Research Seed Grant | 2005-2006

Inside Informality: Poverty, Jobs, Housing, and Services in the Slums of Nairobi and Dakar

by Sumila Gulyani (Urban Planning)

Sub-Saharan Africa is the world's fastest urbanizing region and also its poorest continent. Along with the urban population, urban poverty is also on the rise. Informal or slum settlements are absorbing an increasing share of the expanding urban population and are home to the vast majority of the urban poor. Most of the existing poverty-oriented research, however, has tended to focus on rural areas. As a result, very little is known about urban poverty in general, and about slums in particular. In fact, in most countries, there are no reliable estimates even on basic indicators-such as the number of people residing in these slums and the proportion of them that are poor-let alone a good understanding of the living conditions of slum dwellers, the nature of poverty that they face, and factors that may be helping slum households fight and/or escape poverty.

This study attempts to fill gaps in our knowledge about slums in two African cities-Nairobi and Dakar. Drawing on detailed surveys of about 3700 households residing in the slums of Nairobi and Dakar, this study aims to develop a demographic, economic, and infrastructural profile of slum settlements in these two cities. Analytically, it focuses on the following questions: how poor and inadequately served are slum dwellers in Nairobi and Dakar? What are the factors correlated with poverty among slum households in each city?