26. COMPARATIVE LEARNING THROUGH COMMUNITY EXCHANGE: A conversation with Jack Makau and Temilade Sesan

In this episode - recorded on location in Kampala, Uganda during an African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC) workshop in late April - we delve into questions of how urban communities in informal settlements can build power through their own forms of knowledge and data collection, and how two-way exchanges between cities can strengthen this process. 

For the main discussion, Tom was there in person with two of the research programme’s ‘City Manager’s - Jack Makau (City Manager for Nairobi) and Temilade Sesan (City Manager for Lagos). The discussion is first introduced by Beth and Tom who set the scene and provide some background, and following the main conversation they also offer concluding reflections. 

In this episode, we explore: 

• How can community-led data collection and analysis help to shift the levers of urban power?
• What role can action research play in changing the attitudes of governments towards the urban poor?
• How can we move from individual to collective solutions through community action and transnational learning?

Along the way, we consider how co-produced urban research with communities changes the kinds of questions we ask as researchers; the challenges of bringing government to the table to take community priorities seriously; and the role of civil society organizations and universities as intermediaries in this process.

Those interested in the issues and processes discussed here can delve further into the history through our discussion with Diana Mitlin in Episode 12 on 'Urban Informality and Translocal Learning'.

Jack Makau is Associate director of Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI) Kenya, and ACRC City Manager for Nairobi. In the course of his decades of work with SDI, he has worked to support communities collect data in over 400 informal settlements in cities across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Ghana, and Bukina Faso.

DR. Temilade Sesan is a Lecturer and Researcher at the Centre for Petroleum, Energy Economics and Law (CPEEL), University of Ibadan, Nigeria - and the ACRC City Manager for Lagos. Her research examines the socioeconomic dimensions of the food-energy-waste nexus in Africa, especially as they intersect with issues of the environment, gender, health and urban planning. 

Hosts:

Tom Goodfellow is Professor of Urban Development in the Global Development Institute, and CEO of the African Cities Research Consortium, University of Manchester.  His research focuses on the political economy of urban development and change in Africa, particularly the politics of urban land and transportation, conflicts around infrastructure and housing, and urban institutional change. (linkedin.com/in/tom-goodfellow-0b418441) 

Beth Perry is Professor of Urban Epistemics and Director of the Urban Institute at the University of Sheffield. Her research focuses on the relationships between urban expertise, governance and justice, underpinned by a commitment to co-producing collective intelligence across multiple scales to address complex urban challenges. She has worked in cities in Africa, Europe and the UK. (linkedin.com/in/itsbethperry)

Email feedback to: urbanradarpod@gmail.com

You can also follow us on instagram: @urbanradarpodcast

Thanks to the Universities of Sheffield and Manchester for providing time, resources and equipment to support this podcast. And to Sam Burgum, for post-production editing and promotion.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_03 0:10

Hello, and on this month's Urban Radar special feature, we ask, how can community-led data collection and analysis help to shift the levers of urban power?

SPEAKER_00 0:20

What role can action research play in changing the attitudes of governments towards the urban poor?

SPEAKER_03 0:25

And how can we move from individual to collective solutions through community action and transnational learning? Welcome to Urban Radar, the podcast that takes an urban lens on current affairs. I'm Tom Goodfellow, Professor of Urban Development at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

And I'm Beth Perry, Director of the Urban Institute and Professor of Urban Epistemics at the University of Sheffield. So, Tom, you've had a really exciting week last week, haven't you? Because you uh were in Kampala um as part of the African Cities Research Consortium uh visit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:55

Yeah, yeah, we were in Kampala. It was very intense, um, very interesting. It was uh for me, it was a return to an old haunt. It's where I started my academic career, did a lot of my PhD research in Kampala, so it feels a bit like a second home. It was great to be back. But of course, we were mostly in conference rooms having a lot of detailed discussions about this research program that I'm going to be uh leading from the summer onwards.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Very exciting. Do you want to tell us a bit about it? Because it's going to form the backbone of our feature.

SPEAKER_03 1:22

Yes, absolutely. So some listeners might know this, others might not. But of course, we're talking here about the African Cities Research Consortium, which is a large program funded by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office to explore basically urban challenges in cities across Africa and particular issues identified by communities that they can then try to address through their own solutions. And so the research network is set up to support basically community-led solutions in cities, particularly in informal settlements within cities. And we work primarily in five countries across Africa, which we'll say a bit more about in the discussion.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

I have to ask though, how did it feel going back, knowing that you're going to be like leading this consortium on African cities research? But then also you were there as a PhD student.

SPEAKER_03 2:08

Yeah, I mean that was quite strange in some ways. I mean, the thing is with ACRC, it's very much collectively led. There's a large senior management team all with distinct roles, and it's a program I've been involved in in the past. So this has been a gradual process of becoming involved with this program, taking on different roles within this program. But it it is quite a striking contrast to being this lone researcher as a PhD student, traveling about. I mean, the main difference I notice is that in those days I would always get on the motorcycle taxis, regardless of the safety concerns at any time of day, uh, and be very much kind of zooming about on my own, setting up meetings, you know, traveling throughout the city as this individual, um, and learning more and more about the local communities and the politics there. Whereas now I'm embedded within this real structure of organizations and agencies and people who are deeply steeped in the local politics and the local organizational sort of networks. Um, and we're moving around together and talking together. So the whole thing is obviously much more collective.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

Yeah, and I think we'll come to that in the discussion as well that you have um with your colleagues, because um, of course, that movement from an individual loan researcher towards a centre that's trying to really build capacity and act as a facilitator to use Jack's words, um, is really important, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 3:24

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Do you want to say anything about our guests?

SPEAKER_03 3:28

Yeah, so I'll say a little bit. So I'll I'll say briefly, if and apologies to people who know this, but just to make clear what this discussion is about and the and what it's predicated to.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

And of course, I wasn't there.

SPEAKER_03 3:37

And you weren't there, Beth, which was a great shame. I'm hoping we hope to get you there next time somehow. Um But we were we are now in a phase of the African Cities Research Consortium's work, which is known as the implementation phase, following an earlier foundation phase. In that earlier phase, there was a lot of research to understand the nature of urban challenges in different domains. So we did research on housing, on land, on basic infrastructure, on youth capabilities, on safety and security, for example. And those were kind of background scoping reports. Where we are now is implementing action research projects.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

And for those It's the most exciting bit, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 4:11

In many ways, it's the most, yeah, the most exciting bit, and and that's what has brought a lot of people to this project in this phase is the excitement about having action and research together. And a lot of new people have joined in this phase. And without going into detail, and you've obviously worked extensively in action research, but for any listeners who don't know, what we mean by action research in this context is essentially two things. One is that researchers are working very closely with communities to co-produce potential ideas for solutions in the communities where they work. So the interventions that we're seeking to make in cities to address problems are developed collaboratively with groups in informal settlements. So there are these co-produced potential solutions to problems implemented sometimes by an NGO or a private company or even by researchers, and we do research on how that goes. So it might be that the community decides we need a new drain, we need some streetlighting, we need they're often these quite basic things. Or we need a new approach to how we catalogue our own land ownership structures. And they implement that solution, and then we have research going on around that. So we have action research projects in five cities across Africa. In total, there's over 20 action research projects happening. And in each city, there is a person with the name of city manager who oversees those action research projects and tries to draw together the learning as well as just making sure everything progresses. So in this discussion, we have two of the city managers: the city manager for Lagos, who's Temilar Deshachan, and the city manager for Nairobi, Jack Macau. And those are the people I was talking to for this discussion.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

And what's so important also, I think, about this is that you were there on the ground as part of this workshop, but also uh Jack and Temi are our first guests from Africa. So that feels really important, and I'd like to see that happening more through an urban reading.

SPEAKER_03 6:05

I guess with the exception of Tanya Zak from South Africa, they're our first African uh guests, and the first time we've had a kind of conversational discussion in on site in another country, actually. I think it's the first time we've done that.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_03 6:19

We've we've had people zooming in.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

But we were there on the I tend to only go to Arbathorn, as anybody who listens to the podcast knows.

SPEAKER_03 6:26

So when we had this conversation, we were sitting in a hotel room where we just had this big workshop event. Um it was the end of the day on the first day, uh, and we were very removed from the action of the city, right on the edges of Lake Victoria in a big conference hotel that was convenient. But we the following day we got out into the city, into the action, and this conversation took place just before that. And for me, it was a great scene center.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

And that's so important, isn't it? Because I mean, this is an exemplification of the methodology of exchanges and why they matter so much to enable people to learn from each other within a city, but also across cities. And I mean, as you say, that resonates a lot with some of the themes that have come out of my work over time.

SPEAKER_03 7:00

Yes, and with our discussion with Diana Mitlin and Melanie Lombard on exchanges. But what we did here is we really, and the bit that I think is most interesting when we get into it is the specifics of this exchange between Lagos and Nairobi and what each site learned about their own city, about the politics of change and making change happen in their own city through that exchange process.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Absolutely. Let's have a listen.

SPEAKER_03 7:30

Okay, so I'm very pleased to be joined in a discussion, a conversation today with two of the city managers from the African Cities Research Consortium. We're here in Kampala, um, where we're having a workshop all week of city managers from across the five cities that the consortium works in, those five cities being Kampala, Nairobi, Lagos, Harari, and Accra. And I'm joined today by the city managers for Lagos, uh, the city manager for Lagos, Temelade Shichon, and the city manager for Nairobi, Jack Macau. Um, perhaps we could begin with you just introducing yourselves, um, how you became involved in ACRC and uh saying a little bit about the projects happening, the action research projects which are happening in your cities through the African Cities Research Consortium. So I'll begin with you, Jack, because I think you were involved at an earlier stage.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Thank you, Tom. And it's it's great to join you. Uh as I said, I'm I'm from Nairobi. I got involved with ACSC at the conceptual stage, and then I carried on and have come in into the implementation stage. So in Nairobi, uh we currently have a portfolio of six projects. Uh and what we did, they're very diverse. What we did is that we looked for projects that um provided an opportunity for change. Uh we had uh a school feeding program just because Nairobi has been having a discussion about whether school feeding should be provided only in public schools or it should be universal. So we have another project uh that is looking at understanding the complexity of land ownership in informal settlements, and we have realized that it's very layered. Uh so this project is looking both at official data and informal arrangements, and there are plenty of informal arrangements. And then there's uh the age-old question, which is a third project of how do you provide sewa and water in informal settlements, uh, given the densities, given the lack of planning, and so on. Uh, then we have a fourth project um that is looking at waste management, sanitation, and then uh we have a fifth project uh that aligns with Nairobi's uh uh attempt to regenerate its rivers and trying to say how does this look in informal settlements. It's very different from the rest of the city. There are people occupying those lands, uh, they have different needs, so it's trying to plan out and propose uh how a river looks when it passes through an informal settlement. And lastly, uh the Nairobi County becomes the first city government in Africa to have a mandate for displaced populations, refugees, economic migrants, and so on. And we are trying to research and action how integration happens. We think it's a lesson for Africa, but beyond Africa. I think uh migration is a big global challenge. Thank you so much, Jack.

SPEAKER_03 11:10

That really gives a sense, I think, of the breadth and diversity of the projects in ACRC. Obviously, Nairobi was one of the first cities to get moving, so you have quite an advanced portfolio of projects. Let's turn now to you, Temi, to tell us a bit about your background and the projects in Lagos.

SPEAKER_04 11:25

Yes, thank you very much, and thanks for having me on this conversation. Um, so in Lagos, we're working um with colleagues at the Center for Housing and Sustainable Development at the University of Lagos, but um also with um communities to advance ACRC um goals. So we've been working, uh, we'd been like a loose network almost of um urban researchers, urban practitioners, urban sort of reformists, even though we didn't necessarily use that term. Um but ACRC was a chance to sort of um coalesze around um the issues that we'd always been um working on separately. Um and so at the moment we have three projects, three AR projects running, um, inspired by the Litania of projects uh in Nairobi. Um we have one on wash, that's water and sanitation, um, in an informal settlement um in the heart of the city. And what we're looking to do there is um combined like toilet and um borehole facilities, but beyond the infrastructure, it's the governance and the management of that. Um, in a context where there is very little um public water or sewerage connections. Um so we're trying to do that at the community level and trying to get the local government to come alongside that. Um the second project is um a climate resilience project um in another community in the city where um flooding happens um regularly and quite predictably due to a confluence of just several systemic but also local factors. Um and so we're working, first of all, to understand the drivers behind the flooding, but also community perceptions of the risk and the management of that risk. Um and so that has just concluded its um sort of feasibility sort of exploratory phase, and we're hoping to move to an implementation of the um sort of community um derived solutions that you know that that project uncovered. And then thirdly, uh most recently we have this add-on to the um Climate Resilience Project, which is a waste management project in the same community where we have the Climate Resilience Project. And these are linked, you know, the more that we can manage um drainage in the community, the more that um um flooding is um is mitigated because we have waste management practices that affect drainage systems. So I think it all links into this idea of interconnected systems within communities and at the city level. So, yeah, that's what we're doing.

SPEAKER_03 14:13

Excellent. So hopefully we can we can explore some of those interconnections. And I think, I mean, what's clear, you know, we have this range of projects from things like land, uh, rivers, refugee integration to sewerage, climate resilience. But what unifies these in a way is an approach that's part of the ACRC approach, and much of that is about um action research and bringing together evidence and action in a particular way. And we've really heard in our workshop already today how one unifying factor of the whole network in ACRC is this belief that we need to think about action and research, evidence together to really produce sustainable change. And and this is something that the that SDI, Slum Chapdwellers International, has been doing for a very long time. Uh, and ACRC builds on that work. But I wonder if you could tell us a bit more about this approach to that relationship between evidence and action. So I think Beth Chutequebiti, the community knowledge lead for ACRC, was talking about the idea of actionable knowledge, and that's in a sense what we seek to generate here. So, can you tell us a bit more? And perhaps again starting with you, Jack, given your history with SDI, about what are the kinds of evidence, the kinds of data that you think are most important to really generate change in your cities and to make change happen? And why is it that community um community actors themselves are so central in generating that data, which is key to your approach?

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Thank you, Tom. So so for many, many years, uh communities have been drawn into data collection. We we have done it and it has become a conventional way in which research is done, not only with ACRC or SDI, just generally. Now the departure, and we think this is the big difference, is that we are now involving communities not only in the collection, but in the analysis of the data, and then in the production of messages coming out of that data. And and the results are fascinating. Uh they actually have greater insight into their circumstances and actually add on to the analysis and the crafting of their priorities. And we think that's that's the that's the silver bullet. That's that's the magic that happens when you get communities involved in the entire uh data process, not only in collection.

SPEAKER_03 16:52

Can you uh just to pick up a bit on that? What is it that's led to that shift between communities collecting data, which has been happening for a long time, to communities becoming involved in their analysis, which is more recent? How and why has that shift occurred? Because it seems like quite a fundamental one.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

Yes. I think the there's been greater realization um that when data is taken away and analyzed, it's looked at at a different lens. And and then when you have when you put communities uh in public-facing um fora, they do not articulate as well as their development partners. And and we realize when they articulate from a place of understanding, uh, it is far, far more effective than if if I do it as a development practitioner. Yeah. I can see you nodding here, Temi.

SPEAKER_03 17:54

So maybe give us some of your perspective on this from Lagos.

SPEAKER_04 17:57

No, so I agree absolutely. I would say that the sorts of data that the government is likely to respond to in academia where I come from, we call it um like quantitative data. Um, in sort of more regular terms, I would say maybe pointed data in terms of um it gives you a sense of like when you measure something, like you put numbers to, I don't know, 30% of households in Kibera do not have this. Um it feels concrete, right? Um and so we find that in the Lagos context, at least, um policymakers are more likely to engage with that kind of um um just concrete um data. Um but just going back a few paces is that question of um, yeah, why is it important to get the communities um involved or at the center of it is you know, who defines what's important to measure? I think that's that's so critical. Um you have people coming in with instruments, um, surveys from you know, generated somewhere, I don't know, yeah, randomly. Um, but no one is better placed to determine and define what's important to measure um than communities themselves. So it's integrating um even um just supporting. So our our role as academia, we're seeing it more and more in ACRC used to just facilitate the the um the design of instruments um yeah in in those communities, and then everything from like um implementing them to deploying them rather to um collecting the data to interpreting the results. Yes, indeed, they do need to be central to that because that fundamentally changes the it flips the script. Um the the the questions that have been asked are are are really important. That they're as important as that's what would determine the answers that come out, right? So um, and yeah, who's asking? So that and that viewpoint is always different when it's from the communities.

SPEAKER_03 19:57

So maybe you can because you you mentioned about your role as academics, and I'm I'm guessing I may be wrong that this this kind of approach is newer to you, perhaps, than Jack, because obviously he's he's been working with SDI for a long time in this kind of methodology. But so I wanted to talk briefly about your two different positions uh before we get into the city context and your learning from each other in that way. But how is it for you, being based in a university, you know, what what has this opened up for you that you couldn't have done or you weren't be you wouldn't have been doing in previous research? Yeah. And what have been the challenges as well of working on this in this way out of an academic institution as opposed to a community organization? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:35

So just to say, uh my colleagues and I, I think we've struggled a bit to um sort of change um ways of working within because again, they're just different incentives that we respond to in academia. Um even when we have been working with communities for forever, seemingly, um, I think what ACRC has allowed us to do is to walk the talk, I would say. So it's kind of easy to write papers that say communities should be at the center of processes. What's um less easy is how do you operationalize that and how do you relinquish power really, uh, you know, to make that happen on an um equitable level. Um so we've had um a steep learning curve, um, but we are the better for it. Um we are we've been able to just come up with just richer, richer insights, right? Um and co-production is not just a term from a textbook um any anymore. Um it's been really revealing working, especially with SDI um groups. Um at some points early in the process, you know, there's a bit of tension just from either from both sides at the at the city level. Um, but again, just walking through those has also contributed to uh Trust building very essential for any kind of change to happen. And yeah, that has really impacted results on the cloud.

SPEAKER_03 22:10

I wonder, I'm interested, but picking up on this point you made about what questions are being asked and working through communities, you're finding different kinds of questions, different priorities. I wonder if you could give an example of how the questions you ask or think about as a researcher have changed as a result of working with SDI.

SPEAKER_04 22:28

Yeah, I would say with the climate resilience project that's been led by a researcher within the University of Lagos, coming in, you know, there's this approach of what kind of infrastructure is needed. By the way, I should say that even developing that proposal, it took, it was the longest proposal. I think it took almost two years to get to the point of yes, acceptance. I think we learned much more as a team in the development process than we did going forward. Because the initial iteration was just like standard academic proposal that you'd submit to a grant maker. And it read looking back now, it reads like something out of a textbook, really. But then we were forced to especially going through the approval process and all of it. But then this is within the within ACRC. Exactly, exactly, and forcing us to rethink uh many of the assumptions around almost like standard, okay, this is what we will, again, this is what we'll measure. We'll measure um how many home-based enterprises there are and what sorts of reinforcements they need to their um uh I don't know, to their places of business um to be able to mitigate flooding impact and things like that. Um but by the time we whittled down this proposal, it then just became okay, what do people, what does the community really want? They just want to stop their homes and surroundings flooding. Um so we went from a four-part sort of proposal from um things like I don't know, microfinance provision, for example, um strengthening home-based enterprise. That was a huge one. So actually, what is the basic, what do the community really want? And it was really, we want to stop flooding. It was it so we had added initially the empowerment components, what we thought would make a community like thrive, but at the end of the day, it was just what does the community really want? Like, do that and like they'll figure out the rest.

SPEAKER_03 24:37

So almost it really helps you crystallize. I think also coming out with full confidence that this is a project that matters to people. Exactly. You don't need to think, well, this question sounds interesting in theory, but does it matter? I mean, for you, Jack, you've in a sense come from the other side. And I wonder as well, um, I you've always worked with academics for a long time, I guess, including, of course, Diana Nittling. But how has ACRC and that kind of much more structured engagement with academic researchers changed the kinds of questions that you're asking, or changed perhaps the way you think about knowledge generation in your work?

SPEAKER_01 25:10

So this is something that we have reflected a lot about with my colleagues at SDN coming into ACRC. And the conclusion that we've arrived at is that the critical discussion that happens in development is between communities or citizens and their government. And then we've asked ourselves where do we come in? And when I say we, it includes community-based organizations, slum develop movements like SDI, are we a sufficient proxy for communities? And therefore, then our reflection has been no, no, we need to position ourselves correctly. That we are facilitators of the discussion between government and community. We are not a proxy. And therefore, just create opportunity uh for communities as termic to help us think through what we are asking, what are the nuances of what we are asking? People understand flooding differently from the way we may see it from the outside, or the ways that even a community-based organization may represent. So we we are very much seeing ourselves as facilitators and and and not representatives of communities.

SPEAKER_03 26:37

Yeah. But so that's interesting because if you are seeing yourself as facilitators between communities and the government rather than proxies for the community, yeah, where would you then put the university and the kind of academic researchers which you're working with closely in that mix? Are they in the same position as you or somewhere else in that relationship?

SPEAKER_01 26:55

We think they're they're critical partners. Uh I think uh academia serves to help us um structure, uh formulate uh concepts, uh and also a little bit legitimize what communities uh produce, the knowledge that communities uh produce. So they're critical, they're very critical to uh to the whole equation.

SPEAKER_03 27:25

So building on that, like the question I put to Tammy, which was in a way like how are the questions that you've asked different? In your case as well, working with whether it's with academia more or with ACRC specifically, and the conceptual framing and the whole sort of uh aim of the program, is there something now where you're asking questions a bit differently than you would have before?

SPEAKER_01 27:48

Yes. Um, because we are involving communities both in the research design and all the way through uh through analysis and communities. Um I'll give you an example. Uh we have a question that asks, are you a tenant or are you a landlord? And then communities say, Do you know not all tenants are equal? And and we say, What do you mean not all tenants? Do they pay rent? And they say, Yes, they pay rent. Uh but they say in a particular geography, uh your rights as a tenant, even as a landlord, uh vary, one based on your ethnicity and the prevailing ethnicity, how long you have been there. Um you have varying levels of vulnerability. Uh so we look at that and we say, we thought it was a very simple question, landlord or tenant. And then they say, no, no, no, let's look at it differently. So that helps sort of inform um how we structure um and and and how we present ideas. Then of course, academia helps us sort of shape that into into some coherent uh narrative.

SPEAKER_03 29:18

And I think, I mean, with ACRC, obviously there's also this whole structure of people who focus on uptake and uh you know engaging different stakeholders and, of course, building these coalitions, right? These coalitions of reform. So thinking about the levers of change in cities, which I think for me is one of the things that's quite special about ACRC is how the whole collectivity of actors can work together to think about what are those levers of change in a specific city. Um, so maybe building on that, I want to turn to this question of the context in which you work and particularly how you you learn through exchanges between cities, um, where actually the levers for change in Nairobi may be very different from those in Lagos. So you may want to achieve the same ultimate aim, and the communities may want the same thing, but how you get there could be different. You've recently had this very exciting exchanges between Lagos and Nairobi. I want to ask you a bit more about those. But first, starting with you, Jack, maybe about this um this methodology of exchange, of learning through exchanges in itself is something SDI has been doing between cities, but also between communities, which may be in the same city. So, how does the exchange, the learning between different places, uh feature as a part of the SDI approach?

SPEAKER_01 30:30

Okay. So very important. Uh, when we talk about exchanges, we are not saying one city go to another city to learn, it is one city going to another city to participate in something that is happening there. So there's no workshop style um learning. It is just common experience with us, and it provides you opportunity to to reflect on your own scenario, um, maybe adopt it or find reasons why it doesn't work for you. So that's one important aspect. And then the second important aspect is that and and and we try to do peer-to-peer, which is not only community to community, we try and develop a team that is both city government, community, maybe some other partners, it could be academia, and we try and organize that their peers. So city government to city government and community to community have some um interaction. What we find, uh, and and this has been an interesting lesson. I don't know the science behind it. Uh when people go on exchange and see their peers do something, uh they are inspired, which is more than the knowledge. I think all their instincts are affirmed that it's okay to deal with communities in this way. Uh, so we think that um aspect of um affirming what a government may do or what a community can do is very critical to their methodology. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:25

And it's about it's about being face to face, obviously. And but it's also about being in something quite visceral and embodied about being in the space, participating, very true, not just sitting in an air-conditioned hotel room like we're in now. Um but so tell me for you, because you the initial trip was Lagos to Nairobi.

SPEAKER_02 32:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 32:42

So there was a sense in which there was learning from Nairobi. I mean, I know the learning will will come both ways, we'll get to that. But can you tell us what motivated that? Was there a particular project you wanted to know more about?

SPEAKER_04 32:52

Yes. So it was the Wash project, the water and sanitation one in Okeru in and Lagos. And so we've had this um STI affiliate um that is supporting um the Federation in Nigeria, and they are the implementing agency for the Wash Projects. They're the ones implementing the projects in the community. Um and it's a very young organization, um, young and promising, and basically just trying to take a shortcut to the top, um, just uh recognizing that you know there are there are people who have been in the trenches, as we say, um, for years. And um AMT, that's um Akiba Machinani Trust, um, who's been they've been within the SDI network um as well um for for years. Um and so in Nairobi, they'd uh been doing this fantastic work around water and sanitation um in Mukuru, um densely populated informal settlement there, and they managed to make progress despite great odds. That in itself, like that, the way that they had overcome um great odds was it. I mean, the odds were not nearly um the odds that we were facing in in that Lagos community were not nearly as great as the ones that had been overcome or surmounted in in Mukuru. Um and so we're like, okay, um, yeah, we're trying to do this project that you know has been done in a different, yes, different context, but um the challenges were greater if if if if anything, um and they've managed to do this. Let's go and experience what they have um done. And it was um it was a truly inspiring experience.

SPEAKER_03 34:41

Can you tell us a bit more about why you say, just for those who don't know the context, why you say the odds were even greater in Nairobi than than you faced in the Lagos community or Caribbean?

SPEAKER_04 34:52

Yes. So I'm chuckling because uh Nairobi colleagues, when they then came to Lagos, I'm sort of fast-wording now, they got to the community and said, This is this is not an informal like you you you actually have uh roads that you can see, maybe not necessarily paved, but you have a layout, you have um brick and mortar houses, you have so in terms of just the socioeconomic sort of levels um there and the level of um seeming I don't know, organization of the community, just on the uh physical, special level, it was highly um shall we say semi-formal um in the Lagos case. In the Lagos case versus the informal set in in um in Nairobi. Um and so just from a special physical planning perspective, um, it was so much harder to get things done, um specially in Nairobi than it would be here. Um however, and maybe I'm sort of jumping ahead of your question now, um Nairobi also had um things going for it that Lagos didn't have. Um and I think a major thing is the work that had been done, groundwork that had been led by STI, SDI affiliates, um, AMT-led coalition on getting Makuru Dick led an SP, a special planning area. Um and that had involved a lot of resistance and struggle and all of that. So there'd been a lot of um um work that then allowed for, okay, when the opportunity then came to then begin to do this um this actual work delivering um infrastructure, like all of a sudden, like those odds didn't seem as as great anymore because they've done this years of the yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:45

So that social and community infrastructure in already was quite strong. There'd been a long history, yeah. And that was key to so for people who aren't familiar with the project, the Mukuru Wash Project was really about providing new forms of infrastructure of water and sanitation, last mile sewerage and sanitation, toilets on individual plots to allow people to access toilets who who couldn't previously. But can you tell us? So you've mentioned some of the things that are different, but as you went with the team to Mukuru for the first time to do this exchange, to participate in a community, what were some of the things that most surprised you, impressed you, shocked you, other than some of those things you mentioned about the strength of community organization? Was that the main thing?

SPEAKER_04 37:29

Yeah, the strength of the of the reform coalition um I think really did surprise us. Um and the Lagos team spent a lot of time just talking about that and how can we galvanize more sort of support and solidarity in the Lagos context? How did it happen? Um seems like it takes some doing, but what was the doing that happened in Nairobi that maybe we can transfer to Lagos? So that was um uh pleasantly surprising. But I think also the um, so that's on the one hand, but I think also the sort of sense of accountability, shall I say, on the part of the Nairobi um county government. Um where, yes, I mean this push and pull, but as at the time that we went, I think the county government had come to this place where they they had finally sort of um just agreed or acquiesced to the fact that um they are responsible for providing these citizens in this informal settlement with this service. Um and sort of feeling a sense of responsibility to do that. Um that was some that's something that um was not in our experience in Lagos where we're still in the position coming from uh well on the back foot, trying to persuade the government that these communities are worth serving in this way or worth including in this way. Um so sort of the greater um recep receptiveness of of the county government in in Nairobi was actually quite surprising. Again, that that's building on layers and layers of years and years of work by the coalitions to get to that point. But the fact that we had gotten to that point with the government was really good.

SPEAKER_03 39:10

I mean, this attitude change of the government is obviously really quite central to the and and it builds on a lot, as you've said. But Jack, perhaps you can give us some reflections on on how that happened and how transferable you think that might be as a as a process.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

Okay. So I appreciate everything that Jimmy says, and I totally agree with her. And I think um one thing that we appreciate is the different scales in which we are working. Lagos is dealing with 24 million uh residents, Nairobi is dealing with 5 million residents. I think their scale is uh it's a multiplier, and therefore their their politics and uh and uh is a bit more complicated than uh our politics. But having said that, um Nairobi has got the benefit of community organizing as an approach, not in only within SDI, with other civil society actors. I think for 30, 40 years now, I think that some critical mass has been arrived at so that the city has learned how to partner with communities. I think Lagos is in that process. And and I trust Lagos will get there, and when it does, it it'll be a superpower in in urban change. I think they're still in that process of build investing in communities to be actors. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:54

Thank you. Yeah, I mean, one of the things I I did want to ask, I mean, so one thing, and I I will say something about the contrast between Nairobi and Lagos as it perhaps strikes me and uh on a quite uh basic level, uh you've mentioned the scale, and we know the history of organizing in Nairobi is somewhat stronger around this kind of community organization in an uh organization in informal settlement. But there's also a level of fragmentation to infrastructure in Lagos that's quite distinctive. So even though you've made the point that you it didn't look so much like an informal settlement to the people who came from Kenya, um, beneath the surface, the levels of connection to sewerage water are I think lower, significantly lower in Lagos than they are in Nairobi. So overcoming there's an institutional and an infrastructural fragmentation. But I've also, in my own, you know, fairly brief experiences in Lagos, been struck by the level of innovation, often among perhaps um people, entrepreneurs, like people, but also communities, in trying to overcome these problems. So I feel like that the the the fragmentation of infrastructure and institutions in Lagos drives a certain amount of innovation. And I'm wondering whether that the the solutions that they might have to come up with in that context might be a bit different than those in Nairobi. So I'm not sure how that factors in your thinking because the political and infrastructure context is very different.

SPEAKER_04 42:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:18

That's not really a question.

SPEAKER_01 42:20

No, no, but but but Tom, you're very right. Um in the support that we thought we could provide to Lagos is to say, can we work with your communities and then allow your city government and your politicians to guide what solutions emerge. And and we are very clear, our solutions are not necessarily transferable to Lagos. And and Temi and uh projects there are very accepting of, yeah, let's do data collection. Let us talk about how you organize communities and then allow us to have a conversation. And Tom, you're very right. I think the solutions may be very different or they may be similar, they may learn from each other.

SPEAKER_04 43:12

Thanks, Jack. You're very right. Um, and I think that really speaks to the value of um exchange programs. Um, because like growing up in Lagos, if you've been in Lagos all your life, never gone to, or even if you go to other cities, you don't necessarily engage with what's underneath the surface, what makes those cities run. Um you could be forgiven for thinking that every human being in the world um has a borehole in their back backyard. And you know, exactly exact exactly. So that's the model, that's the mental model. Um and so you don't even know as a citizen to ask your government to do better. Yeah. You know, so yes, I agree that you know, all of the bottom of the Individual community innovation, it's great because we do what we have to do anyway to sort of survive. But I think the added value of being able to see how things are done differently elsewhere can then bring people can bring that back home and you know realize there are potentially other ways of you know making this um more inclusive, more equitable. Because what the sort of individual model does is it creates, you know, people do um according to their their ability, like their economic ability. And that's as we know, there's a lot of inequality. So you then still see inequality in the source of individual solutions that are generated. Um so especially in that context, you do need a sort of um leveling, if I, you know, if I may, a leveling um force of the state to sort of spread resources uh more um equitably. Um and that's what we're hoping will really pick up in Lagos. Individual solutions are great. Uh you know, Nigerians are among the most innovative people on the planet. Um, but you do not want to be exacerbating inequality on the scale of 24 million people in the city or 200 million plus people in the city.

SPEAKER_03 45:18

So I guess that's the in-laid of a lot of that innovation, and people have had to come up with these solutions, but they have often led to quite individualized solutions. And that's so it's interesting because in Nairobi, all of that work that has happened to get the government to accept informal settlements more and expand access to systems which are there and can be expanded, even though it's technically hard. That political change was so important. It's like in Lagos, you need to change the attitude of the government, but that won't be enough in itself. You also need to build a well- the infrastructure is is a huge challenge because turning individual infrastructure into collective is hard. But also building that collective approach. But hopefully collecting the data, doing that community-led work, can both help to change the government's mind and build that sense of a more collective approach. I guess that's part of the Hopefully, yes. And that just to come back to that data collection, because it's so central both to the change in government attitude and the building of a collective approach. Um how because to some people, maybe this enumeration, you know, counting, mapping, which has been really central to the SDI approach, it's not obvious why that would lead to these changes. What do you see, Jack, as the link between community-led data collection and political change?

SPEAKER_01 46:33

Very good question. I think our understanding is that um politicians do not necessarily read research reports or attend workshops. But if the community is at of the same understanding as you, there's so many forums where they interact with their politicians. And that is where that transfusion of information happens on weekends, in the evenings, uh, and therefore it is so important that communities have reflected on these things. Otherwise, as Temi says, then people will just perpetuate what they already know. Uh so you need to change it at a certain level, whether it gets published, it's great for research. But the real interaction happens uh outside the development paradigm. It happens in very different forums.

SPEAKER_02 47:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:42

I think that's another thing about exchanges, isn't it? Is it actually puts different people into conversations with each other, not just between cities, but within cities. So you might find some political elites are having conversations with people they wouldn't otherwise have because they're hosting visitors or this kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 47:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:58

I wonder as well, we've we've reflected quite a bit on the learning from Nairobi, but I I'm not sure whether you were involved in in the exchange visit to Lagos, Jack. But for the Nairobi team, what do you do you think they've learned something from Lagos too? Is there something that some learning traveling the other way? Even though the primary motive was to perhaps learn more about this success in Makuru, is there also learning from Lagos back to Nairobi?

SPEAKER_01 48:24

Th there definitely uh is learning. Uh and and I think uh one of the things that happens in exchanges is that you send people to Lagos, they they have an interaction in in Lagos, they come back and they say it wasn't easy, and they think about their methodology and what they're saying. Uh so they can they went to Lagos, they came back, they said we don't think we cracked it. We need to understand why we were not getting through.

SPEAKER_03 49:05

You don't think they they they didn't think they cracked it in Lagos?

SPEAKER_01 49:09

In in Lagos, they said we went, we thought we had something to say, and then we realized uh we need to be able to communicate to Lagos in a way Lagos understands. So they're reflecting on their methodology, they're reflecting on their what they went to do. So it's it's a mutual learning thing. Um it helps them refine, it helps them ask themselves questions about the assumptions that they took to Lagos. So I think it builds them, it builds them.

SPEAKER_03 49:50

And it helps to foster learning, right? I mean, the fact that it's not easy, it's not easy to just pass on a message and an experience for so many reasons. So sharpening the tools with which we do that is important. I think I mean we need to move towards wrapping up, but I think maybe we can end by just looking forward a bit and thinking about, I don't know, three years down the line, five years down the line, um where would you like to see things in your two cities, maybe focusing particularly on this water and sanitation interventions? What would success look like for you? And how would you know, by what measure would you judge that something had shifted and been successful? Maybe starting with you, Tammy.

SPEAKER_04 50:29

Yeah, thanks. Um so to quote the words of a um a government official spoken in confidence, um saying, you know what, guys, Lagos Water is not coming soon. Um that has a way of um just really you know driving the point home. Um so no, we're not looking to uh suddenly every household being um connected to pipe water um on a networked scale, but we're hoping for early commitment um in the sort of broader cause and broader vision to give every citizen, every resident uh access to safe water and sanitation, however that looks in their communities. And again, it's the communities that are best placed to sort of begin to drive that process. Um, so in OK Ruby, what we are hoping to do is demonstrate that with um women-led water committees, um, working in the first instance with the local government, um we can trial this model and then sort of a step two thing, um take that to the state government level, um, and then get that somehow into um state planning and budgeting processes where um there's public money that goes into this community projects. That's the dream.

SPEAKER_02 52:06

That's the dream.

SPEAKER_04 52:07

Yeah, that's the dream. Um, and again, I again this is why we're saying we're looking to build really strong community governance systems. So, again, how those resources flow, there doesn't be a structure um that is um accountable, again, transparent, that will is that has built capacity to manage those resources coming from um the state as well and be accountable for them. So, yeah, that that would be um an ideal. I don't know, maybe it's short to medium term, hopefully on the way to some longer term um uh citywide solution to do that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:43

Okay, excellent. Yeah, and Jack, for you, what does success look like at that kind of time horizon?

SPEAKER_01 52:48

At that so currently there is there's a policy discussion and some of the uh project details are being captured uh in poly in policy formulation. We think progressively it will move and it will become policy. Um the real proof is when we see significant investment in government budgets. Currently there's some investment into these pilots that we're doing. I think success is is when government starts to replicate without requiring investments from ACRC and and other donor partners. Uh and that that would represent success. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:36

So yeah, that gets into questions of uh other questions that were in the back of my mind around fiscal issues, taxing and spending, and that's I think another conversation for another day. Yeah, but thank you so much for joining joining me today for this conversation. I found it extremely interesting and stimulating. Thank you, Tom, for having us.

SPEAKER_01 53:54

Thank you. It was it was a great discussion.

SPEAKER_04 53:56

Yes, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 53:57

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 54:22

Because, you know, we're talking about community-led data and we're talking about co-production and what difference that can make to enable communities to have more power when they're speaking with uh and negotiating with their local governments and others. Um I was just wondering how important that question of power is, because in the example Temmie gave, um, when they asked the communities what they wanted, they just wanted to stop the flooding. But somehow the questions of community empowerment got pushed to one side a little bit. At least that's how I read it. I was just wondering if you could reflect a bit on that part of the conversation.

SPEAKER_03 54:52

But I think that comes from they're at a much earlier stage in Lagos, in terms of having the community work collectively together over time, to the point where the city government actually starts listening and engaging with them seriously. And I think she gave an example of how listening to communities help to kind of distill the essence of the problem. But that's from before they've started to engage with Nairobi. And what they're really focusing on now is actually how working to find a solution to that problem, maybe it's flooding or something else, can start to bring the community together in such a way that they have more of a collective voice and can start to become empowered. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:27

Actually, that really reminds me of work I've done insofar as to begin with, it is quite often that communities have their own direct needs that they want to be met. Um, but it's not until they realise what they have the right to ask for, what they have the right to demand, that it starts to become more political or starts to become more about those forms of empowerment. So I mean, I really recognize that journey in context in the UK as well.

SPEAKER_03 55:48

I think it also relates to what Jack was saying about the involvement of the community in analysis as well as data collection. So I think the bringing the community into the analysis and the thinking about solutions is part of that journey to realizing why the empowerment and the collective empowerment is so important. Because through that you recognise the only way you can do this is to get the city government to really take you seriously, for which you need a collective power. So as they analyze the problems and potential solutions, that becomes a bigger part of the picture, I think.

SPEAKER_00 56:15

The other thing that really struck me, I thought this was really fascinating, it takes us onto the question of exchange, was around how your preconceptions get challenged. So, like you've got this example of um Lagos apparently not being sufficiently informal, perhaps, because it was semi-formal, but then actually beneath the surface, as you started to tease out through the conversation, there are still infrastructural deficits in those neighbourhoods. So they may appear to be one thing, but actually when you understand the way in which the city works, it might be another. And so both sides learnt so many interesting things that challenged their kind of ideas about how change works.

SPEAKER_03 56:47

Definitely, yeah. And I think that's partly actually about land tenure. It reminded me of Lindsay Sawyer's work with her colleagues on plotting urbanism in Lagos, because areas there which are informal or sometimes called semi-formal, um, they the the arrangements for the housing are very much informal. But because of the way the land market works, people build more formal-looking permanent structures, but actually they're incredibly fragmented in terms of infrastructure. So to the eye, the Kenyans arrived and thought, this doesn't look like shacks, you know, that we're used to in an informal settlement. So it looks more formal. But actually, beneath the surface, there was much more difficulty in getting connectivity through all kinds of infrastructure in in Lagos. And actually, in Lagos, there are different kinds of informal settlements too. There are ones that might be seen as auto-constructed, and there are ones that are built by other people through this kind of plotting and subdividing of lands that Lindsay talks about. So we also need to bear in mind not informal all informal settlements are the same.

SPEAKER_00 57:41

And I think that really speaks to how it enables these kinds of exchanges enable all parties to know their places in a different or perhaps a better kind of way. And so I was also struck by the space that's created through these exchanges for candid conversations and observations when Temmie said that the city uh officials in um Lagos had just said the water's not coming soon. You know, that kind of blunt candor is actually really helpful to know, obviously also to challenge perhaps, um, but in order to be able to actually understand the limits of what you're working with as well as the opportunities.

SPEAKER_03 58:12

I think so. And even though it's depressing for them to hear, it I think it is a small step on the journey to a more serious exchange with the city government because people are used to often having these broken promises or not being talked to at all. And it was, in a way, uh quite depressing to hear that that in Nairobi they've had 30, 40 years of community mobilization that has led towards some of the gains they're now making, and that hasn't been happening in the same way in Lagos. Hopefully it won't take so long. But I think the government being honest with you about things and talking to you about them is is better, of course, than being lied to or fobbed off with promises that never emerge. So, Beth, I I want to ask you a few questions now. Because I know that you've been involved in lots of exchanges between cities and communities, primarily in the UK. We've talked about some of that work. It also connects to the work that ACRC is doing through the work you've been doing with community savers and those learning experiences between African communities and those in Manchester and Sheffield. So I wonder what you're you've been learning in your work on exchanges about how people learn from each other, including how they learn about how to bring about change and pull those political levers in their own context.

SPEAKER_00 59:15

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah, so we've been comparing three different kinds of exchanges. One that was very much similar to the SDI methodology, where communities are learning from each other, one that was a mixed exchange between city officials, academics, artists, activists, and residents, and others that were more about bilateral exchanges. And what's really interesting in all of these exchanges is that the same kind of themes as you've been picking up here come out. I mean, one of them is about how long it takes, right? You're not going to have an exchange and then just be able to implement something in your own space. And Jack was really clear on that actually. I think what we found is that these exchanges open up the horizon of possibility for people to think differently. And what's happening in that exchange is a moment of comparison. So people are able to actually understand their own experiences from the perspective of someone else's. It makes you see things differently that could be, as well as how things are. And in that moment of comparison, that's what really changes the possibility for social transformation. So what we're beginning to understand is what happens in that moment of comparison. And I think it's about strengthening self-efficacy, you know, your belief that you can make change. It's about strengthening your sense of entitlement. Like what are we allowed to ask for? What could that look like? And also your sort of group solidarity and your sense of being together is also formed by having those kinds of exchanges. I think the thing that really struck me out of what Jack and Temmie were discussing was also how the exchange is part of that facilitation mechanism that enables like SDI or enables the academics to somehow step aside to sort of help the relationship between citizens and the state, but then step back. And I think that's so important. I love the way that Jack talked about that, being able to see how the citizens then actually are able to tell their own stories, to know their own places, and how city officials then recognise that communities have a place at the table because they are fundamentally part of the solutions and the ways in which they need to make decisions.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:07

Yeah, I think that point he made because it's often a misunderstanding, right? Who is saying we are not a proxy for the community. And that's kind of misunderstood sometimes on all sides. These organizations represent the community. So we don't, we facilitate in in between. And that was very clear. And I think, yeah, just to pick up on your point about comparison, that is really obviously at the heart of what we're talking about. And it's for me, it's exciting and new because I've always done comparative work on cities. And even when the comparison is implicit, you're looking at one place, but you're implicitly comparing in your mind. But but what's newer to me is this co-production of comparison, right? Comparing through a community lens rather than just through your own individual mental models. On that note, I thought maybe we could end with you saying a little bit more about your wider work on co-production and this co-profutures inquiry you've been leading.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:51

Well, it's interesting just to pick that point up. So obviously there's a big literature in urban studies, just to speak back to our discipline about comparative urbanism and what that actually looks like. But I think co-productive urbanism is different. And one of the fundamental ways it's different is that it decentres the academic in that process of comparison, where we are enabling and it's shortcuts to social transformation. I think so. What I'm looking at in the UK is how universities can create better conditions for co-produced and participatory research with our communities here, but also in relation to our international partnerships, doing that with Liz Richardson and Catherine DeRose at Manchester and Liverpool universities. And it's really interesting because we often don't see our roles as facilitators. And that point that Diana's made so powerfully over the years that Jack was also saying in TEMI is that you have to be prepared to give a bit of your power up. It's very difficult to do so when we are in these institutions that judge us and rank our behaviours and our performances in very particular ways. So we do need some fundamental shifts in how we think about the structures and cultures of universities in order to make the kind of thing you guys are doing more easy and actually then more effective at producing these things we want increased.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:00

Great. Well it's really wonderful to have had your reflections on this. It's a shame you weren't there for the actual discussion, but I found this reflection really valuable. Thank you. See you all next time. Bye.