By George M.O. Williams
The Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre (SLURC) on Tuesday, December 6, 2022, engaged members of different communities under the City Learning Platform to facilitate and share knowledge in addressing critical issues and challenges and finding new ways to undertake research.
The City Learning Platform is a space for learning and sharing, in which different actors can gather to discuss experiences, current urban issues and identifying solution, coordinate and develop proposals for the upgrading of informal settlements in the city of Freetown.
The engagement aimed to explore ways to translate research findings into impact, an initiative supported under the African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC) project. The ACRC research in Freetown will focus on housing, informal settlement, health, nutrition and wellbeing, safety, security and youth capability development.
The Director of Research and Training, SLURC, Braima Kamara said the ACRC research also aims to gain a clearer understanding of the development challenges confronting African cities and to directly inform and support intervention that could improve livelihood and reduce poverty in Africa.
He added that the learning had created a democratic platform for policy dialogue, debate and discussion, which will in turn create a feedback chain that will provide concrete solution on participatory process that could shape and solve development challenges in Freetown.
In his presentation, the Executive Director of SLURC, Dr. Joseph Macarthy said that political undertone has had influential impact on informal settlement, where they are struggling to have their voice to ensure basic necessities are delivered in their communities.
He said that sometimes situation arises where only one political party dominates in a settlement, which may result to no significant need for political actors to even deliver basic services, thus residents do not normally benefit from those development rather than the settlement.
He mentioned that research aimed to generate research-based interventions that can also help reduce poverty and enable them to become more productive, equitable and sustainable.
He mentioned that they also focused to build experience and capacity to analyse and manage the complex contested politics of urban development and the intrinsic political dimension of urban reform.