The Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre (SLURC) has held a one-day closing and reflections session on their accomplishments in implementing the Knowledge in Action for Urban Equality (KNOW) project after four years of activities in Sierra Leone.
The Knowledge in Action for Urban Equality (KNOW) established in nine cities seeks to deliver transformative research and capacity-building for innovation in policy and planning to produce equal cities. The Cockle Bay, Dwarzark and Portee Rokupa communities were used as case study for the research.
The research captured three development challenges: viz tackling extreme poverty, building resilient cities and delivering prosperity in informal settlement.
The Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre (SLURC) aimed to build the capacity of urban stakeholders in Sierra Leone and make knowledge on urbanization available and accessible to those who need it.
The Executive Director of SLURC, Dr. Joseph Marcarthysaid urban informal settlements reflect the long going process of marginalization and exclusion, adding that it also entails dynamics of social and spatial marginalization which are complex, and poorly understood.
“We have been able to investigate and identify by finding ideal solution for informal settlement. The issues of inequality need to be understood. The situation in Freetown is as the same in other cities,” Dr. Marcarthy said.
He added that within the fours years they have been able to work with different stakeholders to deliver transformative research to address urban inequality.
He said that People often choose to live in these so-called risky environments not necessary because they are unaware of the negative consequences, but rather they are unable to afford the prohibitive cost of land elsewhere. “Apart from the cost, the process of acquiring land in the city is also too complex for ordinary people,” he said.
Dr. Marcarthy added that abandonment of informal settlement could be attributed to lack of understanding sytems due to inadequate knowledge about structures and processes that lead to the proliferation of urban informal settlements, as well as from significant knowledge gaps regarding the social, economic, and environmental factors that lead to the marginalization of the urban poor.
He cited that the help of community-based organizations like Centre of Dialogue on Human Settlement and Poverty Alleviation (CODOHSAPA and Federation of Urban and Rural Poor (FEDURP), researcher had been able to directly connect with people in informal settlements.
Both organizations comprisedof vulnerable women, men, youth and children who are mobilized around dynamic saving schemes, networked at settlement, city and national levels to drive a collective, bottom-up initiatives influencing change towards inclusive and resilient cities and localities, and contribute to national development agenda.
The Director of Research and Training, Braima Koroma said that informal settlers cooperated during the research through the community organizations, adding that they had been able to produce settlement profiling and build research capacity at community level.
He added that through the urban learning hub, they have been able to utilize the platform to collate and provide information even after the training.
By George M.O. Williams