Giving Voice to Slums: Creating Digital Urban Platform for Community SelfReporting Amid COVID-19

The United Nations (2014) has estimated that 70 percent of urban dwellers in subSaharan African, including Nigeria, live in slums and informal settlements. These communities are found on fragile and undesirable locations including floodplains, wetlands, and waste dumps inhabited by the most destitute and economically vulnerable urban populations. In Lagos State, the number of slum and informal settlements has increased from 42 in 1985 to 360 in 2020 with urban population growth rate estimated at about 2.9 percent, almost twice the national rate of 6-8 percent (Salako, 2020). These slum dwellers lack opportunities for the good life and access to basic services including water, sanitation, electricity, and healthcare. This deprivation in social infrastructure and basic services has made slum dwellers in Lagos State extremely vulnerable amid largely poorly uncoordinated responses to the COVID-19 (The Cable, April 20, 2020 & Business Day, April 19, 2020). Slum dwellers need a platform to share their perspectives about vulnerability and responses to COVID-19 including health behaviours and risk factors and how to change them. Thus, there is a need to create a Digital Urban Platform for open and inclusive community-led storytelling to amplify the voices of slum dwellers. This aligns with the call in 2014, the Secretary General of the United Nations indicated the need to amplify the voices of slum dwellers (UN Habitat, 2014). Expected Outputs The project aims to amplify slum voices by creating a digital urban platform for community self-reporting of vulnerability and response to COVID-19 in Lagos. The specific objectives include to: understand socio-economic conditions, health behaviours and risk factors which may adversely impact lives and livelihoods systems of slum dwellers amid COVID-19; mapping vulnerabilities and responses to COVID-19 pandemic in selected slum communities; developing local capacities and skills to change health behaviour and risk factors of slum dwellers amid COVID-19; and identifying community-led interventions and mechanisms for amplifying slum voices and promoting advocacy towards improved responses to COVID-19.