Freetown

Exploring a city-wide learning platform in planning equitable urban development

city project

In Freetown, SLURC and its community partners are establishing a city-wide and a number of Community Learning Platforms to explore the role of participatory learning in planning equitable urban developments in Freetown. We are facilitating this through participative action research, bringing together an Urban Learning Alliance composed of SLURC, local and international universities, municipal authorities, central government, communities living in informal settlements and their organisations, and NGOs.

The team aims to undertake settlement profiles with the purpose of uncovering the diverse needs and aspirations of residents within the informal settlements of Freetown.

We hope to enhance the capacity of urban stakeholders and actors in developing and undertaking informal settlement profiling, drawing on participatory spatial methodologies with the aid of our ASF partners.

Finally, we are aiming to scale up settlement knowledge to develop a city-wide understanding of urban development processes grounded through the learning platforms – the City Learning Platform and the Community Learning Platforms – whose constitution recognises social diversity, power relations and inclusive development, to support claims for urban equality for informal settlements in Freetown.