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Urban Resilience in Situations of Chronic Violence Case Study of Nairobi, Kenya1

Robert Muggah

Institute of International Relations, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro and Center for Conflict Development and Peace, Geneva

Elijah Agevi, Joshua Maviti, Paul Mbatha and Kenneth Odary

Research Triangle Africa

Introduction Nairobi has evolved from a small railway headquarters at the turn of last century to a burgeoning metropolis hosting the Kenya government and myriad international organizations. As a colonial city from the 1919 to 1963, the city housed a small but steadily growing population with Europeans, Asians, and Africans forming the predominant demographic stratum. The residential settlements conformed to the racial segregation. Geographically, to the North and West of the railway station lived the Indians and Europeans, respectively, within well-planned and zoned neighborhoods boasting incremental investments in infrastructure developments and ample amenities. On the eastern side, however, lay scattered African settlements characterized by temporary informal houses and single rooms for migrant workers coupled with poor, shared sanitation services and minimal urban planning or development control initiatives from the colonial administration. Then, as now, it was evident there were two cities in one. Currently the city thrives as a split personality whereby in one section of the city, there is progression and appreciation of urbanism, economic growth, and social wellbeing. In the other, the residents refer to themselves as “Eastlanders” and the evidence of chaos, congestion, poor environmental quality, dilapidated physical infrastructure, and social strife is glaring. The two cities interrelate and interact on an ad hoc basis at best and the social disconnect between the two has been accepted by the city authorities and government as an equilibrium, or at least as an unfortunate but necessary byproduct of capitalism. And while the “formal” areas of Nairobi are physically and symbolically walled-off and safeguarded from the “informal” settlements, there is evidence of urban violence spilling over. There is in fact growing concern – nationally and internationally – that

                                                                                                                         1 This case study was prepared for MIT’s Center for International Studies (CIS), for the Urban Resilience in Chronic Violence project co-directed by Diane Davis and John Tirman, and funded by USAID [GRANT # AID-OAA-G-10-00002]. Fieldwork was undertaken during the summer of 2011, and the report completed in May 2012. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of USAID, the United States Government, or CIS, but are based on observations and interpretations of the authors as generated through their fieldwork.

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Nairobi is reaching a kind of “tipping point,” requiring a rethinking of the city and the place of the urban poor within it. The present study of service provision, violence, and resilience in Nairobi’s informal settlements has several objectives. First, it intends to describe various types of formal and informal services provided to residents of low- and medium-income areas. Second, it seeks to develop a more exhaustive review of the providers of these services and their interrelationships. Third, the assessment explores the character of resilience amongst residents of selected slums and the absence of formal state services. All of these objectives are of intense interest to national and metropolitan planners, preoccupied as they are with questions of urban violence and poverty. In order to unpack these questions, the assessment undertook focused research in a selection of sites as well as a literature review of the history of urbanization in Nairobi proper. Two of these sites included “informal settlements,” or slums in the vernacular. The third site was “middle class” and offered a control against which to examine patterns of service delivery and local forms of resilience. The assessment was also informed by a number of focus group discussions with municipal counselors, leaders in the various settlements, service providers, and residents to examine their perspectives and interrogate key issues. This report is itself divided into several discrete sections. The first section provides a cursory overview of the methodology deployed during the research period. Section two issues a historical assessment of Nairobi’s urbanization trajectory, which is critical in understanding contemporary realities. It also considers contemporary trends and patterns of exclusion and how these relate to older planning and development strategies. The third section explores in more detail issues of service provision in different neighborhoods of Nairobi, tracing out a range of services and the ways in which they interact. While a preliminary assessment, this study nevertheless generated a host of findings with implications for public policy in Nairobi and beyond. Overall, the assessment detects a surprising level of dynamism in the provision and supplementing of services in neglected informal settlements. It found that while residents frequently struggle to adjust in situations of adversity, there is a bewildering array of locally arising coping strategies in relation to security, water, sanitation, solid waste disposal, housing, and infrastructure provision. The assessment also highlights the more “negative” forms of resilience emerging both to fill the gaps left by an absence of state presence, but also in the wake of competition between rival service providers. Context Although an independent democracy for more than five decades, Kenya is a nation state in transition. The country recently passed another constitution during an August 2010 plebiscite that promises a new bill of rights and considerable decentralization of

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authority.2 This new constitution represents an attempt to re-engineer the country’s political, social, and economic architecture in the wake of paroxysm of political and ethnic violence in 2008 that resulted in more than 1,000 deaths and 600,000 displaced people. As part of this change in direction, the country’s elite are seeking to shift from a highly centralized form of governance to a more decentralised one. The recent emphasis on decentralizing authority and services in Kenya is long overdue. It constitutes a tacit admission by the state of its failure to meet its obligations in terms of the social contract, including the delivery of basic services such as the rule of law and order. And nowhere is this rupture of the social contract more evident than in the capital of the country itself: Nairobi. Not unlike many other developing cities, Nairobi and its periphery are beset by numerous challenges and contradictions that can be traced to the founding of the city in 1899. With more than three million residents, it is the largest city in East Africa and twelfth largest in Africa. In some ways constituting a microcosm of the country, Nairobi brings into sharp relief the achievements, shortcomings, and neglect of the state and its agencies. From an urban planning perspective, Nairobi conforms to many of the aspirations of the modern city. Indeed, as it is contemporarily regarded today3, it features well-planned and organized public spaces and gardens, organized transport infrastructure, and demarcated commercial and residential zoning. It is home to most multinationals present on the continent, features one of the largest stock markets in Africa (NSE), and is defined by the Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network as a prominent social centre in its own right. At the same time, Nairobi has also witnessed a spectacular growth in its urban population, primarily its informal settlements. These settlements are highly spatially and socially segmented. While slums and informal settlements today account for more than 60 percent of the city’s residents, they cover only 5 percent of the total area zoned for residential land. They are also recipients of erratic and lesser quality services. Methodology The present assessment is guided by two over-arching questions: (1) what are the types of formal and informal services being provided in selected settlements affected by                                                                                                                          2 See Government of Kenya Constitution 2010. 3 Nairobi is a Masaai phrase – Enkare Nairobi, or “place of cool waters”. It is also popularly known as the “green city in the sun” by residents. In 1926 E Dutton said of the city “ …Maybe one day Nairobi will be laid out with tarred roads, with avenues of flowering trees, flanked by noble buildings; with open spaces and stately squares; a cathedral worthy of faith and country; museums and galleries of art; theatres and public offices. And it is fair to say that the Government and the Municipality have already bravely tackled the problem and that a town-plan ambitious enough to turn Nairobi into a thing of beauty has been slowly worked out, and much has already been done. But until that plan has borne fruit, Nairobi must remain what she was then, a slatternly creature, unfit to queen it over so lovely a country …”.

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chronic violence, and (2) what are the heterogeneous forms of resilience that arise and how and why do they differ across neighbourhoods? In the process of answering these questions, a predominantly Kenyan research team considered a host of additional issues that were fundamental.4 Specifically, the team considered: • the range of institutions and entities involved in service provision; • the ways in which these public and private providers interact; • the “impact” of these services and perceptions of residents of their adequacy; and • the coping mechanisms and responses of residents to services and gaps in

provision. The assessment adopted a mixed-methods approach to appraising the character and functions of service provision in city’s under-serviced informal areas and coping mechanism adopted by the residents. Key tools included household surveys, focus groups, key informant interviews, participant observation and a literature review. In order to examine multiple service providers in both serviced and under-serviced settlements of Nairobi and levels of corresponding violence and resilience, the study adopted a comparative case study framework. Selected study areas included three residential urban neighbourhoods in Nairobi: Mabatini, Marengo, and Nyayo Estate Embakasi. These areas were selected to demonstrate different social and economic characteristics of settlements in Nairobi. An extensive review of literature was undertaken in order to assess historical and scholarly treatments of service provision dynamics and chronic violence within Nairobi. The review was also intended to critical engage the conventional narrative of the city as a fixed administrative and geographic space rather than a dynamic and complex one. As such, a wide range of literatures was consulted, including urban geography, urban planning, urban development, criminology, sociology, and conflict studies. A combination of peer-reviewed journals, policy research reports, and primary government and private sector documentation in Nairobi and elsewhere was reviewed. Since a number of the authors have also worked closely with municipal planning bodies and international organizations, the review accounted for a wide spectrum of material over a short period of time. Prior to the undertaking of household survey and focus groups, the research team organised a series of meetings with community leaders in the target settlements to sensitize them on the activity as well as outline its goals and the desire to include their community/areas in the study. A household survey in particular was intended to                                                                                                                          4 A core study team consisting of Elijah Agevi, Joshua Maviti, Paul Mbatha and Kennedy Odary formulated the research questions and the required indicators included in the structured questionnaires administered at household level. Robert Muggah provided overall direction, editing and research support.  

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generate quantitative and qualitative data in order to confirm or deny research questions and assumptions as set out above. Six guided focused group discussions (FGDs) were held in selected neighbourhoods to gauge local experiences with respect to accessing services and key informant interviews were undertaken to assess the character and functions of service providers in selected study areas. Throughout, respondents were probed to better understand how they accessed services, the interaction between formal and informal providers, local forms of adaptation and coping, and experiences with urban violence. It is worth noting that a mixed methodology entailing surveys requires intensive coordination and training. To wit, survey enumerators were recruited locally to administer the survey and lead FGDs, and a three-day induction training was held to guide the enumerators on the administration of the questionnaire and field data collection methods. The enumerators were also given a short, experimental training in using Global Positioning Systems (GPS) – a central aspect of the methodology – and how to collect positional information on social services located within the settlements. The GPS was useful in tracking and ensuring satisfactory coverage and also captured the unplanned roads and tracks used within informal settlements that are not featured on municipal infrastructure maps. The survey was pretested by the field enumerators over a period of two days in Mukuru, a sprawling informal settlement situated next to Nairobi’s industrial areas. The actual data collection process – both surveys and FGDs – lasted three weeks and was comprised of 300 respondents across three settlements. Three specific neighbourhoods were selected for the assessment. Majengo and Mabatini informal settlements were the intervention sites, while Nyayo Estate Embakasi was chosen as a control case. The two slums (Majengo and Mabatini) exhibit characteristics reminiscent of most informal settlements in Kenya and were seen to offer credible primary. The selected study settlements featured easy access in terms of proximity to the city centre and can be described as fairly cosmopolitan, thus giving a broad representation of Nairobi’s social stratum. The settlements chosen also exhibited unique features and are premised on diverse backgrounds. The sites are briefly described below:

• Mabatini (Mathare) is a settlement within the larger Mathare area and predates the country’s independence, having been first settled by immigrants from Asia before being taken over by Africans. This low-income, unplanned area is highly under-serviced and is characterised by very high population density, with a population of 28,260 peoples within an area of 0.35 square kilometres (GoK, 2009).

• Majengo evolved out of rural-urban migration without corresponding provision of adequate shelter. The Majengo “slum” was established in the 1920s when Africans were moved from the Pangani area to facilitate settlement of the Asian

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community. It is located about 2 km east of the city centre and covers an area measuring 0.17 square kilometres. It is comprises of a population of 16,287 people and is divided into four smaller settlements of Sofia, Mashimoni, Katanga, and Digo (GoK, 2009).

• Nyayo Estate Embakasi developed in the 1990s as a tenant purchase scheme and is managed by the country’s largest pension fund: the National Social Security Fund (NSSF)5. The estate is considered a middle-income gated neighbourhood and is located in Nairobi’s expansive Embakasi area, about 15 km east of the city centre. To date 2,506 houses have been sold and occupied. Currently, it is estimated that the ratio of tenants to owners occupying the units is at 65:35 percent.6

While sampling within communities was random, findings of the survey are representative of the surveyed communities only, and not necessarily of the total population of Nairobi. The household survey sample was determined according to a two-stage cluster process. The first cluster included the pre-selection of three different neighbourhoods within Nairobi, with respondents randomly sampled from two affected settlements of Mathare and Majengo and Nyayo Estate Embakasi acting as the control area. A sample size of 300 was realised for the three sites for individuals aged over 18 years. Selection of respondents was done as per the Kish grid. As noted above, pre-testing of the survey was administered in a fourth informal neighbourhood: Mukuru Kwa Njenga. Reliability checks were integrated into the survey tool to ensure that respondents answered truthfully and consistently. Triangulated questions were inversed and scattered throughout the questionnaire. Nairobi: A City Facing a Governance Crisis Historical settlement patterns Nairobi is the political and economic nerve centre of Kenya. Located almost 1,800 meters above sea level, it covers a total land area of 696 square kilometres and is home to more than three million residents. Unlike many other African cities, Nairobi was purposefully planned and organized from the early twentieth century onwards.7 Considerable investment and enthusiasm was invested in its development with a view of developing a “garden city” for its elite colonial inhabitants. Earning the title of “capital” 1905, the official boundaries of Nairobi were established during the early decades of the twentieth century, with expatriates occupying its suburbs. It was

                                                                                                                         5 NSSF is a government pension scheme with a diverse investment portfolio in equity funds and real estate. 6 See http://www.nssf.go.ke. 7 See Myers (2011).  

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declared a municipality in 1919 and continued to gradually urbanize for the following fifty years to the country’s independence. It was after independence that the city witnessed a population explosion. The city itself has grown from roughly 500, 000 residents in 1969, to over 2 million by 1999 and an estimated 3.14 million inhabitants by 2009. 8 Nairobi’s Population Growth9

The rapid urbanization has left Nairobi with huge backlogs in critical infrastructure and basic services, resulting in sprawling, overcrowded and impoverished informal settlements (World Bank, 2008). It is worth stressing that not only has Nairobi experienced massive urbanization, but most of the concentration of new residents has been in slums and informal settlements. Indeed, almost two thirds of the population resides in informal settlements and their numbers are expected to double in the next 15 years (World Bank, 2005). The often-violent features of urbanization have also been widely reported and are discussed greater length below.10 The plan and design of Nairobi had long-term inter-generational consequences on its eventual socio-spatial organization. Indeed, from the beginning, streets, homes, services, and commercial and industrial areas were designed with European- and principally British – interests in mind. Specifically, European residents were provided with cooler affluent and dispersed residential suburbs to the north and west of the city. No settlements were specifically zoned or provided for African town dwellers (Obudho,                                                                                                                          8 See Government of Kenya (2009). 9 See UNEP (2008). 10 See UN-HABITAT (2003).

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1992). Instead, Nairobi’s indigenous residents tended to congregate in unofficial ‘squatter’ settlements, with no property or other rights and subject to periodic bulldozing. The lack of planning for non-European residents had profound effects on the allocation of metropolitan services and the symbolic place of the poor in patterns of urban governance.11 The spatial segregation pattern existing today shows slightly denser affluent suburbs with inferior estates and the vast slums, some adjacent to the suburbs but most in distant parts of the city. Majengo, one of the sites selected for this assessment, was the first of such settlements in the 1950s. After independence, however, a similar pattern was maintained with the emerging African business and political elite replacing departing Europeans in occupying formerly exclusively white suburbs and their way of life. This highly segregated spatial planning approach primarily focused on the attainment of physical order underlined by prescriptive controls and segregation. However, the enclaving approach to urban planning resulted in a system of local governance that was decidedly non-responsive to poorer citizens socio-economic, environmental and safety and security needs12. Notwithstanding a legacy of planned service provision, education and literacy levels in Nairobi are amongst the lowest in the country. Indeed, the rates of urban illiteracy in Nairobi are low in comparison to other urban areas across Kenya.13 The reasons for this appear to be fairly self-explanatory. On the one hand, residents in formal areas tend to rely on both private and public education, including those provided by the City Education Department, which is mandated to provide primary school services within the city. However the distribution of public and private schools (and associated services) is skewed in favour of formal neighbourhoods. Thus, even poorer quality council schools, which are the most preferred choice for poorer urban dwellers, have been traditionally difficult to access. More positively, with introduction of free primary education in 2003, it is estimated that upwards 85 per cent of children of primary school age (6–13 years) are now attending school. From a planning perspective, Nairobi represents something of a paradox. On the one hand, the city represents’ in theory a well-planned garden city with decent suburbs, many open spaces and the presence of wide, landscaped boulevards dominating the city's physical layout with attendant services. On other hand, Nairobi also features a                                                                                                                          11 While Nairobi retained a comparatively gradual rate of population increase in the first half of the twentieth century, it rapidly increased in the latter half. The distribution of population groups in the city almost perfectly mirrors the proportionate distribution of the country’s principle ethnic groups, notably the Kikuyu, Luhyia, Kalenjin, Luo, and Kamba. The religious profile is also broadly analogous to the national scene, with Christians comprising around 80 per cent of the population and Muslims accounting for approximately 10% (Government of Kenya, 2009). 12 See government of Kenya (2009).  13 See City Council of Nairobi (2006).

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complex and spatially specific series of interlocking informal settlements that coincide with its carefully planned core. Hake referred to this later dimension of Nairobi as the “self-help city” as early as 1977. Even before the emergence of chronic violence, he noted the existence of makeshift housing, roadside “jua-kali” 14shops and cottage industries, and small, cultivated plots along undeveloped or under-utilized urban land. Some attribute this paradox to rapid urbanization processes, which resulted in the overwhelming of pre-existing systems of absorption and order (Agevi & Mbatha 2010). Indeed, Nairobi today is a darker echo of its past, with inadequate shelter, systemic unemployment, environmental degradation, increases in crime, poverty and poor infrastructure and lack of social facilities, nonexistent services, social exclusion, serious income disparities and poor governance more rampant than ever before. (UN-HABITAT 2007, Oxfam 2009, Agevi & Mbatha 2010, World Bank 2010, GoK, 2011). Governing the fragile city The city of Nairobi currently exhibits two parallel formal governance structures. At the outset, it is important to note that the city is administratively divided into eight elective/political constituencies15 that follow the same boundaries as the administrative divisions. These constituencies include Makadara, Kamukunji, Starehe, Langata, Dagoretti, Westlands, Kasarani, and Embakasi and are further subdivided into a total of seventy-five wards. The highest metropolitan authority over these seventy-five wards is the City Council16 lead by the Mayor with each ward represented by a councillor17. The Chief Executive Officer of the city, the Town Clerk, is a civil servant appointed by the Minister of Local Government and not by the city council and hence he or she is accountable to the appointing authority. This arrangement divests considerable authority to the Minister and has continued to influence the independence and performance of the city council.18 Coinciding with the constituency governance arrangement is the Provincial Administration and consists of the entire province covering the same city boundary, which is itself subdivided into three main districts, eight divisions and fifty locations, mostly named after residential estates. The top bureaucrat is the Provincial Commissioner followed by the district commissioners who supervises

                                                                                                                         14 Jua Kali literally means hot sun in Kiswahili but it is used to demonstrate the conditions under which informal businesses operate i.e. open and harsh conditions. 15 Proposals on delimitation of boundaries from the Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) seek to increase 9 extra constituencies totaling to 17 while the wards have been increased to 85. 16 Referred to as the City Commission during much of the 1980s and early 1990s following the abrogation of the City Council by the Minister for Local Government.  17 The elections of mayors and counselors and subsequently the structure are expected to change with the implementation of the new constitution. As with the defunct constitution (used till August 2010), counselors were elected directly, while the Mayor and Chairmen of departments are elected from amongst the counselors. 18 Of course this is expected to change and be replaced with more democratic and decentralized systems that are currently being debated and legislated upon (Urban Areas and Cities Act 2011, Government of Kenya 2011, County Government Bill 2012).

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district officers, and beneath whom are the chiefs and assistant chiefs respectively. The village chairpersons are the grassroots representatives of the administration coordinate the local affairs with local chiefs in their locations. Predictably, there are considerable tensions and overlapping jurisdictions between these two governance systems. Despite repeated efforts to clarify roles and responsibilities, the strong political economy interests in maintaining a status quo are quite active. Indeed, the Provincial Administration is largely a colonial relic having survived to buttress successive post-independence regimes despite repeated efforts to terminate its existence (SID, 2011). Indeed, it is widely regarded as tool of the central government and a means of enforcing its will. Instead of disappearing, the Provincial Administration in fact witnessed a revival when the political process was opened up in 1992, especially in opposition-leaning areas such as Nairobi city.19 This system is expected to be restructured in the next five years as per article 262 (17) of the Constitution. Well before the 1990s, Provincial Administration members could be nominated as civic councillors and in some cases had discretion over allocating land. This overlapping involvement in both administrative and civic matters brought with it confusion and innuendos. While Provincial Administrators were known to allocate land, particularly in informal settlements, the practice, was illegal and beyond their mandate. This process in turn largely contributed to mushrooming of informal settlements in Nairobi. In some cases the Provincial Administration also informally assigned tasks and responsibilities to informal community groups and leaders. This was especially obvious in the case of security service delivery whereby the Provincial Administration assigned neighbourhood watch functions to local residents.20 Far from improving local safety, however, this poorly executed form of “community” or “self- policing” undermined security and normalized retributive or “local” forms of justice and revenge.21 In rare cases, however, there were instances of collaboration between these various formal governance systems. Cooperation occurred, for example, in 2003 following the new elected NARC government’s intention to rid the city of informal traders. Prior to the new government’s election, electoral cycles in Kenya were accompanied by a relaxation of civic by-laws, especially in Nairobi. This allowed hawkers – or street vendors – to occupy open streets and alleys ways as well as main thoroughfares such as Tom Mboya, Ronald Ngala, and Moi Avenue – the critical arteries of downtown Nairobi. In 2002, there were approximately 10,000 hawkers operating on the streets of

                                                                                                                         19 See World Bank (2008).  20 Security is one of the roles assigned to the Provincial Administration, who then co-opted villagers to carry out neighborhood security. This provided the initial beginnings for vigilantes in much of urban and rural Kenya 21 See Anderson (2002) and Ngunyi (2011)

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Nairobi22 (see Figure 2). 23 Such encounters emerged first between licensed (mainly Asian) traders24 against hawkers.25 In other cases, hawkers fought openly against city officials, including the police, who frequently raided their operations. What is more, hawkers also found themselves in contexts against “regime-friendly” beneficiaries of illegal land allocations in urban Nairobi, often leading to competition over land and space. The distribution of hawkers in downtown Nairobi (2002)

It should also be recalled that the City Council and Provincial Administration are joined by other governance arrangements that further complicate “good” urban governance. Indeed, key governance institutions involved in the management of the city of Nairobi include a range of central government Ministries with mandates to deal with metropolitan issues. Examples include the Ministry of Environment and

Natural Resources and the Ministry of Lands. Likewise, the Ministry of Nairobi Metropolitan Development was established in 2008 and is in charge of the broader metropolitan region including city of Nairobi. The Ministry is directly involved in the design and implementation of infrastructural services such as roads, street lighting, and other critical infrastructure. As might be expected, the Ministry of Nairobi Metropolitan Development has often found itself on a collision course with the City Council of Nairobi as well as other ministry departments and authority structures. Indeed, many of these tensions have resulted in contradictory and poorly executed interventions, further exacerbating stress on the urban social contract. The situation is even made worse due to existence of numerous, unclear and often contradictory legal and regulatory frameworks.

                                                                                                                         22 See Katumanga et al (2005). 23 By 2002, hawkers had invaded Harambee Avenue (which houses the seat of Government). They eventually occupied Parliament road, the famous Kenyatta Avenue and Koinange Street. This effectively had placed the central business district under their occupation. See Katumanga and Cliffe (2005). 24As part of the Africanization policy, Asian traders had been barred from operating their dukwallas in much of the hinterland, which forced many to retreat to the large urban areas. 25 Interviews revealed that licensed and premised shop owners felt disadvantaged because local authorities had not only allowed hawkers to obstruct entry to their shops but had allowed them to trade in similar though substandard merchandise that was being smuggled by regime friendly importers.  

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Predictable and reasonable quality service delivery is a cornerstone of city governance in Nairobi as in all major cities. While wide ranging in scope and scale, basic services here include law and order, water and sanitation, solid waste removal, electricity and power provision, and other key areas.26 Although in Nairobi, the City Council is expected to oversee key service provision functions, this is however, constrained by central government interventions27, a lack of funds, and pervasive corruption.28 Even as early as the 1970s it was evident that existing urban planning systems were unable to deliver services and opportunities to citizens commensurate with the rate of population growth and demand.29 The informal settlements which accommodate majority of the residents have continued to be denied access to basic services on ground that they are classified as unplanned and therefore unrecognized by city authorities. This misconception that services can only be provided to planned areas of the city has greatly undermined services provision in informal settlements in Nairobi. The failure to formally recognize informal settlements and slums represents a glaring omission in urban governance system including Nairobi. Not only does it result in extraordinary levels of social stigmatization and precarious living arrangements, but it also creates de facto – even legislated – “ungoverned spaces” throughout the city (UN-HABITAT, 2003). In effect, the denial of the slums existence has led to creation of enclaves and protective rings where city by-laws and standards are not enforced. Worst still, these groups are excluded from city and national budgetary processes a vicious cycle ensues where their “non-recognition” is perpetuated by city planners responsible for responsible urban policies and zoning by-laws for the improvement of the city. Instead of seeking alternative approaches to working with slums, policies prescribe their erasure and destruction. To wit, the ambitious Nairobi Metro 2030 Blueprint, while promising sophisticated new urban transportation, advocates slums eradication as its core strategy (GoK) Filing the urban governance gap In the absence of formal systems of governance in informal settlements or adequate social safety nets, a wide range of informal alternatives has emerged. Indeed, slum residents themselves have frequently had to innovate and develop networks of reciprocity to accommodate systemic neglect from elected and appointed political and economic elites. Key informal actors – including providers of basic services – have emerged to “fill the urban governance gap”. While wide-ranging in form and character, such “informal actors” tend to include groups of enterprising citizens who “corrupt”

                                                                                                                         26 See Matrix (2009). 27 For instance the abolition of graduated poll tax-a system of taxation, their role in education, health road is weakened. 28 See Oxfam GB (2009). 29 See Government of Kenya (2009).  

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and “reconfigure” existing systems for profit. Specifically, such actors tend to identify and seize various opportunities to supply critical services to slum dwellers through the sabotage or pirating of services destined originally to “formal” neighbourhoods. The ways and means by which such processes occur are various. For example, often local authorities are “bought-off” and corrupted to divert services. In some cases, local providers are provided with kickbacks and financial rewards to reroute specific items. In many cases, these informal hybrid arrangements become embedded and normalized to the extent that service provision to informal settlements becomes progressively “institutionalized”. Depending on one’s perspective, these forms of co-optation of formal service provision can be construed as a form of “negative” resilience – a pattern of behaviour and relationships recognized in Nairobi, but also virtually every slum in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean and South and Southeast Asia. In rare instances, cities authorities – and in particular the City Council – has sought to provide services to informal settlements. Most often, the provision of inputs has been unpredictable and highly selective. Rather than contributing to an organized and orderly system of service provision, instead these activities have triggered a multiplicity of formal and informal actors to compete for the control over the market of water, solid waste, housing and sanitation sub sectors. Indeed, elaborate and intricate formal-informal service providing arrangements can emerge that exacerbate, rather than alleviate, access for slum dwellers. In one of the study sites examined as part of this assessment, the provision of toilet services was spread out unevenly between private actors ranging from youth groups to community based organizations as well as religious based organizations and the City Council as shown in table 1 below. While in Mabatini in Mathare a large number of the people (40%) relied on relatively expensive commercial toilets, the case is different for high-income neighbourhoods such as Nyayo Embakasi Estate where none depend on this mode of sanitation. Notably, almost the entire population in high-income areas depend wholly on individual waterborne toilets within their dwellings. The results of this dispersed process included failures in economies of scale, a confusing regulatory environment, information asymmetries and overall weaknesses in service quality. Actors involved in toilet provision services Mabatini Majengo Nyayo-Estate Individual /Private toilet for commercial 40.0 10.4 0.0 CDF 12.7 6.2 0.0 Sponsors e.g. churches .9 6.2 0.0 Land Lord/own 14.5 11.4 93.6 NCC 19.1 8.3 0.0 Self Help groups 9.1 12.4 0.0 None 3.6 7.2 0.0 NHC 0.0 2.1 0.0

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NSSF 0.0 0.0 6.4 *Figure expressed in percentage Likewise, electoral cycles and the interests of municipal councillors have often structured service provision to informal settlements. For decades, locally elected councillors have depended on a large supply of voters residing in the slums. Depending on the level of authority wielded by the elected official, the City Council and certain formal service providers have been periodically urged to “extend” key services to informal areas so as to “win” favour and sympathy from the masses. Such demands known colloquially as “roadside declarations” and were (and continue to be) made without prior advance planning and insignificant budget allocations. Rather than using these occasions as opportunities to invest in interim and long-term renewal or regeneration, they often resulted in poor quality and short-sighted investments. Moreover, such gratuitous efforts were often despised by tax-paying formal residents who resented political pandering and the diversion of meagre resources to the slum. The legislated neglect, coupled with irregular and often destructive interventions of city planners in informal settlements and to some extent even in the formal neighbourhoods, has indirectly contributed to the rise of new forms of informal urban representation. Indeed, urban resident associations have emerged even from slums, often joining with other groups to form consortiums and enhance their bargaining positions. Some of the more prominent30 and active associations include the Nairobi Central Business District Association (NCBDA), the Muthaiga Residents Association, the Westlands Residents Association, the Nyayo Estate Embakasi Resident Association and the Karen-Langata District Association (KARENGATA), all of them formed to champion the rights and wellbeing of their members. Other informal settlement associations such as the Muungano wa Wanavijiji31were also formed to advocate against forced evictions. A key feature of these organizations, however, is their resort to “consultations” as a mechanism for negotiation and decision-making. To some extent, the central authorities have recognized the credibility of these entities and have, on occasion, entered into negotiation to broker certain investments. The contrasting styles between state and informal actor processes, however, are noteworthy. Indeed, the City Council has traditionally adopted a bureaucratic, top-down and non-participatory approach to engaging with non-state actors. As a result, the City Council has not been regarded as a particularly “legitimate” governance institution, including by informal resident

                                                                                                                         30 Further details of these institutions are available at www.rundaestate.com/ and in publications of and about the Karengata North Association. 31 Muungano wa Wanavijiji is a federation of over 60,000 households living in 400 informal settlements across Kenya, helping to form daily savings groups through which poor communities can access/leverage resources.

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associations and others32. In the wake of partial government reforms, the City Council and its organs have sought to enhance “citizen participation” in minor projects through the so-called Local Authority Service Delivery Action Plans (LASDAPs). Even so, these are widely discredited and disregarded by residents and their associations as they lack clear mechanisms for enhancing public participation. What is more, governance gaps are exacerbated by poor coordination and cooperation between overlapping government jurisdictions. As noted above, central and local governments have yet to fully clarify the division of functions between them33. These often confusing urban governance arrangements and interventions have contributed to a wide perception of government incompetence and corruption. Indeed, there are widespread perceptions of persistent corruption across all tiers of government – and regular scandals in the media largely bare these suspicious out. Opinion surveys on corruption in the city indicate that almost half of Nairobi’s population admitted to actively participating in bribery and almost all thought corruption was endemic in the city (UN-HABITAT, 2001, Transparency International (TI) 2008). The necessity of paying bribes can have a particularly devastating effect on the poor who already barely afford to meet their basic needs34. The local chapter of TI has for the past 5 years ranked the City Council of Nairobi and the Kenya Police as being amongst the top most corrupt institutions and the leaders of the Council admit as much (ibid). Despite the notable shortcomings and history associated with the Provincial Administration, the institution was reportedly viewed by some of the study respondents interviewed, as having some degree of legitimacy and inspiring a level of confidence. This may be due to the fact that the Provincial Administrations has a grassroots presence that extends to the resident village chairpersons. Consistently, throughout the administration of this assessment, chiefs and village elders were cited as the most “proximate” authority to urban residents.35 Nevertheless, there are reasons to be cautious in appraising the supposed legitimacy and effectiveness of village elders who make up the lowest rung of the Provincial Administration. There are common reports, for example, of predatory village elders who are reportedly oversee the control of government subsidies and land transactions. For instance, the responsibility for identifying beneficiaries for government subsidies such as school fees bursaries, community work and cash transfers are bestowed on village heads and chiefs. There are also frequent reports of local authorities and provincial administration officials abusing their positions in favor of their own private interests or their immediate                                                                                                                          32 KARENGATA Association has through a judicial process obtained orders to withhold paying rates to the City Council of Nairobi. 33 See Oxfam GB (2009). 34 Ibid.  35 This might also be explained by the fact that these groups are more often than not domiciled within the respective community and the fact that the Kenyan police are often thinly dispersed in the urban informal settlements.

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family’s benefit. It is common to see local authority officials allocating bursaries to undeserving beneficiaries after payment of bribes. Illegal ‘levies’ are also charged before erecting or repairing structures in the informal settlements and starting petty businesses. This was reported to be a ‘norm’ during the study. Service Provision and Resilience Any effort to grasp the relationships between service provision and resilience require understanding what services are available, who offers them, and how they are accessed. To this end, the assessment mapped out the range of formal and informal services available in selected informal and middle-class settlements. These are not intended to be exhaustive, but rather illustrative of the complex layers and requirements of urban living. The initial mapping revealed several key services that form the basis of the present analysis – housing and tenure, transportation and related infrastructure, education and employment, water sanitation and waste removal and security. The way in which these services are provided, and by whom, had profound implications for patterns of resilience. The following sections provide a short descriptive overview of these forms of interaction and offer a glimpse of the rich findings generated by the household survey and FGDs. Housing and tenure This assessment finds that expressions of urban resilience are often quite strongly mediated by the character of housing and the security of tenure. In other words, where access to housing is constrained and security of tenure is limited, residents are often forced into more rent-based transaction relations, higher-risk activities and new forms of bargaining with a constellation of public and private actors. In some cases, this exposes urban residents to a wider range of insecurities and threats, including violent contestations between land owners and informal residents required to rent properties. For decades, urban slum residents have been considered to be temporary illegal occupants and aberrant. Urban dwellers were in the past treated contemptuously as people in transition. British colonials considered informal settlements to be transient “labor camps” just as successive post-independence regimes anticipated that migrants from rural areas would eventually retreat to the countryside after earning a seasonal or temporary salary.36 However, slum residence in Nairobi did not turn out to be temporary as anticipated.37 Indeed, surveys undertaken as part of this assessment found that most residents had lived in their informal settlements for 10 years or more. For

                                                                                                                         36 See Government of Kenya (2004). 37 See APHRC (2002).

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example, Majengo, a stone’s throw from the city center, includes several generations of residents. The insatiable demand for housing in Nairobi – and particularly in informal settlements – is attributed to a rapid and unregulated urbanization, high population growth and intense rural urban migration. Others also contend that the absence of forward planning on the part of central and city authorities and the spiraling costs of housing construction materials and land prices have resulted in an almost inevitable shortcut to the slum. There are few options for the majority of Nairobi residents to either access or own proper housing. This is true not only for the urban poor, but also for middle-income groups. The options left for these groups are a scramble for space in informal settlements where the security of tenure is non-existent and are increasingly located in distant parts of a dispersed city.38 The existence of slums adjacent to formal neighborhood is a common feature in Nairobi where readily available labor flows from the slums to the high-income neighborhoods. Slums adjacent to formal neighborhood

As noted earlier, the influx of British colonialists generated a host of paradoxes. On the one hand, it led to the planning of an organized and functioning city. On the other, it resulted in massive changes in land ownership. A wide number of would-be settlers arrived to the then British East African Protectorate in the early twentieth century and appropriated land, particularly in Kiambu, Limuru,

Mbagathi, Ruiru, and other fertile areas resulting in widespread displacement of locals. Early ‘squatter’ settlements in fact first arose in the context of these early land grabs and were treated as reserve “labor camps” susceptible to eviction without notice.39 Following its becoming an official “colony” in 1919, British authorities then began segregating the city on racial grounds. Special reference is given in a 1915 ordinance that explicitly barred land ownership by Africans in Nairobi. Migrant laborers in Nairobi were also discouraged from living with their families in the city. Indeed, pre-colonial housing40 was intentionally designed for single individuals and featured

                                                                                                                         38 See Katumanga and Cliffe (2005).  39 Such is the case when the Africans were moved from the Pangani area to facilitate settlement of the Asian community or the razing down of African quarters in Nairobi following an outbreak of plague in 1900. 40 Most of these Africans lived in unregulated settlements emanating from the colonial apartheid policies.

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deplorable conditions. Some of these early housing estates still exists in the eastern parts of the city and include the Muthurwa Estate for the East African Railway employees.41Demographic pressures in the surrounding reserves brought more and more Africans to Nairobi. It estimated that as early as 1920, there were already 8 informal villages around Nairobi hosting about 12,000 inhabitants.42 During this period, the principle response of colonial authorities to the housing problem confronting Nairobi was the issuance of police ordinances and violent slums clearing. Some of the informal settlements eradicated by the authorities were occasionally relocated to new municipal or government housing schemes. The Kariokor village was for instance designed in 1921 to host former soldiers.43 As signalled in the opening section, successive post-independence administrations maintained the status quo as far as housing was concerned.44 In terms of urban planning45, “master” or “central planning approaches” continued to be used by the authorities, often with the same biases and approaches adopted by earlier colonial officers. It was in effect assumed that the government could support the integration of the new incoming population into the urban environment through creating “central places” for commerce and labour.46At the same time, national policy makers were encouraging the application of new policies to provide opportunity to rural folk to move to towns including Nairobi without clear provision for housing. In the meantime, the few “official” housing estates that existed were fast over-crowded and contested. While some efforts were made by the national and city authorities to pursue social housing, such approaches rapidly collapsed in the 1970s. This was partly due to a slow-down in the economy brought about by oil shocks and a decline in the international prices of coffee, the country’s chief export. Meanwhile, informal settlements continued to grow. This resulted into slum landlords and the poor filling the gap by constructing houses without following agreed standards and norms – and further expanding slums.47 The initial reaction by the authorities was to pull down these structures since they did

                                                                                                                         41 It is worth noting that Majengo Estate, which was built next door, was home to a population of single women who – historically – filled the gap of the absent wives for the male population workers whose wives and families stayed back in the rural areas by design and necessity. 42 See Hirst and Lamba (1994). 43 Ibid 44 See Government of Kenya (2008). 45 In 1927, the colonial administration made a plan for a settler capital based on racial and class segregation with the main guiding concepts being extensive traffic regularization to match the increased land area, drainage and swamp clearance, building and density regulation. In 1948 a master plan for the colonial capital was prepared, also based on segregation by race and class. In 1973, the Metropolitan Growth Strategy (MGS) was prepared by the Nairobi Urban Study Group and funded by the Nairobi City Council (NCC), the Kenya Government, the World Bank and the United Nations. In 2010, the Metro 2030 strategy was developed and currently the CNN and JICA are exploring options and funding for a new City Master Plan.  46 See Government of Kenya (2008). 47 Ibid.

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not meet basic building regulations. Moreover, as noted above, by the 1980s and 1990s, government authorities became more and more paranoid that informal settlements and slums were themselves potential breeding grounds of nascent opposition and new forms of organized crime. Evidently, national and city planners could not accommodate the spectacular growth of Kenya’s capital city. Rather than wait for sparse openings in estates, new urban residents instead turned to constructing low quality informal housing in sprawling unplanned settlements. For example, research undertaken as part of this assessment in Majengo found that while originally well-planned - including mud and wattle structures, tin roofs and communal bathrooms and social amenities – it soon fell into disrepair. Indeed, massive waves of rural migrants soon turned what was once a comparatively well-ordered informal settlement into a slum. For the case of Mabatini in Mathare, the other study area, the growth was spontaneous.48 Today, housing conditions in Nairobi rate poorly in comparison to many other cities in low- and middle-income settings. Participant observation reveals that housing is characterized by poor quality building materials, overcrowding and lack of basic urban services: fewer than 19 per cent of residents live in homes built with permanent materials.49 Nairobi features an average occupancy rate of 1.6 persons per room while in the informal settlements the occupancy rate is higher at 2.6 persons per room.50. The quality of housing is affected by residential densities which vary widely in the city, with high income neighbourhoods like Karen and Muthaiga having densities of 4 persons per hectare, while lower income neighbourhoods, such as the study case of Mabatini in Mathare having a population 28,260 people residing in an area measuring 0.35 sq km in area.51 Kibera and Korogocho have equally high densities of approximately up to 800 persons per hectare.52 Rental housing Most informal settlement residents lack any security of tenure for the land on which their houses are built. Just eight per cent of residents surveyed in the three settlements examined as part of this assessment claimed to own their shelters and land. Without security of tenure, slumlords and residents have little motivation to invest in decent housing and are constantly faced with threats of eviction. Indeed, the World Bank                                                                                                                          48 The same period witnessed the introduction of sites and services schemes funded by the World Bank and USAID in an effort to provide decent housing to two low income neighbourhoods- Dandora and Umoja located about 15 kilometres to the east of the city centre. These schemes were less successful as they relocated residents away from labour opportunities in the city centre and industrial areas. 49 See World Bank (2006). 50 See Government of Kenya (2009).  51 See Government of Kenya (2011) at opendata.go.ke. 52 See Mitullah (undated) and UN-HABITAT (2006)

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[2006] observed that in contrast to many other cities of the world, an ‘extraordinary’ 92% of the slum dwellers in Nairobi are rent-paying tenants rather than squatters who own their units. Owing to the high cost of housing (mostly rent), many of the city residents in the slums are constantly searching for cheaper housing options. This churn not only contributes to ever-growing escalation of prices, but also considerable anomie and social disarticulation in slums. House rent was identified as a significant expenditure for most city residents in the both formal and informal settlements. Data on housing collected during the study revealed that a paltry 18 per cent of all city residents are homeowners while the rest rent. What is more, rental arrangements are highly informal. Just 3.6 per cent of the rent paying respondents reported to have any kind of formal agreements with their landlords.53 Unsurprisingly, conflicts over housing revolve largely around issues to do with rent.54 This should be viewed against the backdrop where one aspect of the post-2007 election violence and the attendant lawlessness, that clearly stood out in the Nairobi slums was the unhealthy landlord-tenant relationships55. The violence was characterised by the forceful displacement and evictions while areas such as Dandora and Mathare North saw deep-seated rent disputes escalating to violence56. The confrontational nature of relationships between landowners and tenants is publicly acknowledged. In another study it was noted that rent increases are normally enforced violently, often through hired thugs by landlords, which in most cases degenerates into violent confrontations.57 For example, a common news story relates to gruesome forms of violence arising from rental disputes. For example, a national newspaper – The Daily Nation – reported such a case:

…Thirteen members of an eviction squad were yesterday battered to death during a bloody battle in a rent dispute with furious tenants. Ten others were last night fighting for their lives at Kenyatta National Hospital. They were badly injured when, as part of a hired gang of about 100 youths, they went to evict rent defaulters in a six-storey building in Mathare North estate, Nairobi. But the tenants backed by other residents hurriedly armed themselves and engaged the eviction squad in a fierce fight that lasted more than 30 minutes. They first sealed off all escape routes and then closed in on the trapped youths, viciously attacking them with rocks, metal bars, hammers, axes and machetes. Nine of the squad already lay dead with 10 others critically injured …58

                                                                                                                         53 There exists, for purposes of regulating rents, a rent tribunal board. However, like other state led mechanisms, this board is largely confined to arbitrate rents in the formal housing markets. 54 However it is more pronounced amongst the lower segment of residents where it constitutes a significant portion of slum dwellers’ incomes and failure to pay leads to forced evictions by landlords or structure owners. 55 See Okombo and Sana (2010). 56 See Waki Report (2008). 57 See Katumanga (2006) and Anderson (2002).  58 See The Daily Nation (2003).

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There are many examples of violent relations between landlords and tenants. Indeed this followed from the 2007 post-election violence when some land owners actively discriminated against prospective tenants along ethnic or political grounds. During this period, urban slumlords were themselves dispossessed of their properties by their tenants after slum villages were turned into ethnic enclaves in the ensuing 2007 mayhem. In the wake of attempts by landholders to forcefully reclaim their properties with the support of armed police, tenants soon formed vigilante organizations to protect their neighborhoods (Agevi et al, 2008). Over the past decade, there has been a push for greater transparency, participation and inclusivity in planning and managing urban development, including in Nairobi. A more forceful opposition and civil society together with widely publicized incidents of evictions and demolitions59 have resulted in new and unprecedented pressure for the government to change its approach. Indeed, this shift has also been encouraged by agencies such as UN-Habitat and the World Bank, which encourage “slum upgrading and prevention” rather than slum erasure.60 These interventions have been moderately effective, though also routinely resisted by affected communities and opinion leaders.61 There are massive challenges confronting Nairobi in developing a more effective and inclusive housing stock. The estimated housing demand is roughly 150,000 units per year as compared to an annual housing production of roughly 20-30,000 units, (GoK, 2011). Due to the prohibitive cost of housing and the persistent insecure tenure held by the majority, most city residents acknowledge that the government is best placed to build cheap/affordable housing. And yet housing development through the National Housing Corporation supported by the government has tended to benefit the middle class and civil servants62. In an effort to improve the lives of the slum dwellers, the Kenyan government and UN-HABITAT initiated the so-called Kenya Slum Upgrading Program (KENSUP) in 2004. The main objective of the scheme is to improve the livelihoods of people living and working in the slums and informal settlements. A pilot project was initiated in Kibera to address the improvement of physical infrastructure, social infrastructure and shelter improvement63. Empowerment and participation of the community is an integral part of this initiative. The government, determined to deliver on the ambitious Kenya Vision

                                                                                                                         59 An uneasy truce between informal settlement dwellers and the authorities, the demolitions abruptly resumed this time driven primarily by fear over terrorism threats. As part of the social re-engineering a progressive evictions bill 2010 has been published to guide future evictions. 60 See Government of Kenya (2004) and Gulyani ( 2002). 61 A case at hand is the upgrading of Kibera slum-one of the largest slum settlement in Kenya. Even after very extensive consultations before the start of the project, structure owners took the government to court resisting the project.  62 See Government of Kenya (2008). 63 See Government of Kenya (2011, 2005).

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2030,64 has partnered with the World Bank to roll out the Kenya Informal Settlement Improvement Project (KISIP). This project, that covers 15 of the largest cities in Kenya, seeks to strengthen land tenure security, enhance participatory planning, and improve infrastructure informal settlements. Efforts to address inadequate housing, particularly for the low-income groups have not accrued the expected results due to poor coordination between the state and non-state actors involved. Transportation Urban resilience is also conditioned by the proximity and access to roads and transport infrastructure services. The proximity of sources of employment shapes the ability of informal settlement residents to gain sustained livelihoods, which have a great bearing on their abilities to move up and outwards of poverty. This assessment found that transport costs and services are highly unpredictable and unreliable in Nairobi. Moreover, road maintenance in slums has been virtually non-existent, contributing to constraints on physical, and ultimately, social mobility. The sector has also been under siege by vigilante groups who exhort money from the crew and owners.65 Nairobi city currently lacks an integrated and organised public transport system that would be able to keep pace with ever-growing demand arising from population growth. The existing system instead, is dominated by a complex arrangement involving both formal and informal bus and taxi services. This however, has not always been the case. Indeed, the Kenya Bus Service was initiated in 1934 as the sole legal provider of public transport services (Aduwo, 1972: p.123). It was jointly owned by the United Transport Overseas Ltd (75%) and the Nairobi City Council (25%)66. But the service was discontinued in 2004 partly attributed to intense competition from informal players as well as newly enforced traffic rules that outlawed public service vehicles (PSVs) carrying standing passengers67. In addition, the collapse of their insurer Kenya national Assurance Company compounded their operations from resulting liabilities (Personal communication with Mbugua, 2011).68 More recently, the public transport sector has been dominated by Matatus which are privately-operated PSVs with a carrying capacity of 14 to 25 passengers. They constitute the backbone of the transportation system in Nairobi.

                                                                                                                         64 Kenya Vision 2030 is the country’s long-term socio-economic blue print that seeks to transform the country into a middle-income county by the year 2030. 65 For the purposes of this assessment, the term “vigilantes” is used to refer to amorphous group rather than the conventional term related to community self-security apparatus. 66 See Chitere and Kibua, (2003-2004).  67 Initially when the buses were licensed they were allowed to carry 44 sitting and 40 standing passengers and the loss of the standing passengers was a big revenue loss for the company and thus the continued operations were untenable. 68 Dickson Mbugua is the Chairman of Matatu Welfare Association; an association that brings together all PSV stakeholders and advocates for their wellbeing. He was interviewed by Elijah Agevi.

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The Matatu industry came into being in the 1960s in response to the populist announcement from the first president of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, in which private vehicles were allowed to offer passenger services without any legal of policy framework. The industry continued, unregulated, for subsequent three decades (Aduwo, 1992). Early in the 1990s, an era characterized by the agitation for a return to multi-party, the Matatu industry entered the political realm and the control of the industry became a competitive undertaking and violence crept in as an enforcement tool. Initially, the then ruling party youth wing had assumed an unofficial control of the industry and it could no longer single-handedly assert its control. With the prospect of losing income from extortion, levying of illegal taxes and rents, the youth wing metamorphosis into youth gangs operating from designated bus stops. One of the most notable youth gangs in the early days was known as the Kamjesh69 emerged in Dandora. Using the threat of violence earned from years of youth wing politicking, Kamjesh quickly managed to control most of the lucrative Matatu routes in Nairobi.70 Most of these routes were primarily those that led to the much denser and poorer eastern areas of Nairobi where two of the informal study sites were located. Around the same time as the emergence of Kamjesh, an amorphous quasi-religious group known as ‘Mungiki71’ appeared. While starting its existence as a rural entity, by the late 1990s the Mungiki soon began making inroads into Nairobi. A key aspiration was the control of the lucrative Matatu industry. A massive and violent battle for control of Matatu termini soon ensued in the streets of Nairobi.72 And Kamjesh was overpowered. Interviews with residents in both the formal and informal settlements acknowledged the disruptive nature of public transport and attested to the presence of these cartels and vigilantes as being most visible in the public transport sector. The ascent of the National Rainbow Coalition NARC government into power in 2003 ushered in changes in the overall transport policies. Specifically, NARC introduced reforms aimed at enhancing passenger safety and comfort as well as instilling order in the chaotic industry. The ‘Michuki rules’73 as they came to be known required vehicles to be fitted with speed governors, seatbelts and to only carry seated passengers while both the driver and tout were required to be uniformed to easily distinguish them. During

                                                                                                                         69 This is one of the tribal based political militias initially associated with Luo ethnic group and originally based in Dandora low-income area. 71 Mungiki is a quasi-religious, socio-political grouping associated with the Kikuyu tribe. 72 In April 2003 over 50 armed Mungiki attacked a matatu crew in Kayole estate in Nairobi and killed five people in the same area. In 2005, a Mungiki deaths squad murdered 14 defectors for spilling their secrets in Nairobi. In addition they were implicated in vicious fight for control of Matatu terminus whereby police officers were killed in Dandora. In early January 2006 gunmen allied to the sect shot and injured a senior police officer and constable in Nairobi. See Masese (2007).  73See Government of Kenya (2003).

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these massively popular reforms, owners of Matatus adjusted upwards transport fares to recoup the increased overheads associated with fitting vehicles with seatbelts and speed governors and reduced carrying capacity. The increased transport cost associated with the Michuki rules resulted in a large number of city residents, especially slum dwellers, resorting to walking to and from work as part of coping strategy. This was mainly occasioned by the low number of vehicles plying the various routes that were capitalizing on the demand74. Since then, the urban poor, who are dependent on the public transport, have on numerous occasions ended up paying more for Matatu services and have been exposed to higher risks of victimization. This has been exacerbated by the increased costs of living as well as stimulated by thuggery and lawlessness. Again, the evidence from the Matatu traffic is illustrative of the premiums the urban poor have to pay. For instance, on Routes 32/42 (Dandora), and 19/61 (Kayole, Komarock) matatus tend to hike their fares by 25%75 from 8.00pm as a risk premium to owners and franchisees of Matatus. In a bid to respond to increasing cases of highway banditry and carjacking, Matatu proprietors have had to purchase security-screening gadgets. Those without them often drive their vehicles to police stations for body searches. Most matatus now avoid picking up passengers en route at night. This shift in the Matatu sector and related security premiums has served as a drain on the local economy. It has also undermined the resilience of informal residents, especially, during the early evening when many people would prefer to get home before dusk and in the ensuing panic exits from the CBD impacting negatively on the formal economy. The assessment also revealed how the city’s roads are not only inadequate but are not properly designed to handle the ever increasing traffic, contributing to delays in accessing and moving out of the city. The high incidences of highway robberies continue to marginalize the already disadvantaged poor76. The city’s poor have also been forced to give up on seeking work in parts of the city too far to walk and too dangerous or expensive to reach by Matatu. The Matatu industry as a whole is affected by extensive corruption and resistance to reform. There is also a parasitic relationship between the traffic law enforcement officers and Matatu crews (TI 2008)77. The latest attempts by government to regulate the industry involved the requirement for vehicle owners to form and register Savings and Credit Cooperatives (SACCOs).78 The overall aim was to gradually graduate these

                                                                                                                         74 See Graeff (2010). 75 See Katumanga and Cliffe (2005). 76 Ibid  77 See Transparency International (2008). 78 SACCO is an acronym for savings and credit cooperative applicable to any type of industry. A group must register at the Ministry of Co-operative Development and Marketing to become a recognized

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informal actors into formal institutional actors that could begin to engage with the government in a more organized manner. Similarly, confronted by the traffic congestion in the city a directive to cease registration of low capacity 14-seater Matatus and have them replaced by higher capacity vehicles has been issued. It remains to be seen whether this will be actualized given that the country is preparing for an election at the end of 2012. Another major constraint relates to the state of transport infrastructure itself. One key feature of the road network in Nairobi is the fact that roads are largely designed for vehicular traffic with almost non-existent pedestrian walkways. In the informal settlements, as the study found, paved walkways were completely lacking, a major irony given that very high proportion of traffic there is on foot. The movement of women and children in and out of informal settlements was noticeably restricted by bad access roads especially during the rainy season.79 The perception of residents showed that majority associate poor roads with high crime rates and many acknowledged that the absence of roads makes informal settlements areas inaccessible especially during emergency incidents a situation that prevails in some sections to date. Noticeably, in order to cope with the bad conditions of roads, groups of youths emerged in some neighbourhoods to remedy the situation by filling up gaping potholes and waterlogged sections of the roads for a small fee. “Roads” in Eastleigh, Nairobi80

In addition to the poor design, road conditions in Nairobi have experienced significant state of decline and neglect under several municipal administrations. A widespread reliance on state institutions for road construction has created a kind of paralysis amongst community residents. And

yet expenditures on road infrastructure were confirmed by key informants to be stagnant. As a result, city residents have resorted to adapting to appalling road conditions. In Eastleigh, a neighbourhood bordering the study areas (and which features a complex political economy within Nairobi controlled by ethnic Somali traders), the residents have developed short-distance taxis that help residents evade the often muddy and waterlogged streets. The zone has in effect emerged as a 24-hour                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        SACCO. In the case of Matatus, a group will register to become a SACCO identifying itself mainly with the route where it operates. 79 Long rains March to May while short rains are from October to December.  80 See http://afcteamafrica2011.c.

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business hub with uninterrupted market services, and this in spite of passable infrastructure. Education and employment This assessment confirms the nexus between improved education standards and increasing social benefits as well as local forms of resilience. Patterns of income levels indicate that neighbourhoods with high proportion of individuals who have attained education up to tertiary level tend to have higher incomes81 as opposed to the informal settlements where on average majority of population have minimal education (most don’t have post-secondary education and thereby subsist on depressed incomes mainly from informal employment and casual labour). A critical factor shaping urban resilience, then, is the real and relative access to quality education. The assessment detected a highly unequal distribution of educated populations between middle- and low-income settlements. Statistics from the assessment indicate that roughly 50 per cent of the informal settlement population have attained primary school education. Much fewer, however, have made the transition secondary to tertiary institutions. The overwhelming majority (73%) from Nyayo Estate – a middle-income neighbourhood – reported having attained higher education/university compared to a very small number (2.1%) and (1.9 %) in Majengo and Mabatini respectively. Educational attainment by neighborhood

Within the city’s diverse educational services and facilities, residential segregation of the pre-independence era resulted in systematic and uneven spatial distribution of

                                                                                                                         81 Tertiary education in Kenya is not necessarily a guarantee to employment, but provides an avenue for such opportunities.  

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public services including schools.82 This balanced out in the period after independence when formerly European schools were opened up to other ethnic groups. During the 1970s and 1980s the older housing estates in Nairobi served as city council primary schools and were planned as part of a wider integrated education program. But confronted with reduced funding and the gradual collapse of social housing schemes, the council stopped supporting education facilities for the growing city. Astonishingly, just a single public school has been built in Nairobi in the past decade.83 Compounding the education crisis is increased competition for admissions, overcrowding, dwindling performance as well as declining investment in the teaching facilities amongst others saw the ebbing of academic standards within city public schools.84 The introduction of cost sharing systems85 in running of city public schools required the poor to pay for their education, often for the first time. Focus group discussions undertaken as part of this assessment revealed that school attendance of children from low-income families and female children were most strongly affected by changes in school fees costs.86 The apparent failings in the existing public model encouraged the rapid emergence of “private” and “informal” schools to cater for both middle income and low-income families. Informal schools administered by individuals as private enterprises began emerging in informal settlements over the last decade. Most of them are housed in small semi-permanent structures within the neighbourhoods and operate outside state regulation and guidelines. The schools have basic facilities but have been found to be effective, affordable and practical especially for early childhood education. By contrast, public schools are considered to be exceedingly congested and require travel for long distances, in turn generating safety risks for young students. Even so, the educational achievement in many informal settlements continues to be well below that of more affluent Nairobi. Predictably, those areas featuring comparatively low education also suffer from relatively higher rates of unemployment. Indeed, the assessment observed a strong and valid link the absence of competitive social, professional or vocational skills with meaningful employment. It also noted a concentration of low education amongst the

                                                                                                                         82 See Olima (2001). 83 Just 23 per cent (67 out of 203) public primary schools are available to slum communities in Nairobi – and less than 5 are inside slum areas. See http://www.elimuyetu.net/. The Elimu yetu Coalition is an umbrella organization that brings together a number of leading organization and individuals with an interest in the Education sector. 84 See Keriga et al (2009). 85 Ibid. 86 Most households in the informal settlements still hold cultural beliefs that do not place a premium on girl child education. In the event of lack of school fees the girl child is more likely to be prevailed upon to drop out.  

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youthful population – particularly those most susceptible to recruitment into criminal or militant causes. The so-called ‘Jua Kali’ or informal sector, Kenya’s cottage industry, currently absorbs a sizeable proportion of new job seekers annually.87 Figures obtained during the study indicate that the city’s formal sector employs about 25 per force of the labour force of employed residents of informal settlements while the informal sector accounts for up to 75 per cent. There is a significant amount of economic activity taking place in the inner city that is not reflected in official government statistics on income and employment. Over the past two decades the number of people engaged in the informal sector increased by my over 30 per cent.88 This underground economy has been significant source of income for the survival of many people who would otherwise not be involved in the mainstream employment or commerce. In addition, the informal sector covers small-scale activities that are semi-organized, unregulated and employs the use of low and simple technologies while employing collectively large number of residents.89 Key informants regard the involvement of many slum dwellers in this sector as something of a catch-22.90 On one hand, it provides employment to a very large section of people falling within the lowest income quintile and helps them (and their families) sustain their daily needs. On the other hand, the fact that it’s operating parallel to the mainstream commerce and regulation denies the government considerable revenue potential. Yet, it is also the case that lower-income earners are the least likely to benefit from public goods living as they do in under-serviced residential neighbourhoods that are not prioritized in the national budgeting.91 Many actively resist paying taxes or user fees since they feel marginalized and excluded from the existing service system altogether. In the absence of clear “rules of engagement”, the attitude of public authorities to informal sector traders has been harsh and punitive. It has also become subject to exceptional levels of political manipulation. For example, over time there has been growing disagreement between the political and technocratic arms of Nairobi’s city authorities over the regulation of informal trading activities, particularly in the                                                                                                                          87 The informal or ‘jua kali’ (from Swahili: “hot sun”) sector is mostly involved in the small-scale cottage industry and has been playing an important role in absorbing the unemployed in the labour force that are not able to get into the modern sector. 88 See Rakodi (1997). 89 These activities include auto-repair shops, painting, carpentry, shoe making, crafts, hairdressing, driving and domestic service to petty trading and hawking of various commodities. 90 See Katumanga and Cliffe (2005).  91 Despite talk of economic equity by the government, richer 10 per cent of the population of Nairobi account for 45.2 per cent of the city’s income. The poorest 10 per cent account for only 1.6 per cent of the city’s income. Approximately 46 per cent of youth and 49 per cent of women are unemployment and remain economically very unequal with a gini coefficient of 0.57 slightly above the national average of 0.55 (UN-Habitat, 2010).

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relocation of hawkers. Recently though, a determined and well organized informal sector has taken over operating from partitioned business spaces in the Central Business District (CBD) that were formerly occupied by formal business. The model as form of positive resilience, involves cost sharing of business premises by many small-scale holders who would get a single stall in a building and sell their wares. These traders are licensed by the CCN and often registered with the government as business entities. Increased poverty level due to high cost of living amongst most residents in slums has stirred shopkeepers to stock and sell commodities in very smaller quantities than the factory packaging. During this assessment, for example, it was observed that in the informal settlements and other poorer neighbourhoods, the shopkeepers were selling cooking fats in lots of spoonful for as low as 3 KES. The smallest factory packaged unit for the same cooking fat would cost around 25 KES. This of course is competing with daily household needs of flour, water, vegetables, paraffin and sugar among others. Further the residents bought their groceries on ‘daily-need’ basis; whereby they would only buy what they needed to cook or consume for that day. This phenomenon has quickly picked up all across Kenya and even some, manufacturers and service providers started packaging and selling goods in small packages retailing for as little as Sh5 in order not to lose the market of the poor. To supplement their food, several families have been observed planting vegetables and fruits in public plots in Nairobi and other African cities.92 This has been observed in the eastern section of Nairobi where most of the settlements border main rivers of Nairobi, Mathare, and Mtoine. While this is quite commendable invention by the residents the water from these rivers is highly contaminated by heavy metals and sewage and though no in-depth studies have been undertaken to establish the effect of the use of this water to human health in those areas, it’s more likely to be a health hazard in the long run. Increased involvement of women and children in income-generating activities or labour market is another means of coping with economic crisis.93 Provision of Electricity and Street lighting For many years, residents of the informal settlements have lacked the services of electric lighting due to the Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC), a public utility, insisting on ownership deeds of property in question to deliver service. As noted above, however, most of the informal settlement residents lack land tenure documentation. Absence of electricity or any other form of street lighting was seen during the assessment, however, as creasing an enabling environment for high incidences of criminal victimization, particularly in the narrow alleys that characterize the

                                                                                                                         92 See Rakodi and Devas (1993); House et al (1993); Dasgupta (1992a).  93 See Boyden and Holden (1999) and Gilbert (1994).  

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settlements. Conventionally, slum dwellers have had to rely on kerosene lamps and candles for lighting as was confirmed by the study. Yet these sources of lighting have also routinely been associated with fire breakouts that have had devastating effects due to resulting inaccessibility in the congested settlements the congestion of the structures. The practice of dangerous power tapping – or pirating – from the grid and distribution was rampant in the informal settlements, mostly arising as a response to caveats that existed in provision of the service. The origin of this practice is unknown and at this stage it can only be assumed to have been driven by demand existing within the slum, and also to a certain extent organized and managed by criminal cartels. As previously observed this formed part of the survival mechanisms adopted by the residents in absence the state provider. Concerns about the impact of illegal connections on the grid led to change in policy by the government and service provider. More positively, an innovative ‘slum electrification’ scheme aimed at supplying electricity power to these settlements at favorable conditions is in the process of being rolled out. The current initiative builds on an earlier public-private partnership in 2002 called “Adopt a Light”.94 This current initiative is being supported by the City Council and seeks to install streetlights in major highways and high lighting masts in Nairobi slum areas.95 These and related activities are said to have greatly improved security but more importantly enabled small scale businesses in the informal settlements operate for much longer periods enhancing household incomes. As is so often the case with many City Council initiatives, however, there are fears that the program may not be scaled-up and be terminated prematurely owing to political infighting. Water, Sanitation, Solid Waste and Health Services Water provision represents one of the most contested services for the majority of residents in Nairobi. The growing problem of water supply is due in part to the rapidly growing population.96 Problems concerning water provisioning within Nairobi’s slums are less about water scarcity, however, and more about unequal distribution. However, for those who have access, many complain about the high cost of buying water in the informal settlements where households spend between 2/= and 5/= for a twenty litre

                                                                                                                         94 “Adopt A Light” is an advertising company based in Nairobi that had a near monopoly to use council infrastructure such as electricity poles to mount and sell advertising space and installed high mast lights in selected slum areas.  95 This scheme coupled with slum public lighting system (high voltage lights placed on 45 feet high masts with 360 degrees view to light up open spaces in informal settlements) has seen much improvement lighting and security. See www.steadmangroup.com.  96 See Obudho, (1992).

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container. These costs could accumulate add up to 900/= per month (equivalent to US$ 15) which is higher than what households with piped water spend.97 The dynamics of water provisioning in informal settlements are complex. Water queues are not uncommon in the slum area where they depend on particular water points. In sites visited, it is also the case that water vendors operate hand drawn carts and ferry water from questionable sources such as sewers and ditches. Shortages of water also often require residents to avoid bathing or washing, further aggravating disease and infection. Most residents often resort to harvesting rainwater or collecting water from broken pipes, though respondents considered virtually all of the water they use as dangerous to their health due to contamination. The disparity in accessing running or potable water is clearly illustrated in figure 6 where 98% of residents in the Nyayo Estate enjoy piped water in compared to a low numbers of 13.6% and 23.4% in Mabatini and Majengo respectively. Percentage of households with running water

The provision of sanitation services is also faced with numerous challenges. In the 1990s, it was estimated that just over half of Nairobi’s population was serviced by waterborne sewerage systems whereas the remainder of the population relied on septic tanks, conservation tanks and pit latrines.98 The existing metropolitan treatment plants have inadequate capacity and this has resulted in the disposal of untreated sewage into Nairobi River and other small streams. Most of the toilet waste enters the sewerage mains with improperly treated sewage and uncollected garbage contributing to a vicious cycle of water pollution, water borne diseases, and environmental degradation.99 Of significance, and as observed in this assessment, is the fact that the majority of the poor in Nairobi use shared pit latrines and which in most cases are emptied through unconventional sanitary methods.                                                                                                                          97 See Wanjala etal (2010).  98 See Obudho (1992). 99 See Tibaijuka (2007).

Mabatini   Majengo   Nyayo  Estate  yes   13.6   23.4   98  No   86.4   76.6   2  

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Sanitation service providers in Nairobi’s informal settlements are dominated by a large number of formal and informal actors. Sanitation facilities are sources of wealth and assets to some people. Individual ownership of toilets can be converted into a “user fee” for outsiders. In some cases, modest sized cartels have assumed control of the management of latrines, gradually driving up prices. Where there are no sanitation services, residents instead or forced to relieve themselves on the roadsides, trenches, fields, riverside and bushes. In some cases it was noted during the study that some other slum-dwellers resort to the use of plastic bags (locally called ‘flying toilets’), which a previous study noted that 80 per cent of excreta is disposed of in this manner. The indiscriminate disposal of human waste has led to effluent being dumped in the nearby rivers on the rooftops giving rise to environmental degradation and is often linked to frequent break-outs of waterborne diseases prevalent in slum areas. The general apathy of the residents led to uncollected wastes piling up in several parts of the city in and in particular the slum settlements. To arrest the deteriorating situation, private firms and informal groups emerged and with the support of authorities were instituted to complement the City Council of Nairobi and the Central Government in waste disposal. This has been done without comprehensive laws regarding their existence and mandate but rather prompted by demand for the services. Compounding the health service woes is the fact that the city health centres have continuously suffered under-investment and outright neglect resulting in loss of confidence by most city residents. Nairobi residents who live in crowded, unplanned or inadequately serviced settlements are reportedly frequently ill with diarrheal, intestinal parasites, colds, influenza, and skin infections.100 Many residents, as the study found out, rely on the over-the-counter medication101 and unregulated private clinics. Medical insurance cover uptake is very low among the sampled population and stands at only 1% for the none-poor population and none within the informal settlements. The biggest deterrent to visiting hospitals for minor illnesses was the cost of the treatment. The use of traditional healers and remedies has also been highly reported amongst the low-income groups. An extreme coping mechanism observed to counter the challenges of poor health among the residents was largely based on faith. The majority of Nairobi city residents are known to strongly identify with religion.

                                                                                                                         100 Compounding the health service provision is that Nairobi’s informal settlements has some of the highest rates of HIV and TB in the country, diseases that exacerbate the effects of poor dietary intake and are highly associated with acute malnutrition. 101 This is where the people approach a pharmacy, explain their symptoms and are given medicine. This is a common practice for most residents of Nairobi. It has been found out that even among the well-up population who can afford private hospitals and even those who also possess medical insurance  

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Security Provision The United Nations has repeatedly, in the last decade, characterized Nairobi as one of the most dangerous capital cities in the world. Some economic analysts cite insecurity as a major deterrent to tourism, foreign investment and economic growth in the country.102To be sure, several factors have been associated with the high incidences of crime in Kenya’s urban areas, particularly Nairobi. Institutional failures are often singled out for the rise in the levels of crime and violence. Despite considerable efforts by the government to improve the capacity of the criminal justice system institutions, these are still largely ineffective and corruption remains rampant and a major challenge103. The police force is considered to be among the most corrupt institutions in the country. Kenyans, it has been noted, are increasingly doubtful that the police are able to provide the basic good of security (Human Rights Watch 2008; Gimode 2001, World Bank 2010). Lack of adequate policing and judicial services is considered to be a key contributing factor to escalation of crime and violence in Nairobi. This has been worsened by the assignment of police to sentry duties, close protection bodyguard positions for the country’s elite, and the task of escorting cash in transit vehicles, amongst other miscellaneous activities. All this has been happening against the backdrop of a country featuring a police to civilian ratio of 1:900 against a UN recommended 1:400 (GoK 2011). However, perhaps few phenomena illustrate the erosion of public confidence in the police force and policing better than the privatization of security in the city. Most respondents in this assessment expressed increased public anxiety about levels of crime within the city and perception of the capacity of the police to tackle criminality, which effectively has spawned a vibrant security, services industry. Perception of the capacity of police to prevent, detect and control crime Mabatini in Mathare Majengo Nyayo Estate Very good job 12.6 7.5 14.1 Fairly good job 37.9 26.9 46.5 Fairly poor job 35.0 32.3 21.2 Very poor job 14.6 32.3 10.1 Don’t know 0.0 1.1 8.1 The ready availability of firearms to a very large extent might begin to provide insights on why crimes in Nairobi are very violent and with high fatalities. The assessment largely confirmed this common belief on ready availability of firearms with interviewed residents indicating that guns – including “community” guns – were available when needed. One survey suggests about 10 per cent of the urban population possesses a                                                                                                                          102 See Abrahamsen and Williams (2005). 103 See World Bank (2010).  

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handgun or rifle, though more research is likely required.104 Responses from the FGDs indicated there is already ownership of illicit firearms in private hands as well as sources for ‘guns for hire’, lending credence to the widely held belief about police renting out of guns as observed by others.105 The motivation for “illegal” guns is, according to residents in informal settlements, mostly to commit criminal acts. It is also important to note that offences of sexual nature are increasingly being reported – especially in informal settlements. The majority of these crimes happen within the home environment while others occur during criminal attacks. Disturbingly, the victims are getting younger with and male and elderly victims also having been reported. An analysis of Nairobi Women Gender Recovery Centre (GRC) statistics shows that out of 2,338 survivors of sexual assault received by the hospital in the period of years 2007-2008, 71 per cent of the survivors came from informal settlements. According to some key informants, slum residents are normally twice more likely to experience sexual and gender-based violence when trying to get access to water and sanitation services due to the insecurity associated with facilities. Given their vulnerability women have had to vary their pattern of behavior. A number of responses gathered from women residents indicate that women tend to ensure that they get home early to avoid falling victim to criminal attacks. Given the danger of exposure along crowded roads, women also tend to avoid walking opting instead to use whatever means of transport. High crime rates and the inability of public security services to provide adequate protection are the main factors driving the expansion of private security arrangements in Kenya including Nairobi.106 In the last few decades, the city administration and state security organs have failed to meet their expected security mandates. As a result, crime and levels of insecurity rose sharply, particularly in the capital of Nairobi. The resulting security gap has given way to an array of coping mechanisms adopted by different communities to cope with the insecurity.107 In the selected control study area – Nyayo Embakasi – besides being a gated community, the residents have hired the services of two private security firms. Conversely, the story is different in the in informal settlements where the vigilantes are the order of the day. In fairly wealthier neighbourhoods, resident associations are constituted to address among others issues of safety and security in their areas. This was confirmed during the FGD in the control study area. The Estate is represented through the Nyayo Embakasi Residents Association. This is a growing phenomenon in wealthier parts of the city. The scale of private security provision in Nairobi is astonishing. There are reportedly over 2,000 private security companies registered in Kenya, many of these based in the                                                                                                                          104 See Stavrou (2002). 105 See Muggah (2007), Katumanga (2005), and Ngunyi (2011). 106 See Abrahamsen and Williams (2005). 107 See Ngunyi et al (2011).  

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capital city. A significant proportion of Kenyans in urban areas rely on these providers for their daily security.108 The private security industry has therefore played a notable role in promoting the basic security for wider trade, investment and growth, and constitutes, in a fashion, a resilience mechanism. However the interaction, cooperation and coordination of these private security firms with the functions of regular police force have been unstructured, often inefficient and ineffective. Against this backdrop, the regular police have expressed fear that the private security providers are themselves a source of insecurity and they assert that these poorly paid personnel collude with criminals and conspire against their clients. In the slum areas, perceptions of insecurity have spurred the growth of vigilantes and other community security committees who exercise control outside the formal institution of the state. They conduct illegal and often lucrative informal economic activities by, replacing the state in not only providing protection and sense of security, but also basic services at a fee. In such areas, public authorities are normally incapable of providing basic services including security and when it intervenes; the involvement of the police is normally in a reactive and disciplinary manner rather than protective.109The total absence of state law and order has bred a ‘do it yourself’ culture among the under-serviced residents of Nairobi. The semblance of “normalcy” provided by these vigilante groups has allowed the people living in the Nairobi’s slum neighbourhoods to go about their daily lives without the reliance on state security apparatus. Testimonies from militia-infested areas reveal a demand for their services in areas for dispute resolution, debt collection, security and protection.110 Evidently, it seems that the process of accessing services like water, electricity and housing has become more “efficient” when undertaken within the confines of the informality. In absence of the state and its statutory bodies, the informal law is enforced ruthlessly. Services are thus provided and paid for in a climate of coercion and intimidation. Accordingly, this notion of non-state law enforcement is also accompanied by the belief that forms of justice and coercion, not sanctioned by the state, can be legitimate in the process of restoring order.111 Conversely, the rise of vigilantism has led to an increase in crime levels in some areas. Vigilantism as a deterrence strategy in the slum areas has failed to fill the security gap. Combined with the police failure to deal with insecurity, this has led people to employ extreme forms of violence against suspects.112

                                                                                                                         108 See Ngugi et al (2004). 109 See Abello and Pearce (2009). 110 Ibid. 111 See Baker (2000).  112 See Ruteere and Pommerolle (2003).

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With tacit official recognition, this flawed form of community policing is undermining the rule of law and is effectively normalizing rough justice in the city. Yet most people surveyed in this assessment tend to see the police as slow, inept, corrupt and unlikely to convict criminals or deliver justice to victims. Moreover, the relationships between allegedly corrupt police and politicians is described as ‘socially incestuous’113 with a legacy that well predates the violent 2007 election cycle. As a result, there is a growing reliance on neighbourhood security surveillance systems administered by communities themselves. These have themselves started to re-organize settlement patterns in the slums along distinct ethnic lines. A growing dilemma is how to deal with the combination of private security firms, community protection and vigilante groups – all of them expressions of local resilience – which command the recognition of residents as well as a number of authorities. Whereas the responsibility for private security provision companies falls under the Ministry of Provincial Administration and Internal Security, there are no regulations especially covering this sector and there exists no special requirement for their registration and licensing. Recent concern and pressure from clients as well as lobbying by the security industry has led to formulation of a draft bill that seeks to regulate the sector.114 Likewise, as observed by Ngunyi et al (2011) the police have yet to set out clear rules or regulations for community policing. As for the vigilante groups, there appears to be no clear rules of engagement at all. More recently, the City Council of Nairobi, with technical support of UN-HABITAT, has designed and implemented an urban crime reduction strategy that builds around more innovative approaches to prevention. The strategy is built on the four interrelated pillars: socially oriented measures towards groups at risk, urban design and physical improvement, improved law enforcement, and community empowerment and good governance. Administered in a small number of “pilot sites”, these efforts have yet to be formally evaluated. The program is also exceedingly controversial as is, predictably, any discussion of national or metropolitan security sector reforms in the country. Conclusions The challenges faced by urban dwellers in accessing basic municipal services, especially in chronically violent informal settlements, are not unique to Nairobi. This is a common problem in all major urban centres in Kenya and indeed many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that are grappling with increasing urban populations and slum growth. It is not surprising, therefore, that the challenges uncovered by the assessment with regards to

                                                                                                                         113 Ibid. 114 See Abrahamsen and Williams (2005).  

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accessing services, competing providers and violence reflects are hardly unique to Nairobi. A pressing dilemma raised by this report, however, is the overlapping and contradictory form of urban governance and service delivery in the city. The collusion of public authorities with both formal and informal providers has generated a number of unintended, and often violent, consequences. Local level cartels and organized crime groups often flourish in the slum – whether through extorting protection money, enacting levies, receiving preferential subsidies, pirating public utilities – precisely because of the cover proffered by the elite. This dilemma is compounded by the systematic neglect and stigmatization of informal areas – home to two thirds of Nairobi’s population – and the low status accorded to them in municipal plans and development strategies. Another finding from the assessment is the multiplicity and complex interplay of service providers in both formal and informal neighbourhoods. While some have innovative and offer superior services, many have not produced the desired outcome. In some cases this is due to the absence of a clear regulatory environment that might better condition the “rules of the game”. In the case of sanitation, education or private security services, a more transparent and legitimate framework that sets standards and benchmarks – with enforcement – could yield improvements. What Nairobi’s informal settlements underline is the ways in which it has become a “self help city” with many residents left up to their own ingenuity and social networks to fend for themselves. Women were found to be the most affected by the variability of service provision within the informal settlements and mostly where access to water and sanitation was concerned. Most of the coping mechanisms adopted by informal settlement residents to deal with challenges involving access to basic services were found to be within the borderline of acceptability but nevertheless quite practical in their very fluid circumstances. Some of these coping mechanisms infringe on the wellbeing of other residents and the healthy survival of the society at large and are not sustainable for an emergent economy like Kenya’s. A fundamental rethinking of the “informal” is required in the Nairobi setting if positive forms of resilience are to be nurtured. Slum dwellers are seldom perceived by policy makers and the establishment as anything less than “squatters” and a reserve labour force. Some feel that if services were to be legitimately installed, it would “legitimize” the settlements existence. It would require governments to acknowledge slums on their topographic maps and master plans. Legitimizing the slum would confirm their worst existential fears. But to continue denying them may risk much worse. Informal settlements are swelling, not contracting, and are set to continue their irresistible growth. Land prices are rising at an astronomical rate. Informal settlements are set to

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mushroom within and around the city, and the authorities are still in the dark as to how to engage. Nevertheless, it is hoped that the transition process in line with the Constitution of Kenya 2010 and the Urban Areas and Cities Act 2011 will provide an opportunity for the orderly achievement of sustainable urbanization, participatory governance and management of Nairobi.

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