Residents living in informal settlements are up to 10 times more likely to be affected by climate-related disasters like flooding and urban heatwaves than those living in formal urban areas. This is mainly because the settlements lack adequate infrastructure, poor housing structures and limited access to vital resources to help them cope with the climatic impacts. With little assistance coming to the informal settlements, the community members are coming up with different innovative ways that enable them to cope with the adverse effects of climate change.
Some of these solutions are more often based on local knowledge and are usually undocumented. More often, you’ll find informal settlements having the same challenges, but they have different innovative ways in which they are making themselves resilient in which could be a learning point for different communities. More often than not, there are not enough resources to facilitate peer-to-peer exchanges, which are often learning points for groups or community members. Hence, communities and groups lack an avenue to share their solutions. While technology is advancing, many groups and communities are actively seeking ways in which they can share their solutions that are working in their communities.
Making such kind of solutions easily accessible to everyone to help and increase the resilience of communities towards climate change and its effects. The Resilient Planet Initiative aims to make climate-related solutions easily accessible digitally to communities. By leveraging technology, RPI bridges the gap in knowledge sharing and empowers communities with the tools they need to adapt, making them resilient in different capacities, such as strengthening climate-smart livelihood strategies or facilitating access to funding opportunities. With the knowledge that communities have the knowledge and are the experts on their challenges, the RPI application aims at equipping communities with more tools and ideas on how to upscale their already existing solutions. We worked with the community to co-develop the application with them being part of every stage of its development. The development process of the RPI application was grounded in a co-design approach, involving active collaboration with community members who are the intended end-users. This participatory design process engaged community groups from Mathare, Kibera, and Mukuru, as well as federation women leaders from Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. Their input has been instrumental in bringing the pilot phase of the application to fruition.
Inside the RPI application, key features of the application
The RPI application is set with three different features that are integrated and enhance the solutions search within the platform.
Putting the RPI app to the test: Community feedback and Insights
As the application is based on a co-production and codesigning process with the communities, community members had the opportunity to test the application and give their input and feedback on the application. The pilot was conducted across settlements in Mathare, Kibera, and Mukuru, where groups, including youth networks and women’s groups, were given early access to the platform. The users were taken through guided in-person demonstrations and then encouraged to explore each of the app’s core features: the Solutions Hub and the Exchange Hub. During this phase, the community not only provided feedback on usability, relevance of the information, clarity of language, and accessibility, but they also had the opportunity to upload some of their local solutions to the platform.. Their insights led to several important adjustments, such as simplifying navigation and proposing offline-friendly options like a USSD version for the next phase. Beyond just testing, this process validated the practicality of the app's features and reinforced the importance of grounding digital tools in lived experience. After reviewing the application’s feature one youth group member providing climate solutions in their community noted,
“The application is something that we have not seen or heard of before, and it will be a useful application, especially to us, the youth of the communities,” one youth group member from Kibera
Future RPI Improvements
While the application is still in its pilot phase, the community members are excited with the thought of having a hub where they can share and easily get access to solutions they can learn from as well as implement. The RPI application on its next phase, aims to incorporate the USSD code in its feature to enable it to be inclusive and also allow some of the people who do not have smartphones to access the solutions.. This was one of the suggestions that the communities also highlighted while interacting with the application, as well as incorporating real-time alerts into the application. The second phase of the app will aim at incorporating real-time alerts, providing communities with timely information about climate risks, enabling them to make informed decisions and take immediate action when necessary. With the interactions and reviewing the usability and accessibility of the app, a federation woman leader highlighted the application's educational value, saying,
“The application is a useful tool that will help the youth, especially in the community, in building and gaining more knowledge on how they can build resilience in the community easily and share what they have done with other community groups outside their community.”
The RPI application seeks to empower communities in creating resilient communities by having easy access to local solutions in a central place and enabling communities to share the knowledge and build resilience.
The initiative is made possible through the collaborative efforts of: Global Resilience Partnerships(GRP), Stockholm Environmental Institute (SEI), Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centers (SPARC), University of Oxford, Center for Climate and Resilience Research University of Chile, ONA and SDI(SDI-Kenya/ Muungano wa Wanavijiji) with the support of Google.org
In her interview, Nicera Wanjiru shares the impactful stories of two young residents from Kibera informal settlement, Vivian Vushele and Charles Gicura, as they reflect on how the Covid-19 pandemic has transformed their lives. Both faced significant challenges: Vivian experienced her parents' separation, while Charles had to pivot from a career in hospitality due to the industry's collapse. Their narratives highlight the emotional and economic upheaval that many young people endured during this unprecedented time.
In this piece, Jacob Omondi, Jackline Waithaka, and Jane Wairutu discuss the profound impact of COVID-19 on youth in informal settlements like Mathare, Nairobi. The pandemic has exacerbated job losses and financial instability, particularly affecting those in the informal economic sector, where many young people rely on daily earnings from their businesses.
In Loitoktok, Kajiado County, a women’s group is transforming lives through resilience and innovation. With support from the Next Level Grant Facility under Voices for Just Climate Action, they’ve expanded urban farming and beekeeping, proving the power of collective action in climate adaptation and economic empowerment.
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