The Dialectics of Sustainable Neighborhood Development for Nairobi's Kibera Informal Settlement

The United Nations Millennium Declaration which aims at significantly improving the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by the year 2020 has renewed the worldwide recognition of the need to address proliferation of informal settlements in the urban centers. However, urbanization, which is inevitable, if allowed to proceed without commensurate infrastructural provisions, globally accentuates the shortage of quality housing and general poverty which are the focus of sustainable development agenda. Meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) therefore necessitates urban inclusiveness within the development framework of sustainable urban neighborhood. To achieve this, the policymakers should intertwine the professional ideas with those of the slum dwellers within a popular participation framework. This paper relying on the primary data is geared towards demonstrating how to evolve a sustainable neighborhood development using Kibera informal settlement in Nairobi as a model. This was conceived with a view that conventional urban development policies and past responses to the problem of informal settlements have been based on the erroneous premise that provision of housing and related services through slum upgrading, site and service schemes and physical eradication on their own solves the problem. This has failed to address the underlying poverty which is the most significant aspect of the informal settlements. This realization should compel policymakers to be vigorous at enhancing livelihood alongside the provision of quality shelter in linking income generation activities to housing development