A PROJECT OF NAIROBI CITY COUNTY
Planning process: 2017–2020. Implementation: ongoing.
Mukuru Special Planning Area (SPA) is one of the largest ever informal settlement upgrading processes. It aims to transform a 689-acre slum with some of Nairobi’s severest challenges into a healthy and functioning neighbourhood, improving the lives of the 100,000 households who live there.
Mukuru SPA is also a precedent-setting partnership for participatory upgrading of informal settlements at scale. It involves Mukuru’s residents, Nairobi County government and over 40 organisations from civil society, academia and the private sector — all working together in an innovative and evolving approach to large-scale collaborative community planning. Over 5,000 Mukuru residents took part in the 2018–2019 community planning forums.
An SPA is more than a legal basis for upgrading. It’s a recognition by local government that conventional planning processes can’t adequately address slums’ complex challenges; and that communities’ input is critical to improve their settlements. And it creates space to explore new innovative and inclusive upgrading solutions.
An ‘integrated development plan’ has now been drawn up for Mukuru and its residents, businesses and institutions. Specific sector plans have been finalised with Nairobi county government and implementation began in March 2020.
Muungano’s role
The Muungano Alliance has worked with the community in Mukuru for decades. Its SPA role has been to mobilise the community, help organise the consultation process, and coordinate the 40+ organisations working together to draw up the plan.
About the SPA process. Film: Muungano KYC.TV
Latest Mukuru SPA blogs & news
Resident consultation & participation
At the heart of the SPA planning process has been the input of Mukuru’s residents. Everyone resident in the areas covered by the SPA had a right to participate in the consultation process. People did not need to be part of Muungano — an SPA is under Nairobi County and the consultations were a platform for people to present their issues to their local representatives.
The planning process
The 8 planning consortia
Over 40 organisations worked with Nairobi County on the SPA planning process — from academics and civil society groups to government officials, utilities agencies, and private firms. Their consultation and planning work was organised into 8 consortiums. Each consortium was led by a corresponding department from Nairobi’s County Government. The Muungano Alliance worked closely with the consortia.
The planning process
Each consortium contributed to the inclusive integrated development plan by: collecting and analysing situational data, consulting the community and seeking feedback on draft proposals, and developing solutions that integrated community knowledge and aspirations with finance, legal and spatial realities.
How did we get to the SPA? Mukuru’s history 1980–2017
Mukuru is the product of historic forces and factors. These have contributed to what the informal settlement is today and have limited state responses to Mukuru’s problems.
The 2017 Mukuru SPA declaration was the result of many years’ work, action-based research and interactions—between Nairobi county, the Mukuru community, and the many organisations that the community worked with (including a research partnership supported by IDRC involving the Muungano Alliance, Katiba Institute, Strathmore University, University of California Berkeley and University of Nairobi).
Watch & learn more
Jane Weru, Director of Akiba Mashinani Trust, tells the history of Mukuru. Film by Muungano KYC.TV.
Media mentions
Youtube playlist of Kenyan media footage about Mukuru and Mukuru SPA. Collated by SDI Kenya.
Publications & studies
TED talk: What if the poor were part of city planning? | Smruti Jukur Johari