An initiative of SDI and its partners: “Know Your City (KYC) is a groundbreaking global campaign for participatory, pro-poor, people-centered urban governance. KYC unites organised slum dwellers and local governments in partnerships anchored by community-led slum profiling, enumeration, and mapping. The KYC campaign builds on the rich history of grassroots informal settlement profiling by SDI, pioneered by Indian slum and pavement dwellers, to make informal settlements visible to city authorities.
Through SDI support for peer-to-peer exchanges, this process spread to 30 countries on three continents and ushered in a new era for slum community dialogue with governments. Led by a commitment from UCLG-Africa, a KYC campaign was born that formalized this international partnership between slum dwellers and local governments. The KYC campaign serves as a powerful engine for community organisation, participatory local governance, partnership building, and collective action to enhance inclusive city planning and management.
Know Your City TV (KYC TV) ensures youth living in informal settlements are not excluded from this process by organising them to produce media and films about life in slums and creating space to engage in dialogue about city futures. KYC has the potential to guide not only local governments but also national and international policies, programmes, and investments on a large scale, and to significantly contribute to addressing the persistent social, economic, and political risks facing cities and nations.
Dive into our KYC portal, home to community-collected slum data from over 7,000 slums in more than 16 countries across the global south…(More)”.
