As in many global cities, Nairobi slum dwellers suffer from basic deprivations, which drastically affect living conditions and hamper economic and social empowerment.

Aside from social vulnerability, their living environment complicates access to basic needs and services and makes them proportionally much more expensive compared to upper classes, who benefit from formal urbanization plans and infrastructures.

This situation has a severely negative impact on nutrition status; indeed, the prevalence of undernutrition is particularly high in slums where stunting among children under three years can reach 60 percent.

In an effort to elucidate the complex reality slum dwellers face and its link with undernutrition, Concern Worldwide, with the support of the Link NCA Technical Unit from Action Against Hunger, implemented a large Link NCA participatory research investigation in the two slums of Mukuru and Viwandani.

The lessons learned from this experience were shared, liven up by expert's presentations at the Nairobi Learning Event, organized at the end of the study.

Watch or read the report!

Claudio Torres works for the UN HABITAT Headquarters. He is part of the United Nations Slum Upgrading Unit. He is one of the world experts on the issue of slums. In this interview, he brings a light on slum dwellers and their living conditions.

Focus Group Discussion during a Link NCA in Kenya, West Pokot County, 2015 (c) Nahashon Kipruto for Action Against Hunger

Gwenaëlle Luc-Menichelli is a former Link NCA analyst. She now works for the Link NCA Unit providing guidance and technical support to analysts and organizations involved in a Link NCA.

She recently published in Humanitarian Alternatives an article highlighting the challenges and dilemmas of ethical principles applied to humanitarian field interventions. 

“Link NCA studies are designed to develop and implement more effective programs and improve populations’ livelihoods. Communities are deeply involved with constant participation in the process. At the end of the study, feedback from collected results is given to the communities.With the support of the technical unit, analysts work to develop and promote an ethical approach, respectful of the people from whom the studies are conducted.” (G. Luc-Menichelli)

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Surveyors working on tablets during the Link NCA in Haiti (c) Lenka Blanárová

During the recent NCA Link in Haiti, the team used the KoBo ToolBox platform to carry out the quantitative survey. KoBo ToolBox is a comprehensive set of tools for collecting and analyzing data on a mobile devices.

The first added value was to reduce investigation time by half. It also greatly eased electronic data transfer and prevented usual manual transcription errors. Beside the indisputable advantage of time saving, this methodology still requires points of attention and particularly, the fact that is not possible to anticipate all unexpected answers during interviews.
Therefore, it is necessary to plan a high quality training for surveyors and count on a very much involved project manager to fully lead the process.

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