Policy and planning

Pages tagged with

Informal settlements (slums)

Projects, publications, news, events, insights and articles about work on the governance, policy and action needed to address the growing challenges faced by 1.1 billion people living in informal settlements.

In-depth reading

Urbanisation and rural-urban linkages

A programme of work on urbanisation and the links between rural and urban areas

188 entries

View over the Mukuru informal settlement in Nairobi, showing corrugated roofs

Shelter provision in East African cities: understanding transformative politics for inclusive cities

Archived Project

Esther Atieno prepares dinner for her family in Kisumu City, Kenya, using a jiko kisasa (firewood stove). Without city-wide data on electricity and fuel use available from utilities and companies, cities can survey a set of households on their energy use and extrapolate the results (Photo: Peter Kapuscinski/World Bank)

Global to local: supporting cities to meet the New Urban Agenda

Insight, 23 March 2018

The UN estimates that a million Somalis were displaced during 2017. Many move to informal settlements on the fringes of the capital, Mogadishu (Photo: AMISOM Public Information via Wikimedia Commons)

Providing shelter in East African cities: what works?

Insight, 22 February 2018

A 'peace wall' in Mukuru, one of the largest slums in Nairobi, Kenya (Photo: Urban ARK)

A special approach to slum upgrading: the Special Planning Area in Mukuru, Nairobi

Insight, 18 October 2017

Informal settlements like this one in Jakarta often lack clean water supplies, waste collection or decent housing. There is an urgent need for investment in basic services and infrastructure (Photo: Wikipedia Commons)

Are impact investors missing a trick by overlooking local communities?

Insight, 07 September 2017

Community leaders in the Shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia planning with staff from the Namibia Housing Action Group (Photo: Diana Mitlin/IIED)

Financial inequalities; defining our age

Insight, 22 August 2017

Informal settlements lining the railway tracks in Mumbai (Photo: gloogun, Creative Commons via Flickr)

Ward diaries: crucial evidence for planning in Mumbai's slums

Insight, 28 November 2016

Surveying residents in low-income housing in Vijinapura, India. Receiving accurate data about slums can help local authorities plan solutions (Photo: cstepin, Creative Commons via Flickr)

Co-producing urban innovation from the bottom up

News, 24 October 2016

Dharavi slum, Mumbai, India (Photo: Akshay Mahajan, Creative Commons via Flickr)

Data that supports local development

Insight, 22 September 2016

The journey to fetch fresh water for a resident of the Dharavi slum in Mumbai, India (Photo: Meena Kadri, Creative Commons via Flickr)

World Water Week 2016: key resources

Article, 24 August 2016

An image showing local people building a house in a slum in Bolivia, where Shack Dwellers International has worked with authorities. Many Latin American cities are leading the way in working with community organisations (Photo: Shack Dwellers International, Creative Commons, via Flickr)

Is community-based adaptation suited to cities?

Insight, 26 April 2016

Women in Dhaka, Bangladesh queue to get access to a raised tube well; local indicators about access to water are essential for the SDGs (Photo: Development Planning Unit, UCL, Creative Commons, via Flickr)

Where are the local indicators for the SDGs?

Insight, 09 March 2016

It is estimated that Mumbai has the largest slum population of any city in the world, with more than half of its 12 million people living in informal settlements (Photo: Jon Baldock, Creative Commons via Flickr)

Why we do 'slum' profiles

Insight, 22 February 2016

Food vendors give people living in Nairobi's informal settlements easy access to fresh food (Photo: Grace Githiri)

Nourishing livelihoods: the food vendors sustaining Nairobi's slums

Insight, 15 January 2016

A living room on the street, in Karachi, Pakistan (Photo: Fareena Chanda)

A picture of urban living

Insight, 30 October 2015

This car park area below the alun-alun of the Masjid Raya Mosque in Bandung is a 'green zone', where street vending is permitted by the Bandung authorities. But business is slow and the environment is poor (Photo: Kemal Jufri/Panos Pictures)

Building fairer food futures

Insight, 16 October 2015

Community participation, with a strong focus on women, such as this women's savings group in Southern India, is vital to develop slum-friendly cities (Photo: Maria Andersson/Individuell Människohjälp, Creative Commons, via Flickr)

What might slum dwellers want from the SDGs?

Insight, 05 October 2015

Residents of Tsandi, a settlement in the Omusati region of northern Namibia, look at the community-led sanitation installation for houses being built by the Shack Dwellers' Federation of Namibia (Photo: Diana Mitlin/IIED)

Namibia's women lead the way in housing development

Insight, 10 September 2015

A toilet block in Mumbai, India, where people living in different informal settlements experience distinct forms of inadequate sanitation (Photo: Renu Desai)

Sanitation in informal settlements: a networked problem

Insight, 26 August 2015

A 'living room on the street' in Paposh Nagar, Karachi (Photo: Fareena Chanda)

Alternative routes to urban density

Archived Project

About the architecture of aid

About the architecture of aid

Article, 08 July 2015

In urban and rural communities across the world, low income families lack the shelter and services they need to live with dignity, security, health and prosperity (Photo: IIED)

References: how can decentralised finance drive sustainable development?

Article, 08 July 2015

A six-minute film recorded in the Mathare settlement, Narobi, in late April 2015 shows some of the main challenges faced by food vendors living and working inside low-income informal settlements (Image: Paolo Cravero/IIED)

Informal food vendors: urban food security's invisible experts

Insight, 24 June 2015

Surveying residents in the settlement of Tank Mohalla, Bangalore, India (Photo: CSTEPIN, Creative Commons, via Flickr)

Local democracy as a substitute for data (and rather a good substitute too)

Insight, 16 January 2015

Related tags

Urban Matters blog

Slum Dwellers International (SDI)

Urban development