In 2018,an estimated 27 percent (13 million) of Kenya’s population lived in cities and towns, of varied sizes, across the country. Towards the year 2050, this share will approach 50 percent of the total country population, which will be an equivalent of 44 million people. Kenya is thus undergoing an urban transition, which will induce structural transformations in social, economic and spatial development aspects. To effectively and efficiently manage this transition, the country must develop the requisite urban planning and management capacities, both at the national and county levels. At the county level, there are various interventions required to attain a fit-for-purpose planning system, which is responsive to local needs and aligns such needs to the national vision for a desirable urban future. However, to formulate the appropriate interventions required [to achieve the desired planning system], it is important to understand the issues confronting the current planning system, as a critical point of departure.

This book illustrates a settled community of Turkana people, already at the 3rd or 4th generation of lifestyle shift. Through a workshop with Turkana Youth, UN-Habitat has conducted a two folded exercise: on one hand a youth group was led to discover elements of being settled as a community, through exploring typologies of living space and livelihood, elements of sustainability and self-reliance but on the other hand, the workshop provided valuable skill training in the art of photography.

Open-mindedly exploring and investigating opportunities to further improve the conditions for our cities and towns in order to offer an attractive and good living environment will often lead to visions and ideas and eventually to solutions, which might not otherwise have been considered. Continuously searching for new urban solutions is instrumental, as cities and towns are in constant transformation, morphologically, structurally, socially, culturally, and economically. Exploring new solutions and approaches to urban development derived from a particular context also generates new knowledge, which can be transferred elsewhere.

This is the fourth in the series of reports titled UN-Habitat Support to Sustainable Urban Development in Kenya. The reports addresses the topic of urban informality and reports on a capacity building session conducted by UN-Habitat for informal settlement leaders, which was also attended by county technical officers, members of county assemblies, national government officers, development partners, and civil society organizations.

This report covers a broad background of various important topics related to urban informality and planning, along with an overview of the course and outcomes of the capacity-building session. It is organized as follows. The first chapter provides a broad background on the institutions, international organizations, and past and present programmes addressing Kenya’s urban issues. The second chapter explores Kenya’s current urban situation, while the third chapter addresses the planning challenges and responses to informal settlements specifically. The fourth chapter discusses the outcomes of the capacity building session and concludes by summarizing the key issues on urban informality in Kenya and the workshop outcomes.

Report on Capacity Building for County Governments under the Kenya Municipal Programme. 

This is the second report in a series titled ‘UN-Habitat Support to Sustainable Urban Development in Kenya’. The focus of this report is on capacity development activities conducted for the Kenya Municipal Programme, Cluster I and II urban centres, namely: Mombasa, Kitui and Malindi. The report captures the outcomes of a One-Day Learning Session and a Two-Day Rapid Planning Studio conducted for county technical officers and two One-Day Learning Sessions for Members of County Assemblies.

The content of the report is structured into five sections: Part 1 describes the Background to the Kenya Municipal Programme, and UN-Habitat’s Support to the Programme; Part 2 provides the urbanisation context of Mombasa, Kitui and Malindi; Part 3 examines the implementation of urban development plans and the challenges it faces; Part 4 is a report on the outcomes of the One-Day Learning Sessions; and Part 5 discusses the outcomes of the Two-Day Rapid Planning Studio.

This report is based on the outcomes of the capacity development trainings that were undertaken in support to the implementation of the on-going Kenya Municipal Programme. The programme is mainly financed by the World Bank at a cost of US$ 129 million with cofinancing from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida); it is executed and implemented by the Kenya Government, through the Ministry of Land, Housing and Urban Development(MLHUD). UN-Habitat’s support to the Kenya Municipal Programme is through capacity development that entails training in various key issues in urban planning and development.

This report details outcomes of the first phase of the training that was done for the Kenya Municipal Programme Counties Clusters III (Machakos, Embu & Kiambu) and IV (Nyeri & Nakuru). This section of the report provides a brief background of the Kenya Municipal Programme and UN-Habitat’s support to the Programme, and draws attention to the on-going global debate on the Habitat Agenda, Habitat III1and Urban-Rural Linkages – a key theme of the 25th Governing Council (GC25) of UN-Habitat held in April2015.