Community Resilience Pathways by ICFI

June, 2021

COMMUNITY RESILIENCE PATHWAYS:

DO SMART AND FRUGAL PROCESSES EXPLAIN COMMUNITY RESILIENCE DIFFERENCES IN NAIROBI’S INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS DURING COVID-19?

Reporting on the process: part of the project Smart & Frugal Cities

RESEARCH report Nr.1

by Beatrice Hati, CFIA Kenya Hub www.cfia.nl

CFIA RESEARCH REPORT SERIES I SMART AND FRUGAL CITIES I NR.1

COVID-19 COVID19, a novel slowly unfolding disastrous global health crisis has led to a dramatic loss of human life, massive disruption of socio-cultural systems, governance arrangements, economic value chains, service delivery and continues to present catastrophic public health and well-being challenges. For over 1 million of the global population battling for survival in slum/informal settlements, the pandemic has been seen to impose disproportionately damaging effects. In Nairobi, Kenya, vulnerability of people living and working in slum and informal settlements to Covid-19 has become more apparent as many have lost access to (casual) work and delivery of basic necessities has become uncertain as their value chains are broken. Even so, these resource-constrained settlements exhibit different levels of community resilience whose emergence is likely to be conditional and context specific.

ACTION RESEARCH An action research has hereby been instigated by the Centre for Frugal Innovation in Africa and the Institute of Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS), Netherlands as the initiator and Ghetto Foundation, Kenya as the local research partner. This research traces how historical processes result in different levels of community resilience against vulnerabilities related to health, safety and livelihoods in two of Nairobi’s informal settlements; Mathare and Korogocho. Under the premise that settlements differ in how they came into being and evolve over time, the study assesses how historically situated smart and frugal people, technologies and modes of governance explain differences in community resilience in the selected case studies during Covid-19. The exploratory assessment is rolled out in 4 villages; 2 case studies from Mathare and 2 from Korogocho. CFIA RESEARCH REPORT SERIES I SMART AND FRUGAL CITIES I NR.1

2018 | MARCH

MEMPHIS SOLUTIONS

COMMUNITYBASED PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH IN ACTION

This research adopts an incremental, systematic community-led research approach under the superintendence of Ghetto Foundation, a Community Based Organization with vast (over 20years) experience in participatory research and action in resource-constrained settings. Through an intense Research Training Toolkit, the CBO has over the years created a large network of trained and well-equipped community researchers who mobilize and engage other community residents in knowledge cocreation to inform action. The approach launched is hereby community-based in that it is grounded in the local community needs, issues, concerns, and strategies; and participatory owing to its direct engagement with community members in co-producing knowledge and codesigning its outcomes. The project team is working with 9 community researchers (residents within the selected case studies), whose credited research skills and invaluable knowledge on local realities continue to play a vital role at each stage in the research process as illustrated below:

''The approach is grounded in the local community needs, issues, concerns, and strategies''

Figure 1: Participatory research continuum adopted in the Community Resilience study

CFIA RESEARCH REPORT SERIES I SMART AND FRUGAL CITIES I NR.1

COLLABORATI VE SESSI ONS AT A GLANCE THE FOUR PHASES The study adopts a four-phased extensive approach, targeting different sets of respondents in each phase. In the 1st phase (historical exploration), in-depth interviews target residents who have lived in the settlements since the 1970s and 1980s to trace the unique histories of the two settlements and how vulnerability and response actions manifested during this stage of emergence. Here the respondents further reflect on the historical vis-à-vis the contemporary local context. The 2nd phase targets key informants such as the local leaders (e.g. village elders and NyumbaKumi leaders), government officials, Community Health Volunteers (CHVs), NGO leaders/representatives, CBO leaders, and other influential community leaders. The goal is to capture perspectives of persons in (in)formal positions of leadership on how the settlements have evolved and to offer broader contemporary analyses of each neighborhood. In the 3rd phase household interviews with community members are rolled out to assess the present vulnerabilities (within the household, local governance, resources, and locational context) and the changing role of households in community resilience. Finally Community Resilience Initiatives (CRIs) are interviewed in the 4th phase. After each phase, interviews are transcribed, the data cleaned and coded in interactive sessions. While the sessions in each phase are systematic, well-moderated by a research coordinator and documented by a selected rapporteur, they are slightly spontaneous to allow for flexibility and creativity. A comprehensive dataset from 120 in-depth interviews has been developed from this highly participatory process.

COMMUNITY DIALOGUES “MAZUNGUMZO MTAANI” Community dialogues organized by the community researchers have played a critical role in clearly defining the research agenda spotlighted in this study. In these sessions which are open to all community members, the research coordinators (from Ghetto Foundation) introduce the research and stir up a discussion by asking community residents about pertinent issues that concern them. The outputs of these forums have proved to be indispensable in refining the research questions, restructuring the research approach and identifying appropriate respondents for the study.

WEEKLY RESEARCH REFLECTION SESSIONS Every Monday, the community researchers hold 4-hour internal meetings at the research office to discuss the research progress and the appropriateness of the adopted methodologies. These sessions are characterized by reflective team discussions where community researchers are encouraged to express their views on the previously completed tasks, major observations on the 3 research subjects in each settlement and efficiency of the adopted methodologies. The outcomes are then used as inputs to strengthen the strategies adopted in subsequent steps.

CFIA RESEARCH REPORT SERIES I SMART AND FRUGAL CITIES I NR.1

COLLABORATIVE CODING SESSIONS; MAIN CONCEPT CODING In each phase, after sufficient data is acquired from in-depth interviews, data interpretation and analysis commences. Transcribed interviews are printed and assigned to respective community researcher (who conducted the interview) for off-site review and coding. Each researcher reads through their own interviews, selects the main quotes that speak to a set of priorly identified main codes and writes down the selected quotes on sticky notes. During a scheduled peer review session, each researcher reads out their excerpts and the peers discuss whether the quotes have been duly selected and assigned to the right main code. Upon agreement, the sticky notes are hanged on flap-over sheets which are arranged based on the themes of interest i.e. Health, Safety, Livelihood.

COLLABORATIVE SUB-CODING (SC) SESSIONS; MAJOR TOPICS SELECTED FROM THE MAIN CODES Following a systematic procedure, quotes which were previously categorized based on the main code are reviewed and smaller sub-groups based on the topic alluded by the excerpt are created. The quotes which are now assigned to a main code and subcode (Sc) are stored in color-themed woven bags e.g. all livelihood quotes are stored in red bags with each bag representing a sub-code (Sc) indicated on top as follows: I.e. Red Theme = livelihood, Main Code = Smart Governance, Sub-code = Sc2: community empowerment, Sc4: Utility

CFIA RESEARCH REPORT SERIES I SMART AND FRUGAL CITIES I NR.1

CONCLUSIONS Local communities as partners, not just contributors! This collaborative research demonstrates how productive continued involvement of locals can be achieved throughout a research. Through this approach, the real depth of context-specific knowledge is attained (rich data), new research insights gained, critical hidden patterns and relationships uncovered, and more importantly a new knowledge and scientific interest developed among community researchers. Such community-led research is a typical case of innovative knowledge production, and in fact, a contribution to the burgeoning debates about citizen science and social science research. This rigorous study brings forth some critical revelations: resilience in informal settlements evolves in unique, distinct pathways across spatio-temporal scales; confronted by shocks, grassroot communities urgently develop frugal coping mechanisms but do these really explain the resilience of informal settlements? Well, we provide an evidence-based response to this in our subsequent project reports.

''Local communities as partners, not just contributors!''

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Text: Beatrice Hati Editing & Design: Jasmin Hofman 2021, CFIA - info@cfia.nl Address: Kortenaerkade 12 2518 AX, The Hague

CFIA RESEARCH REPORT SERIES I SMART AND FRUGAL CITIES I NR.1