Cooling cities from the ground up

Extreme heat is one of the most under-recognised climate risks facing cities today, with major gaps in both data and policy.

In Mombasa, Kenya, heat-related mortality is projected to rise significantly, with a fivefold increase by 2080. People living in informal settlements residents face the greatest exposure, particularly women and informal workers, yet the city has no formal heat action plan.

These risks are compounded by a wider financing gap. Globally, just 3.5% of major climate finance over the past two decades has reached low-income urban populations. This means the systems that should be protecting the communities most at risk to climate impacts simply aren't built to reach them.

As a result, households are often left to absorb the costs of adaptation, reinforcing existing inequalities.

What is IIED doing?

Supported by ClimateWorks Foundation, IIED is working with Cities Alliance, Slum/Shack Dwellers International Kenya (SDI Kenya) and Muungano wa Wanavijiji Federation to develop a new approach to urban heat resilience in Mombasa.

The project will connect community-generated evidence about the impacts of extreme heat with locally appropriate solutions, city-level planning and access to investment. Central to the approach is ensuring that residents of informal settlements are directly involved in generating evidence, identifying priorities and shaping responses. The project partners will:

• Build a stronger local evidence base on extreme heat, using temperature sensors and household surveys to produce more detailed information about how heat affects residents and different parts of the city
• Connect community evidence with city planning, so that locally generated data and residents’ priorities inform the development of heat action plans feed into the design of local solutions
• Co-design and test practical cooling solutions with communities, focusing on low-cost interventions that can be documented and replicated, and
• Strengthen community-managed Urban Poor Funds, helping to connect local adaptation priorities with wider climate finance flows.

The project aims to demonstrate how cities can move from reacting to extreme heat to planning for it proactively – while putting the people most affected at the centre of both the evidence base and the response.

This work builds on existing work on climate action for equitable cities aimed at addressing the intersecting challenges of rapid, often informal urbanisation, climate change and social inequality.

It seeks to work with partners to enhance recognition of differential climate impacts, trial scalable climate-resilient and low-carbon interventions, and demonstrate governance and resourcing pathways to support equitable climate action in low-income, informal urban communities.