Better Cities II: Transforming informal settlements on a warming planet
The second edition of IIED’s Better Cities series explores the critical shifts in governance, policy and action needed to address the growing challenges faced by 1.1 billion people living in informal settlements, exacerbated by climate change.
Flooding at Otumara Settlement, Lagos, Nigeria 2023 (Photo: Camila Cociña, IIED)
Building better cities is fundamentally about the 1.1 billion people currently living in informal settlements.
People living in informal settlements are often the first to suffer the consequences of both local and global crises and the last to recover, be it flooding after heaving rains, supply chain breakdowns during a pandemic or war, the loss of home and property due to sea level rises, or negative health outcomes due to extreme heat and insecure access to clean water and sanitation.
Over the next 30 years, the United Nations estimates that the number of people living in informal settlements will nearly triple, with an additional two billion people (PDF) living in ‘slum’-like conditions.
Most of this growth will occur in countries currently seeing rapid rates of urbanisation. Recognising informal settlements as a predominant form of urbanisation will help cities work with informality rather than fighting against it.
What does transforming informal settlements mean in the context of a warming planet? What are the key shifts in governance, policy, research and action required to transform informal settlements in ways that deal with the twin crises of inequality and climate change?
This second edition of IIED’s Better Cities series aims to strengthen and contribute to global commitments to accelerate real change for those who need it now.
Through reflections around what 'transformation’ means for settlements from four different perspectives (migration and displacement, housing justice, climate justice, and resilience), it provides recommendations for governments, research, civil society and international donors.
Transforming informal settlements: a long trajectory of collective struggles
Transforming informal settlements is a longstanding agenda that has been driven by informal settlement residents, grassroots groups, civil society organisations and their networks.
Members of Slum Dwellers International, the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights, the Habitat International Coalition, among others, have sought to advance inclusive urbanisation through self-organised practices and targeted demands addressing power in the local, national and international spheres.
However, policies and interventions have not resulted in positive transformation, and persecution of residents of informal settlements persists.
In recent decades there have been various initiatives at the global level to address the challenges faced by informal settlements. In 1999, Cities Alliance launched the Cities Without Slums Action Plan, and in 2003 the UN published its report, The Challenge of Slums. These were pivotal in the discussion, policy and programming around informal settlements.
While pivotal steps, the political and material challenges around informal settlements have changed dramatically since their publication. These frameworks were strongly criticised for understanding slums as ‘problems’ and reinforcing narratives that increase the risk of eviction and dispossession.
More recently, the severe effects of climate change have placed informal settlements at the centre of calls for climate justice and increased investment for climate resilient development.
In this context, UN-Habitat approved in 2023 a resolution presented by South Africa on ‘Accelerating the transformation of informal settlements and slums’ (PDF). Through the implementation of its Global Action Plan (PDF), this resolution opens the opportunity to establish a pathway for member states that meaningfully responds to urban challenges and values the co-produced knowledge and practices of organised residents of informal settlements.
This resolution has been approved in a context of renewed attention to this agenda by actors at all levels and from a variety of sectors and agendas. IIED’s research on displacement, for example, has emphasised the importance of looking at informal settlements when addressing the challenges of urban refugees, considering that the majority of displaced people choose to live in urban areas, and that informal settlements are often the only places they can afford housing.
Furthermore, IIED has documented the importance of climate action in informal settlements to build resilience and respond to structural inequalities. Likewise, our research has shown that improving the housing conditions in informal settlements has direct and quantifiable implications for life expectancy, education outcomes, income, general wellbeing and human development.
Setting up a collective action–research agenda for transformation
Each contribution in this series is based on ongoing work led by IIED and partners. Each of them speaks to a thematic priority and offers concrete entry points and policy-relevant actions that contribute to transforming informal settlements in the context of a warming planet.
The sections seek to draw on the opportunities opened by the resolution adopted by UN-Habitat in 2023, as well as contributing to the longstanding efforts of grassroots groups in informal settlements:
- Inclusive and targeted action for the urban displaced discusses the challenges faced by migrants who find sanctuary in informal settlements, particularly considering their capacity to deal with climate-related challenges.
It emphasises that to respond to displaced people’s additional needs and difficulties, it is necessary to build inclusion within existing governance mechanisms, highlighting the importance of strengthening participatory action among urban displaced populations; addressing data gaps on urban displacement; and promoting place-based approaches that are inclusive of displaced populations alongside local communities of urban poor.
- Building housing justice: construction materials in informal settlements discusses the role that securing access to resilient and affordable building materials in informal settlements plays in advancing housing justice. It proposes that mobilising a housing justice lens implies promoting policies and practices that are anti-discriminatory and radically democratic, that provide an infrastructure for better cities, and that expand housing futures.
In turn, this implies considering issues of livelihoods, tenure security, climate justice and governance in the value chain of building materials in informal settlements.
- Climate action for equitable cities: working with informal communities for low- carbon, resilient futures calls for a re-orientation of interventions in informal settlements that spans mitigation and adaptation efforts.
To advance this agenda, we must strengthen the evidence and recognition of the disproportionate impacts of climate change on low-income, informal urban communities; enable decision-makers to govern and resource equitable climate action effectively in such settlements; and document and support interventions that connect climate action (adaptation and decarbonisation) with efforts to tackle urban poverty.
- Climate resilience and informal settlements: the urgent need to focus on how power and knowledge interact calls for embracing principles of knowledge co-production to inform resilience decision-making, collective action and policy agendas.
Acknowledging that large numbers of vulnerable urban dwellers living in informal settlements are exposed to significant climate risks, it proposes a systematic and structured framework for co-producing resilience solutions around two sets of tools: a context analysis framework and an intervention framework to tactically guide organisations leading co-production interventions.
Sao Paulo, Brazil (Photo: Camila Cociña, IIED)
Partnerships for knowledge production and transformation
Beyond their thematic entry points, the contributions to this series have a common emphasis on partnerships and collaborative forms of knowledge production. This draws on the long history of the work of IIED’s Human Settlements research group, built on direct collaboration with grassroots movements and their networks.
Interventions in informal settlements will only be truly transformative if they put at the centre the agency, priorities, needs and aspirations of their diverse residents. This requires challenging the ways in which knowledge, data, claims and agendas are produced and mobilised, committing to meaningful forms of collaboration and joint work.
The agendas and priorities presented in the different sections of this series aim to advance in that direction, embracing grounded forms of knowledge co-production and centring the priorities of those at the intersection of urban challenges.
Authors
Camila Cociña is a researcher in IIED's housing justice team. She has worked on collaborative projects with researchers, communities, international agencies and public organisations in Latin America, West Africa and Southeast Asia, seeking fairer ways of mobilising diverse knowledge from a social justice perspective.
Tucker Landesman is a senior researcher in IIED's climate action for equitable cities team. He is a geographer with a multidisciplinary background and 10 years of experience researching and implementing projects on urban development, climate change and public health in Latin America as well as sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. He focuses on innovative, inclusive urban policy and governance for more equitable and sustainable cities.
