Local and participatory approaches to building resilience in informal settlements in Uganda

Abstract

Many of the people who are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change live in low-income and informal settlements in and around urban centres in Africa, Asia and Latin America. While there is a growing recognition of the importance of urban resilience, there is little documented evidence of how collective actions undertaken by residents of these communities can contribute to this. This paper describes the processes adopted by the National Slum Dwellers Federation of Uganda for responding to a variety of challenges – and explains how these not only address the immediate needs of these communities but also contribute to building resilience at the scale of the individual, household, community and city. It links the experiences of manufacturing matoke briquettes, developing new construction materials for low-income housing, and improving drainage and freshwater supplies to some of the key features of an urban resilience agenda, and makes the case for broader international support and funding to these local responses to climate change.