empower communities to negotiate for better services from government. Rashid Mutua, Muungano wa Wanavijiji national chairman explains, “The aim of the federation is to look at every opportunity from community planning, settlement profiling, savings, partnership building and linkages to community urbanism solution models that is set to improve the quality of life for poor people by providing access to clean water, improved sanitation, and waste management services; and supporting secure land tenure and affordable housing”.
The federations’ core is;
- To strengthen the capacity of local communities to engage with county governments and local authorities and other service providers for the sustainable provision of basic services.
- To scale-up the delivery of basic infrastructure services for safe water, sanitation, better and affordable housing, waste removal and access to land tenure rights through collaborative efforts.
- To support income-generation activities, and community-managed savings and credit schemes that enable households to secure funds for the improvement of physical facilities through the Muungano Development Fund.
- Advocate for the adoption of pro-poor policies and practices for slum upgrading and land tenure at local and national levels
Both government and civil society ought to engage in collaborative strategic planning for slum upgrading. Coordinating both government and civil society spending on upgrading is likely to limit duplication of roles and projects, increase accountability and most importantly form a platform for planning and evaluating impacts.
Southern African Regional Hub Meeting
In July 2013 the Southern Africa Regional Hub – consisting of the SDI-affiliated urban poor federations from South Africa, Malawi, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Angola, Namibia, and Botswana – met in Windhoek, Namibia. The meeting allowed affiliates to report on the progress and challenges faced by their various processes and plot future strategies and work plans, bearing in mind regional trends. The meeting was an ideal learning platform for new processes such as Swaziland, Botswana and Angola who are being drawn into the SDI fold. Key issues discussed included sustainability within the scope of diminishing donor funding, challenges of loan repayment (especially around housing), strengthening of the community voice and leadership, shared learning across border towns in different countries, the possibility of a regional hub fund and organizing to prevent evictions.
A key aspect of this hub meeting was that it allowed affiliates to think collectively about challenges which they all face (e.g. diminishing resources) and propose actions at a regional level. This scale of engagement enables strategic cross-pollination of knowledge and planning to address challenges that cut across geographical boundaries. The strength of numbers replicated in a broad-based approach to citywide change can be replicated and achieve added political clout when affiliates strategize collectively to meet challenges.
While Namibia used discussions and field visits to critically address the issue of non-repayment of housing loans (a challenge reflected in most Southern African processes) it was felt that the meeting could also have attempted to develop the Windhoek process’ stalled relationship with government. Being used to the political advantage of the local process is also an important component of regional hub meetings. The full report outlines the key activities, discussions and reflections while providing a list of the agreed upon outputs. Discussions are contextualized within SDI’s overarching goals of strengthening local government and building a strong community process.
Click here to read the full Southern Africa regional hub meeting report.
The Formal Politics of Informal Projects: Part II
**For part I of this story, click here.**
By Fariria Shumba (Peoples Process on Housing and Poverty- Zambia) & Noah Schermbrucker, SDI Secretariat
In September of this year delegations from Zimbabwe, Malawi and Tanzania visited Zambia to discuss progress on the SHARE project. This is the fourth time these countries have met to discuss progress, assess challenges and learn from each other collectively around sanitation. The value of the meeting was found in making it relevant to overcoming the challenges that the Kitwe federation faced, that are described in part 1 of this article.
Representatives from Nkana Water and Sewerage Company (NWSC) as well as the Kitwe City Council attended this meeting and the challenges outlined above were foregrounded. Nkana recognized that the scale of sanitation need outweighed their ability to deliver and that systems needed to be built to promote more sustainable systems of delivery. However they re-iterated the position that they could not move outside the ambits of the project and delivery was slow because of the stipulations required by the African Development Bank.
The meeting facilitated both structured and informal discussions between attending countries and within the Zambian federation. Wherever possible discussions were scheduled to focus on the issues that had stalled the project in Zambia. Through these engagements it was possible for the Zambian process to reflect on the scale and sustainability of their proposed partnership with Nkana. A member of the affiliate Zambian NGO noted, “ …it was like we were set on making the marriage with Nkana work at all costs…”. Could this partnership achieve lasting scale and would it alter the policies and resource flows through which sanitation was provided in the city of Kitwe? In other words would it change the mode of sanitation delivery in Kitwe to more pro-poor?
Additionally the meeting brought Peoples Process on Poverty and Housing (Zambian affiliate) staff and federation together to discuss the issue. It became clear that their had been a lack of engagement and support between Kitwe and Lusaka on both the part PPHP and the federation. Local exchanges from Lusaka were identified as key to supporting the Kitwe federation process.
During the meeting the Kitwe federation leadership and affiliate worked together to chart a new path forwards for the project, an alternative model for sanitation delivery in Kitwe. While recognizing the need to continue pursuing the partnership with Nkana, other precedent options were identified. It was stated “ we should not put all our eggs in one basket.” These included the construction of shared eco-san facilities at the Federation housing site in Kawama (and the general Kawama neighborhood) that will not receive toilets through the Nkana programme, as well as the rehabilitation and management of dilapidated facilities in Chisokone market place. It is hoped that these precedents will demonstrate to the local authorities and Nkana the capacity of the federation to develop sanitation models that are affordable and sustainable. At the time of writing eco-san toilets are under construction in Kawama settlement (see photos below).
Eco-san toilets currently under construction in Kawama, Kitwe
The Kawama community is also building drainage channels
Conclusion:
The status quo of sanitation in Zambia’s informal settlements remains appalling. As we move towards the end of the Millennium Development Goals, particularly Goal 7 that seeks to halve the number of people with inadequate access to safe drinking water and sanitation, it is imperative to interrogate both conventional and unconventional methods of provision and consider how universal coverage can be achieved.
The Zambian case provides crucial learning around “unconventional” community driven approaches, especially in the face of the continued failure of conventional, pro-government methods of sanitation provision. Community systems have the potential to achieve scale and impact through the creation of sanitation revolving loan funds. In contrast, Nkana’s model will not be scalable beyond the 1000 selected beneficiaries as the sanitation options presented will not be affordable. The average income of residents in the selected area is approximately K200 ($37).
The contradictions between the SHARE and the NWSS project describes a “void” in the manner professionals formulate projects. Both initiatives sought to improve sanitation for slum dwellers in the same informal settlements. If all stakeholders had collectively designed the project the deadlock, captured in the antithesis of community loan finance to unsustainable government grants, may have been mediated. Informed stakeholder input, including communities affected, is hence essential in the early development of sanitation projects.
Despite the obstacles faced in expediting the SHARE sanitation precedents there is a commitment amongst the federation to continue lobbying for transformative community sanitation projects across Zambian informal settlements. Currently the federation seeks to publish a joint positional paper with the Kitwe City Council and Nkana Water and Sewerage challenging the reduction of the national budgetary allocation for housing and social amenities from 3.1 % to 1.5%.
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For Part I of this story, click here.
