Nairobi’s Kibera slum upgrades making life a bit easier for residents
Nairobi County’s 2018 development plan shows that over 80% of residents have access to piped water, with only 1% taking more than 30 minutes to reach a water point
Nairobi — Food vendor Mary Akinyi, a single mother of three, arranged her dried fish on a table at the side of a busy road in Kibera, Nairobi’s largest slum, getting ready for peak hours in the early evening. The road, built in 2014, has been good for business. “Many people pass here, and from 4pm, I get a lot of customers — they even queue to buy fish,” said Akinyi jovially. Before, there were no tarmac roads to Lindi, a village in Kibera, restricting custom and hiking transport costs. The alleys leading to the centre would flood in the rainy season, while insecurity forced traders to shut up shop early. The UN projects that 68% of the world’s population will be living in cities by 2050, up from 55% now, with 90% of that growth in Asia and Africa. As climate change hits African farmers hard, people are migrating in growing numbers from rural areas to cities, where they are exposed to floods, fire and other dangers — a problem Nairobi is trying to tackle by upgrading its slum areas....
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