Building Collective Capacity to Disrupt Urban Risk Traps
About this project
This research project focused on the assessment of urban risk traps that affects the most disadvantaged individuals across Freetown’s informal settlements. The research study connected this experience with the action planning component of the ESRC-funded research project Urban Africa Risk Knowledge (Urban ARK – visit www.urbanark.org). The project aimed to reduce risk in urban areas of sub-Saharan Africa by breaking cycles of risk accumulation. Linking the SLURC research and capacity-building programme with Urban ARK allowed the articulation of resources to deepen this experience between 2016 and 2017, connecting SLURC with a wider community of researchers and practitioners across Africa. In particular with the Urban ARK team in Malawi, who also undertook a similar path in enabling the establishment of centralised, decentralised and virtual learning platforms that tackled risk accumulation cycles.
This research aimed to improve spatial knowledge, evaluated the present investments and actions made to mitigate risks as well as produced robust evidence to help guide actions towards new strategies for climatic resilience.The empirical, conceptual and methodological knowledge generated throughout this project contributed towards resilience planning and the co-design of innovative mechanisms. Aimed to set both environmental and social viable precedents for urban development in Freetown, and a platform to upscale these at a regional and national scale.
An innovative trans-disciplinary methodology was adopted to ensure the project objectives were met, using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods that were structured into the following components:
This research project focused on the assessment of urban risk traps that affects the most disadvantaged individuals across Freetown’s informal settlements. The research study connected this experience with the action planning component of the ESRC-funded research project Urban Africa Risk Knowledge (Urban ARK – visit www.urbanark.org). The project aimed to reduce risk in urban areas of sub-Saharan Africa by breaking cycles of risk accumulation. Linking the SLURC research and capacity-building programme with Urban ARK allowed the articulation of resources to deepen this experience between 2016 and 2017, connecting SLURC with a wider community of researchers and practitioners across Africa. In particular with the Urban ARK team in Malawi, who also undertook a similar path in enabling the establishment of centralised, decentralised and virtual learning platforms that tackled risk accumulation cycles.
This research aimed to improve spatial knowledge, evaluated the present investments and actions made to mitigate risks as well as produced robust evidence to help guide actions towards new strategies for climatic resilience.The empirical, conceptual and methodological knowledge generated throughout this project contributed towards resilience planning and the co-design of innovative mechanisms. Aimed to set both environmental and social viable precedents for urban development in Freetown, and a platform to upscale these at a regional and national scale.
An innovative trans-disciplinary methodology was adopted to ensure the project objectives were met, using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods that were structured into the following components:
- Mapping risk
- Assessing risk mitigation investment flows
- Strategic action planning