Brown Bag Lunch: Community Responsive Adaptation – views from the field on an innovative 4 year study on urban flooding in Nairobi, Kenya

Register for a vegetarian lunch-wrap, please state any cost-restriction, to watercentre@kth.se .

Between 2017 and 2020, a team of researchers from Kenya (Technical University of Kenya), Sweden (Stockholm University, Lund, and KTH) and the USA (Columbia University) is partnering with an NGO, Kounkuey Design Initiative, and with residents and local government, to co-design, build and evaluate a series of "community-responsive adaptation" projects in Kibera, Nairobi’s largest informal settlement. The projects integrate social and economic resilience opportunities alongside environmental remediation, flood compensation, and improved sanitation. We are evaluating the projects using both quantitative data from a multi-wave household survey and rich qualitative data on implementation processes and participant experiences.  

The final quantitative dataset will comprise 6 waves of household surveys, in 250 households at each of the intervention sites and matched control sites, totaling 1500 households. To date we have completed interventions at one site and started a second; 3 waves of surveys at the first pair of intervention and matched control sites; and 2 waves of surveys at the second pair of sites. Our study addresses an important evidence gap in urban planning policy and practice by providing systematic evidence on the impact and costs of a program of community-responsive (or citizen-city) adaptation measures to flooding in the informal context. 

This presentation will share some of the findings from the study to date from the perspective of KDI's Research Director in Kenya - Vera Bukachi. The presentation will outline some of the preliminary quantitative findings from the household surveys and preliminary qualitative assessments of the first two completed projects, integrating the perspectives of community participants. The qualitative results describe the experiences of residents going through the participatory design process and the short-term impacts of the completed projects, from the perspective of residents and local government. The presentation will also touch on the challenges and learning from implementing detailed household surveys over time in a dynamic and changing urban environment. 

We hope that the results of the study will inform policy locally in Kibera, and other informal settlements across Kenya, with relevance to other rapidly urbanizing cities worldwide.

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