Heat impacts on informal settlements: participatory heat data collection in Kenya, Tanzania and Zimbabwe
There is a growing crisis of overheating cities, with people in urban informal settlements most at risk.
Rising temperatures create life-threatening conditions for more than one billion people living in unplanned communities across the global South. While the overall threats to cities are recognised, there are major gaps in data coverage that obscure the risks of extreme and prolonged exposure to heat and humidity in informal dwellings.
This issue paper reports the findings of pilot participatory heat data collection in Kenya, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. It reveals indoor temperatures up to 9°C hotter than outside, and the impacts extreme conditions have on the health and wellbeing of people in informal settlements.
The paper underlines the urgent need for inclusive data collection and action planning to protect vulnerable urban residents.
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Available at https://www.iied.org/22697iied
