Better Quality of Life for Informal Urban Settlers

Uganda’s youth are encumbered by numerous challenges including lack of appropriate skills for gainful employment, poor education, gender imbalance, and poor health care among others.

• Many informal settlements in Kampala are very dense with very little open/public space and often with uninsulated corrugated iron roofs and poor ventilation that contribute to higher indoor temperatures. Lack of public health measures to control disease vectors. Largest impacts among groups particularly vulnerable – infants and young children, the elderly, expectant mothers, those with certain chronic diseases. Health risks for outdoor workers and informal workers may not benefit from health and safety regulations.
• Many informal settlements concentrated on sites most at risk of flooding with poor quality housing less able to withstand flooding and a lack of risk-reducing infrastructure. Homes, possessions and income-generating assets are not covered by any public or private insurance. Transport infrastructure damaged affected workers.

• Awareness of climate change and access to information: Very few cities have readily-available access to accurate and localized analysis of climate impacts like local changes in rainfall patterns, changes in flood risk, change in mean and extreme temperatures, so called downscaled climate modelling, and even where this exists the information may not be widely disseminated amongst urban residents. The consequence is general lack of understanding of the concrete climate changes forecasted in a specific location. While residents may be living through the impacts of climate change already as they experience more hydro-meteorological extremes, they will also need to be considered alongside every day risks faced by urban informal settlement residents such as fire or the health dangers posed by lack of sanitation. Addressing these risks create co-benefits for climate adaptation, and making information more easily available about likely future climate impacts can help to ensure investments with co-benefits.
• Building quality: Many housing structures in informal settlements are poor quality, built of recycled materials such as cardboard, tin sheets, mud or tarpaulin, waste drainage from the city , because these are the most easily accessible and affordable materials. They lack ventilation, toiletry and lighting. Where structures are built of more durable materials, such as breeze blocks and concrete, they have additional storeys which do not conform to building regulations and use unqualified engineers and wrong plans.  They tend to build in wetland areas that are regulated, because of weak laws and corruption, the environment keeps depleting. Structures in informal settlements in Kampala are almost always unlikely to have been built with present or future climatic problems in mind, like extended heat (and cold) periods in mind, heavy rains, nor using seismic or storm-proof designs, all considerations that would increase their resistance to climate-change and natural disaster related impacts.
• The lack of storm drainage combined with the lack of solid and liquid waste management can lead not only to flooding, but to the flood water being contaminated with toxins that contribute to subsequent resultant health impacts
• Basic infrastructure and service provision: Most of those living in the selected informal settlements rely on informal providers of public infrastructure because of a lack of supply from formal providers such as the municipality or state utilities – for instance water purchased from tankers, vendors or kiosks and pay-to-use communal toilets because they have no piped water or toilets in their home. They have electricity from illegal grid connections, with associated fire risks, while informal waste pickers are not able to adequately deal with the scale and types of waste generated. This often comes at a higher price than charged by formal providers of utilities, and added time cost of queuing for supplies or using communal toilets. In these Informal settlements  they frequently lack public goods such as paved roads, sewage systems, storm drains or street lighting, which would normally be provided by the municipality, or where these goods are provided, they are not adequately maintained
• Tenure security: The informal nature of the majority of slums means that the residents lack formal safeguards for their housing – whether it is legal protection for their tenancies by renters, or legal documentation showing proof of ownership for owners. While residents sometimes have the agreement of the landowner to live on that site, they remain vulnerable to eviction if the land is required for other uses, and they may be unable to use their housing as an asset to secure other benefits (such as provision of social services, or access to formal banking).
• This lack of legality also creates difficulties in securing provision of public infrastructure and services which may require formal documentation for eligibility. As discussed below, there are also considerable differences in the experiences of ‘renters’ and ‘owners’ in informal settlements which can affect the quality of housing and the willingness to make improvements. As a consequence of tenure insecurity, residents are deprived of a key asset and have little possibility.
• Access to food and water: Food is often the single largest expenditure for residents of informal settlements in these areas of Kampala, sometimes accounting for almost half of household expenses. Lack of food storage and cooking space means that residents often rely on purchasing cooked street food, or buying food items in small quantities at higher prices. Street vendors operating within slum settlements are exposed to the same food safety hazards as their customers: limited storage facilities, inadequate water and sanitation infrastructure and lack of solid waste collection. This can cause contamination of the food, putting at risk a population.
• Social and financial services: The nature of informal settlements, residents usually do not have sufficient legal proof of address to qualify for services such as banking and insurance, which may also require evidence of regular income – the nature of informal labour means this is frequently impossible. Neighbourhood-level savings groups may offer some measure of financial security but may operate with particular objectives such as prioritising loans for small businesses or school uniforms.

•  Recognising that informal settlements do not exist in isolation of the city around them, and actions taken at the city-wide level may have positive or negative consequences for their resilience. Local residents may be able to put in their own infrastructure such as paved roads, piped water mains, sewer and storm drainage systems, but these need to be integrated to trunk infrastructure systems, which they cannot provide themselves. There are responsibilities which lie outside informal settlements, with the municipality and national utilities, which can contribute to the resilience of a settlement. The way in which land use is managed in a watershed area will affect the flood risk facing informal settlements, as will city development plans which determine where infrastructure developments take place. 
• Campaign: Means of communication can include TV shows or radio programmes, as well as printed media, and integrating climate change into school curriculums to educate younger generations. Early Warning Systems that reach all residents of cities – including those in informal settlements are also essential to reduce climate risk
• Advocating for policies and city-wide strategies and development plans: Slums and informal settlements are often left out of citywide development plans and strategies. This is partly because policies and legal frameworks are not sensitive to and ineffective for addressing conditions in slums.
• Improved building design to maximise natural ventilation; set up locally accessible health services; provide education about measures to reduce transmission of disease and reduce risk of heatstroke/cold exposure. Investing in green space, renaturation and tree planting
• Addressing underlying socio-economic factors which affect poverty; improve water infrastructure and affordability

The project will support the informal  poor youth and women in wetlands and congested areas.

Poor hygiene and depleting the wetland deprived them from decent housing.

The project will register them through an assessment and door to door campaigns, encouraging them to join savings groups and providing them with skills and start up kits to do business and get income to expand

The team comprises of engineers, environmentalists, WASH specialists. We will act as their voicers to the various stake holders. We will reach through the local authorities in these areas and their own community leaders.

We have already done an initial assessment and the project was designed together with the groups.

The physical location of slums /informal settlements is often on environmentally-fragile locations such as steep slopes, floodplains,  river banks which have a high exposure to climatic hazards such as flooding and landslides. We will encourage and show them how to plant shrubs and trees to stop land slides and piling sacks of sand on gulley created by rain and flood to avoid rapid water flood

We will recognise the different components of resilience, beyond physical resilience to also consider social, economic and political dimensions of individuals, households and communities which shape their resilience to climate change related shocks and stresses. It will then examine some of the different ways in which this climate resilience can be built, in
particular through processes of upgrading slums, in order to address development deficits alongside climate change risks through advocacy and awareness

We have the volunteer and staffs, but logistics, providing them with start up kits, media awareness, we want to reach the wider areas within the slum areas, this involves movement, planting trees along the slops, rebuilding the drainage line, and training the communities in slum sanitation and hygiene

The socio-economic characteristics of the residents, such as high levels

of poverty and illiteracy, mean that these communities have low capacity
to deal with shocks and stressors from climate-related disasters.

Enhancing ecosystems to build resilience and protect communities Low-income urban residents  on ecosystem  to meet part of their needs, such as using gardening for fruits and vegetables, and planting passion fruits to climb on their house roof to create green environment. 

• Informal settlement upgrading policies, strategies and plans receive political support and are implemented
• To provide friendly ecosystem with the informal urban settlements, reducing risks of carbon emission, building their capacities to improve their incomes through businesses.
• This will restore the environment, and those in business enterprises their incomes would have increased, thus leaving the informal settlements to settle in better safe land, increasing their and chances for survival for their the families 

• Many will leave the the informal sectors as their incomes and capacity to incomes from the businesses would improve
• Many youth will leave the slum areas and abandons criminal acts
• Reckless dumping that is hazardous will be reduces, as plastics and bottles dumping that is dangerous to the soils and human kind will reduce 

• World Action Fund: Will support achievement of SDG 11 Sustainable Cities & Communities
• Ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services and up-grade slums.
• Proportion of urban population living in slums, informal settlements or inadequate housing reduced by 50%

Informal settlement upgrading policies, strategies and programs are established by national governments, grounded in international and regional
best practices and recognizing approaches and challenges common across the Uganda

We will register the informal settlements and send SMS to their phones and alert them on risks during rain and floods, this will be a platform for awareness and register them social media groups, and mega phone speeches 

We work with everyone regardless of race, sex, religion, culture and political affiliation. We include women, young girls and youth in our campaign and disable persons are fully involved.

We will skill the informal settlers, provide kits and create awareness about the dangers of informal settlement in wetlands, and the risks of carbon emission

We will create clubs in these informal settlements, and engage government to support these settlers and improve their livelihood or acquire them better settlement to avoid degradation of the environment.

In Refugee settlement we build the capacity of refugees not to deplete the natural forest, and trained to make briquettes out of agricultural residues as an alternative charcoal and also trained them to make energy saving stoves. A project supported by US Embassy