The Nairobi Inventory

Slum Dwellers International (SDI) and Pamoja Trust—a non-governmental organisation set up to provide administrative, logistical and technical support to urban poor communities—have released the Nairobi Inventory, a list of informal settlements in the Kenyan capital. The inventory includes a standardised measure of the variables that define informal human settlements and markets.

A unique feature of the Nairobi Inventory is that the data it contains was collected by the people living in those settlements, with the assistance of the Pamoja Trust, using their own perceptions and definitions of their situation. It includes stories, quotes, anecdotes and photos, as well as personal narrations by elderly residents about the formation of the communities.

The Inventory aims to inform approaches to slum upgrading with the ultimate goal of a community-led development strategy.