Collaboration & Co-Design
Why Collaboration & Co-Design?
Collaboration & Co-Design is critical to achieving context-appropriate, inclusive, accessible, and community-owned infrastructures in informal settlements. Yet, in Kenya, participatory efforts toward upgrading schemes remain limited in scale and scope, despite citizen participation having been established as a core principle in Kenya’s constitution in 2010[1].
Collaboration & Co-Design goes beyond merely including local stakeholders, particularly residents, in infrastructure upgrading initiatives; it entails treating them as equal partners. Residents understand the daily challenges and complex realities they face better than any outsider. In many cases, they have already proposed potential solutions[2]. Drawing on local knowledge ensures that infrastructure interventions are effective and practical. It is then up to urbanists and designers to help implement the proposals of residents. Collaboration & Co-Design ideally creates a win-win situation in which stakeholders benefit from each other’s lived experiences and expert knowledge.
Central to the principle is the idea that urbanists and community members are co-creators of knowledge and skill acquirers, and that learning is a multi-stakeholder partnership. Collaboration & Co-Design means tapping into the oft-ignored community “knowing-in-practice,” most of which is tacit and intuitive knowing in the midst of action[3].
Planning & Design
Methods/activities for co-design engagement. URL
At the planning and design stages, infrastructure solutions are identified and typically contextualized. For them to be appropriate, accessible, inclusive, and durable over time, it is critical that their end-users—residents—are involved in the process of their planning and design. It is at this stage that Collaboration & Co-Design needs to take place. Through this approach, community ownership is generated, and technical knowledge and the responsiveness of residents are enhanced.
Residents’ participation in the planning and design process empowers them and provides them with increased responsibility once the infrastructure is implemented. Ultimately, Collaboration & Co-Design at the planning and design stages strengthens community resilience, putting residents in a position where they can make necessary amendments should problems with the intervention occur. Involving residents can also help foster social cohesion, as it requires the engagement of different demographic groups who, at times, have few points of contact.
More than that, if residents feel that the infrastructure corresponds to their needs, they are more likely to accept it. Upgrading projects that ignored the Co-Design & Collaboration Principle have often resulted in failed interventions. An example from Kibera is the relocation of residents to high-rise housing[4]. Because end-users were not involved in the planning and design phase, they felt alien in their new homes and largely rejected the supposed upgrade.
Collaboration & Co-Design at the implementation and use stage further contributes to the long-term sustainability of built works. They are likely to enhance a sense of resident ownership and responsibility for maintaining the infrastructures being implemented. Through residents’ involvement in the construction process, capacity is built, and knowledge is created regarding how the infrastructure functions, as well as what is required to maintain it and respond should issues arise.
Participation in the process of building infrastructures, furthermore, enhances community members’ willingness to invest in their maintenance.
Policies need to be in place to enable Colab & Co-design… We currently have good aspirations in Constitution… Co design take it further….
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Implementation & Use
Citizen participation as per the Kenyan Constitution is a requirement (Art. 1 CoK) at different levels of government. In addition, multiple provisions within Kenya’s devolution laws require county governments “to implement including timely access to information, public involvement in planning, [and] budgeting[5].”
In practice, however, residents are often ignored in infrastructure projects. Discussions on how residents could best be involved are rare. More often than not, they are merely consulted rather than collaborated with effectively and meaningfully. Though examples of meaningful Collaboration & Co-Design processes exist, Kenya is nonetheless at risk of doing her population a disservice.
As of now, participation is mostly required at the planning and design stages, but not during implementation and use. Yet to achieve greater inclusivity, community ownership, and ultimately sustainable infrastructures in informal settlements, it is imperative that Collaboration & Co-Design takes place throughout the entire project cycle. Therefore, additional policies must be introduced to embed Collaboration & Co-Design in all project stages. This is particularly true in the context of urban infrastructure projects in informal settlements, the complex realities of which are impossible to understand without inside knowledge of the needs and ideas articulated by the communities.
A case of KPSP 10 Drainage
In Kibera, an area called Andolo, flooding had been a recurring issue faced by the community. In order to tackle the issue of flooding in their area, the Andolo community came together to take action. Residents organised themselves and conducted clean ups. However, the community noted that collaborating with other organisations would be required to reduce the risk and impact of flooding they had been experiencing. The community approached KDI to identify with them together a viable solution to the problem they faced. KDI initiated a co-design process with the Andolo community in which a drainage was designed and built. As residents were not only involved in planning and designing the drainage but also in the construction process the community owns and maintains the drainage, undertakes occasional clean ups and repairs any potential damages that might occur.
Governance & Policy
[1] Horn, P. (2021). Enabling participatory planning to be scaled in exclusionary urban political environments: lessons from the Mukuru Special Planning Area in Nairobi. URL
[2] Website Sunlight Foundation, 2022. URL
[3] Visser, W. (2010). Schön: Design as a reflective practice. URL
[4] Ngunjiri, W. (2018, 2 May). Nairobi Slum Dwellers Feel Let Down by the ‘Promised Land’. URL
[5] Kenya School of Government (2015). Basic Requirements for Public Participation in Kenya’s Legal Framework. Working Paper 2. World Bank. p.2
