Slum Upgrading is Climate Action
Slum Dwellers International (SDI) is a global network anchored by a transnational poor people’s movement working to create inclusive, resilient cities where slum dwellers’ lives are substantively improved. Committed to social justice, we champion community-led, citywide slum upgrading to expand access to essential services, secure tenure, and economic opportunities for the world’s one billion slum dwellers. By improving the lives of those who make up the urban majority in the Global South, we enhance citywide development outcomes and contribute to global efforts to protect people and planet.
Despite limited resources, urban poor communities are imagining their own futures through precedent setting pilots.
We live with the problems. We must lead the solutions!
While housing is our first line of defense against climate change, it is more than just about four walls.
Housing inequalities and injustices are driving climate vulnerability.
Basic rights, such as land tenure security, have not been widely secured.
Forced evictions, driven by the commodification of land, are accelerating under climate pressure, further limiting adaptive capacity. Being organised increases our bargaining power to secure tenure and drive incremental, community-led slum upgrading. Organised communities are advocating for secure tenure to unlock resilience capacity.
We don’t wait. We act.
We feel climate risks first.
We adapt to climate changes.
We are the first to respond to climate shocks.
We map our communities. We count our homes.
We document our needs.
We collect our own data, we take control of our future!
Gungano Urban Poor Fund: Community Led Urban Finance
Breaking new ground with the Gungano Urban Poor Fund.
In Zimbabwe, the Gungano Urban Poor Fund is redefining how cities grow, from the bottom up. Built on daily savings from countless low-income households, mostly women, this grassroots fund helps communities finance what governments and banks won’t: land, housing, toilets, markets, solar energy, and dignity.
This short film follows the lives of the people behind the numbers — informal workers, market traders, mothers, and youth — who are building homes and futures one dollar at a time. Through stories of innovation, resilience, and co-production with local authorities, we see what happens when finance is local, flexible, and led by the people who need it most.
This is more than a development story, it is a blueprint for scaling justice, inclusion and climate resilience in cities across the Global South.
A film by Know Your City TV, in partnership with Slum Dwellers International, Dialogue on Shelter and the Zimbabwe Homeless People’s Federation.
Cities4Children
Honouring the Voices of Children and Youth at World Urban Forum 12.
Learning Monitoring & Evaluation workshop
Youth from informal settlements come together to make media, make change!
Dignified Urban Life Youth Exchange 2023
The Covid-19 pandemic has taught us lessons in resilience and community-led adaptation. We commissioned teams of #SDIYouth five African cities to hold an intergenerational dialogue with their mother federation in their communities around these lessons. Based on this discussion of our teams produced a pop song that carries the message that organized communities are more resilient communities.
A Tribute to Jockin Arputham, late president of SDI
Exploring models for delivering universal basic solar energy services in informal settlements
Know Your City Campaign Launches in Dakar
Indian SDI Alliance Solar Energy Installation in Mumbai
One of the greatest challenges of this century is access to clean and affordable energy for the 1 billion+ slum dwellers around the world. In response to this, SDI and the Indian SDI Alliance have been experimenting with scalable alternative energy sources. This video shows how, in Mumbai, the Indian SDI Alliance has begun to install solar energy systems on high-density government housing developments in order to subsidize the cost of lighting, elevators, water pumps, and more, freeing up the community’s resources for other critical expenses.
“What you see is qualified leadership.”
Monica Geingos, The First Lady of Namibia and patron of the Shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia, speaks at March 2018 the handing-over of 136 houses in Swakopmund and Walvis Bay.
