Building Local Governance: Participation and Elite Capture in Slum‐upgrading in Kenya

Abstract

Community and democratic participation are still an essential component of current mainstream development interventions. However, elite capture seriously undermines the outcomes of development projects. This article analyses the effects on (in)equality of the implementation of policies that are technically participatory, in the context of an internationally-funded urban development programme in Nairobi, which was implemented in the aftermath of the post-election violence of [2007][2008]. Ethnographic data reveal how the institutionalization of pre-existing power imbalances between landlords and tenants is accomplished through the creation of structures of community governance and 'participatory enumeration'. The article concludes that without the resources to challenge powerful interests within the settlement, the programme is likely to worsen the condition of a large section of the residents. In the context of strong pre-existing inequalities and conflict, participation needs careful management and firm external agency to achieve genuine social transformation.

Realizing the Right to Sanitation in Deprived Urban Communities: Meeting the Challenges of Collective Action, Coproduction, Affordability, and Housing Tenure

“…Issues of coproduction combine with collective action problems here, since part of the problem is that good neighborhood sanitation is coproduced by residents and landlords, but if landlords are free to increase rents to a rate set by the market, they will be able to extract all of the benefits. This is part of a broader set of issues involving struggles with landlords (or structure owners in the case of informal settlements where land ownership is not clear), which can easily undermine efforts to upgrade low-income settlements and benefit their low-income residents (Rigon, 2014).…”

‘Our Changes’? Visions of the Future in Nairobi

“…Previous urban renewal projects in Nairobi have been far from transparent, and claims of land-grabbing, corporate intrigue, elite capture and removal of sitting tenants have been rife (see Rigon, 2014). Given such precedents, residents fear Eastlands renewal may mean exclusion and eviction, and are setting in motion other forms of action.…”

Social-Economic Immobility: A Study of Fishermen’s Struggle among Corporation Powers in the East Coast of Kalimantan, Indonesia

“…Acting as development brokers, the elites place themselves as the community's representation and connect the target community with external parties, (Platteau dan Gaspart, 2003: 3). In Kenya, cases show that elite capture seriously undermines the outcome of development projects (Rigon, A., 2014). Platteau, J.-P.a , Somville, V.b , Wahhaj, Z.c (2014) mentions that elite capture happens because of information distortion, which occurs in the situation where (i) communities are heterogeneous and dominated by the local elite, (ii) the elite strategically proposes a project to the donor, knowing that the latter has imperfect knowledge of the needs of the target population.…”