An estimated
700,000 people live in Kibera, a sprawling shantytown in the south
of Nairobi city. Lack of a functioning sanitation and drainage
system is the greatest nightmare in the community. The residents of
Kibera must each day endure the sight of filthy narrow alleys, and
sludge and human waste from shallow latrines flowing into nearby
streams, a situation that gets worse during the rainy seasons. I
lived and labored in this environment for over five years. Most of
our local church members still live in these conditions.
Health
Hazard
Kibera is a health hazard and a ticking time bomb. It perhaps may
not be long before an epidemic of disastrous proportions breaks out. With a population density of
about 3,000 persons per hectare, it is ranked as one of Africa’s largest slums.
Nairobi has over 199 slums resulting in more than 1.6 million people living
in slums.
Colonial Policy
The slum problem in Nairobi is
partly a legacy of the colonial policy of racial segregation. During
the colonial period, urban planning in Nairobi was based on
government-sanctioned population segregation, which created separate
enclaves for Africans, Asians and Europeans. The slums developed
mainly because of unbalanced allocation of resources to housing and
infrastructural needs of the separate sections.
Unfortunately, forty years have gone by since the end of colonial
rule in Kenya and the situation has not improved. Kenya's
post-independence period saw rapid population growth in Nairobi
without corresponding housing provision, coupled with poor
population resettlement due to new developments and extension of
city boundaries to include areas that were previously rural.
Lack of Political Will
According to UN-Habitat, nearly
one billion people, or 32 percent of the world's urban population,
live in slums. Slums are characterized
by lack of basic services, substandard housing or illegal and
inadequate structures, overcrowding, unhealthy living conditions and
hazardous locations, and insecurity of tenure leading to irregular
or informal settlements, poverty and social exclusion. The most
important factor that limits progress in improving housing and
living conditions of low-income groups in informal settlements and
slums is the lack of genuine political will to address the issue in
a fundamentally structured, sustainable and large-scale manner.
An estimated
700,000 people live in Kibera, a sprawling shantytown in the south
of Nairobi city. Lack of a functioning sanitation and drainage
system is the greatest nightmare in the community. The residents of
Kibera must each day endure the sight of filthy narrow alleys, and
sludge and human waste from shallow latrines flowing into nearby
streams, a situation that gets worse during the rainy seasons. I
lived and labored in this environment for over five years. Most of
our local church members still live in these conditions.
The slum problem in Nairobi is
partly a legacy of the colonial policy of racial segregation. During
the colonial period, urban planning in Nairobi was based on
government-sanctioned population segregation, which created separate
enclaves for Africans, Asians and Europeans. The slums developed
mainly because of unbalanced allocation of resources to housing and
infrastructural needs of the separate sections.
Unfortunately, forty years have gone by since the end of colonial
rule in Kenya and the situation has not improved. Kenya's
post-independence period saw rapid population growth in Nairobi
without corresponding housing provision, coupled with poor
population resettlement due to new developments and extension of
city boundaries to include areas that were previously rural. 
According to UN-Habitat, nearly
one billion people, or 32 percent of the world's urban population,
live in slums. Slums are characterized
by lack of basic services, substandard housing or illegal and
inadequate structures, overcrowding, unhealthy living conditions and
hazardous locations, and insecurity of tenure leading to irregular
or informal settlements, poverty and social exclusion. The most
important factor that limits progress in improving housing and
living conditions of low-income groups in informal settlements and
slums is the lack of genuine political will to address the issue in
a fundamentally structured, sustainable and large-scale manner.