Slums are Solvable (Part 01): Revisiting its Criticality – Theory and Practice

Slums are Solvable Webinar Series 

Recognising the scaling potential of the Jaga Mission and its excellency in promoting the coordination of key stakeholders in the development and distribution of resources, knowledge sharing, and joint implementation.

The agencies included are INHAF, Tata Steel Foundation, the Centre for Policy Research, and Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship & Democracy, along with the UN-Habitat and Cities Alliance, have come together to organise a webinar series to provide input and insights to local, national, and international debates on how to facilitate and scale participatory and integrated approaches for slum transformation.

• The primary overall objective of the series is to deep dive into the detailed policy and programmatic work undertaken under the Jaga Mission to solve challenges faced by slum dwellers. By assembling this information, the webinar series will also act as an archive of this work. The organizing committee is also keen to try to raise resources to produce a publication out of this effort.

• This webinar series will also act as an opportunity for stakeholders across the sectors of housing and basic services, especially from Indian cities, to familiarize themselves with practical planning and management instruments that are available and that can be employed to rapidly solve issues related to inadequate housing and transform poor habitats in slums at scale.

Webinar 1: Slums are Solvable: Revisiting its Criticality – Theory and Practice

The first webinar will frame the discussion that the six webinars will cover. It will frame the local discussion within the global frameworks of the “Global Action Plan – Accelerating the transformation of informal settlements and slums by 2030” and two connected resolutions, whose implementation is championed by the Governments of India, Brazil, and South Africa.

• It will outline the dynamics of slum growth in different regions, and highlight how this development is central for the achievement of international development agendas (SDGs, climate change etc).

• It will then identify the range of conceptualisations of slums and their process-aspects, introduce concepts such as the right to adequate housing and the city, the “De Soto effect”, and Housing Justice as a framing concept among others.

• The session will further discuss how these broader theoretical conceptions and approaches have been adopted to solve for challenges in slums in practice in specific contexts in East Asia, South Asia, Africa and Latin America.