A review of experimental informal urbanism initiatives and their implications for sub-Saharan Africa's sustainable cities’ agenda

• Published in: Sustainable cities and society 2022-08, Vol.83, p.103938, Article 103938
• Main Authors: Quaye, Isaac, Amponsah, Owusu, Azunre, Gideon Abagna, Takyi, Stephen Appiah, Braimah, Imoro
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Experimental informal urbanism; Slums; sub-Saharan Africa (SSA); Sustainable city development; Urban Informality
• ISSN: 2210-6707; 2210-6715
• DOI: 10.1016/j.scs.2022.103938

•This study examines experimental informal initiatives and discusses their implications for sustainable development of sub-Saharan African cities.•Economic sustainability is enhanced through employment opportunities.•Social sustainability increases through social integration, collaboration, and affordable housing.•Environmental sustainability is improved by waste recycling, urban agriculture, and access to adequate sanitation and water.•The study's position is that the urban poor are developing innovative projects that ought to be harnessed and scaled up. A dominant narrative in conventional literature is that informality is a barrier against sustainable city development. However, in recent times, some scholars argue that informal urbanism has positive implications for the attainment of the sustainable city development goals. Following this view, this study investigates the experimental projects (referred to as Experimental Informal Urbanism – EIU) developed by slum dwellers in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in response to their deprivations and discusses their implications for the region's sustainable city development agenda. The study relied solely on secondary data (both scholarly and grey literature) that were extracted using search engines and data repositories such as Scopus, Web of Science, Google, Google Scholar, and the Mendeley Literature search function. The results indicate that slum residents in major cities in SSA have engineered innovative solutions to their deprivations. Some of the initiatives are: a) greenspace development on refuse dumpsites, b) solar-powered cars, c) productive reuse of plastic waste, organic waste, and electronic waste (e-waste), d) water sharing and e) plastic and sandbag housing. These innovative initiatives promote resilience and have positive implications for the sustainable city development agenda of SSA cities. However, some of these initiatives could have adverse health and environmental consequences. We therefore call on states and city authorities to consciously take stock of innovative initiatives of slums and research ways to harness, replicate, and integrate them into their sustainable city development agenda.