Tags: Informal cities, Urban development, Accra, Bangkok, Chennai, Lima, Manila, Nairobi, Futures

The future scenarios presented in this report were developed as part of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Informal City Dialogues Project. They were generated through an inclusive, multi-stakeholder, locally-adapted workshop process, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and led by Forum for the Future in partnership with the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET) in Accra, Chulalongkorn University Department of Urban and Rural Planning (CUURP) in Bangkok, Transparent Chennai in Chennai, FORO Nacional Internacional in Lima, Ateneo de Manila University School of Government in Manila (ASoG), and the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) in Nairobi. In addition, Geci-Karuri Sebina acted as facilitator for the scenarios workshop in Accra and Tanja Hichert facilitated both the scenarios and innovation workshops in Nairobi and Chennai. With input from a wide range of participants, including slum dwellers, waste pickers, community organizers, local government leaders, youth, private sector workers, academics, people with disabilities, and others, four scenarios were generated for each city. These scenarios imagined possible futures of the city out to the year 2040, with a particular focus on the informal sector, and how it might evolve over time. A second series of workshops was convened in each city that used the scenarios to catalyse ideas for social innovations to promote more inclusive and resilient futures for each city.

Reimagining the future-of informality.pdf