With great pleasure we share this year’s annual report with you. Know Your Community. Know Your City: the theme reflects the power of community-led process to mobilise the urban poor.
It also echoes the current focus of Shack / Slum Dwellers International (SDI) on the Know Your City Campaign. Know Your City demonstrates the value of citywide data collection on informal settlements as the basis for powerful negotiations by the urban poor. Pressing concerns relate to issues of vulnerability, land, insecurity, basic amenities, public spaces and livelihoods.
When settlement-specific data is aggregated with settlement-data on a citywide scale, it has incredible value for bottom-up policy formulation and agenda setting. Knowing your community and your city are crucial for building an inclusive city – and community voice. The Community Voice sections throughout the report will link you to the insights and lived experiences of FEDUP and ISN members.
In particular, this report tracks progress in our key activity areas from April 2014 – March 2015:
- Community organisation (women-led savings, data-collection, exchanges)
- Informal settlement upgrading and housing strategies
- Income generation initiatives
- Partnerships with government, academia and civil society
- Innovations in community-based finance facilities