Presentation by
Huairou Commission and GROOTS Kenya
AFRICITIES-DAKAR
5th December 2012
INTRODUCTIO N
Huairou Commission and GROOTS KENYA invests on
ensuring that grassroots women have the
opportunity to speak on their own behalves in
issues that concern:
• Capacity development
• Peer learning and exchange
• Participation in processes that make decision that
affect them and their communities
• Modeling and scaling up grassroots innovation
Grassroots women participation in
Slum Upgrading
This presentation will focus on the experiences of
women living in slums in Nairobi and their experiences in
Slum Upgrading.
It affirms that grassroots women are :
• not only policy takers but importantly, policy makers too
• not only decision takers but above all, make important
decisions
• not only pursue access to housing and related services, but
also are aware that governance and accountability related to
development projects is core.
• Not only pursue to access the property, but understands their
involvement in long term administration and management is
necessarily.
Housing Cooperators Meeting in
Kibera Informal Settlement (Nairobi)
Kibera and Mathare 4A Accomplished Slum
Upgrading Housing Project in Kenya
According to beneficiaries and residents in the
two slums
• Social workers were engaged to facilitate community
participation
• Communities were organized in clusters to allow
effective participation
• The upgraded houses are of better quality,
environment is clean and there is access to basic
services like water, electricity, roads and sanitation
Kibera and Mathare 4A Accomplished Slum
Upgrading housing Project - Experiences
• Involvement of women was minimal during the
upgrading process
• The residents feels that there was no strategy since
Involvement of women was minimal during the
upgrading process
• engage women effectively
• In kibera, families who did not even know each other
were allocated to live together in one houses –
utilizing the common kitchen is a challenge
• Women have reported cases of rape in the new
housing scheme
Kibera and Mathare 4A Accomplished Slum
Upgrading housing Project - Experiences
• Vigilant groups of young men especially in Mathare
have taken the role of managing the project
• The residents of the Mathare 4A suffered massively
during the 2007 post elections violence
• Politicians influenced the residents against paying for
services including rents in pretext that it’s a
government project
• In both Projects, the houses and a good part of the
infrastructure is eroded or collapsed
Recommendation – women must be involved
in all decision making in upgrading processes
• Women are builders and uptake low cost
technology with enthusiasm – See the case of
Kambi Moto by Pamoja Trust in Mathare
Slums
• As women are major users of basic services,
they provide significant input in designs
• Owing to their social skills in organizing,
grassroots women are an essential resources
in various ways including house allocation
modalities
Recommendation – women must be involved
in all decision making in upgrading processes
• Women organizing skills is also essential to
manage long-term insecurity issues
• Most women living in slums will provide
insights on location of essential
complementary infrastructures like hospitals,
Schools and markets
• Women rights to equal access and control of
land and housing is non-negotiable and their
participation throughout the upgrading
project cycle is necessarily
THANK YOU