TACKLING POVERTY IN NAIROBIS INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS - DEVELOPING AN INSTITUTIONAL STRATEGY

This paper describes the institutional framework that is needed to gre atly increase the scale and effectiveness of government and aid agency initiatives to reduce poverty in Nairobi. The introduction outlines t he scale of informal settlements within Nairobi (which now house more than half the city's population) and section II describes the economic and political conditions which allowed these settlements to grow but also to receive so little attention from governments and international agencies. Section III describes the development of an institutional s trategy through which the agencies of government and international don ors can work together and with the inhabitants of the informal settlem ents to address urban. poverty, including improving housing conditions and basic service provision. Section IV summarizes the findings of th e inventory of informal settlements on which this paper's recommendati ons are based and how it was undertaken.