Know Your City: Slum Dwellers Count

This landmark publication showcases the extraordinary contribution of the Know Your City campaign to understanding and taking action to reduce urban poverty and exclusion. Anchored by SDI’s community-led informal settlement profiling, enumeration and mapping, the KYC campaign supports partnerships between local and city governments and organized slum communities. The campaign was established as a joint program between SDI affiliated federations and the United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLG-A) and has become a powerful force for for community organization, participatory local governance, partnership building, and collective action to implement global commitments to “leave no one behind.” This publication brings together institutions at the forefront of emergent solutions that hold great promise for enhancing inclusiveness and resilience at scale. It details the work of organized communities of the urban poor to collect systematic data on conditions in their settlements and fill critical gaps in knowledge. It presents examples of enlightened local governments seeking to change the status quo through collaborative and inclusive city planning and management, it captures the essential partnerships of public, private and community actors working to make fundamental change.