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Paper short abstract

This paper examines how power and epistemic hierarchies shape urban WASH governance in Nairobi’s informal settlements, arguing that reimagining development futures requires centring grassroots knowledge, community agency, and participatory co-design.

Paper long abstract

Urban development in Nairobi’s informal settlements unfolds amid deepening climate uncertainty and fragmented governance. Yet decision-making in the WASH sector continues to privilege expert-driven, technocratic knowledge while marginalising the situated insights of residents who navigate daily scarcity, risk, and infrastructural failure. This paper examines how epistemic hierarchies shape WASH governance in settlements such as Mukuru and Mathare, and argues that reimagining equitable urban futures requires centring grassroots knowledge as a legitimate and necessary form of development.

Drawing on debates in epistemic justice, Southern urbanism, and feminist political economy, the paper analyses how conventional participation processes often extract community data without shifting power or influencing design. Examples from informal water systems, women’s caregiving practices, and locally developed adaptation strategies illustrate how residents already engage in forms of planning, risk assessment, and climate-responsive innovation that remain unrecognised within official frameworks.

The paper advances three arguments. First, what counts as relevant knowledge in policy spaces is governed more by legitimacy and authority than by technical insight alone. Second, grassroots actors produce essential knowledge on affordability, safety, and climate risk that should inform institutional planning. Third, participatory co-design offers a pathway for redistributing agency by involving communities as co-producers of knowledge central to planning and decision-making.

By reframing informal settlements as sites of knowledge production rather than policy deficits, the paper contributes to wider debates on decolonising development and climate justice. It calls for WASH governance approaches that incorporate community-led insight to build more just, resilient, and responsive urban futures.