Stakeholder Segment - Opening Ceremony of the Thirteenth session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13)

Ladies and gentlemen, let's first welcome Miss Sarah Nandudu from Uganda representing Slum Dwellers International.

Hello and thank you everyone. The executive director of UN Habitat, the distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Sarah Nandudu. I am the national coordinator of the National Slum Association of Uganda. We are affiliated to Slum Dwellers International. which is a global network of the people who stay in informal settlements, or call them slums. Many of us do not want to hear the word slums, but the reality is they are slums. We prefer a soft language of informal settlements. However, we belong to SDI, which is Slum Dwellers International. I'm very, very happy and excited to be invited as the people who stay in informal settlements, most specifically in the slums, to come and share our ideas on what we think is happening and what we think should be happening. Very grateful to UN-Habitat and through the leadership of Mama for accepting and recognizing that informal settlers or urban dwellers do have a voice to speak, but also have a bit of solutions to what is happening around the globe. Very excited to hear from different speakers who spoke here. And to me, the language is the same. We speak the same language. We speak same problems. but seems the gap is around the innovations to intervene the challenging issues that we go around in cities. Today we are talking about housing the world. And of course, the main focus we are looking at is the safe, resilient and communities. But are we really speaking the same language when we speak of what is being guided on here? Those are questions that all of us should be able to say. As SDI, or as Lambederas International, and the rest of the grassroot people, we want to say we have mobilized ourselves, we have collected data, community-led data, we have engaged different stakeholders, we have engaged governments, we have solutions to some of the problems, However, we are challenged with lots of challenges, such as policies that do not favour communities. You find that here we come and declare a lot of policies. We are all shouting community involvement, community participation, but when we go back home, the reverse is true. We have had countries where evictions are a big challenge to informal dwellers or slum dwellers. But yet we are saying resilient cities. We are talking of including communities. But back home, it is a different story. We are yet to hear a lot more for us to engage with different partners, especially governments, to find solutions to housing, especially in slum communities. Because it looks like in slum communities, the solution is eviction. I have not heard anyone speak here about eviction, but it's what is happening back home. My only thinking and our own suggestion here is, let us sit together Let us plan together. Let us engage one another for practical solutions to housing, because you can never build a house in planet air. You can only build a house on land, but yet land has become for big gangs in cities. I don't know whether those are inclusive cities, but I think to be exclusive cities, because now a poor person can't afford a city. We shouldn't be that case. So what are we trying to say as as grassroots people? We are saying, please work with communities. Please put proper policies that are pro people. Policies that support inclusive engagement. Policies that support inclusive development. Policies that are pro poor. Yes. We are not saying we do not want policies. We are very much abided by with policies, but can we have policies that are supporting me to stay in the city and have a right to the city? The fact that I'm staying in the slum, there is a reason why I left my home country to come to the city. Therefore, let us work together with government and different agencies to allow us participate and be part and parcel of the cities. But also we request that we recognize the initiatives that communities have already engaged in. We have lots of community-led data that is already packed that we can use to implement solutions in slum communities. We have a lot of information on housing. We have a lot of information on how people stay in these settlements. We are only waiting for partners. who are ready to come and work with us. But above all, we want to say that we open channels of financial flow to the marginalized communities, finances that can be accessible by a poor person, but can be able to afford a home. I was excited when they opened up with a video of that old mom who had her children from a funny house she had to a small, nice, beautiful house. That is what we yearn for as informal dwellers. We are not saying do not build your skyscrapers, build them, but can I afford it? Many of us say affordable housing in cities, but honestly speaking, someone who is pushing a wheelbarrow, someone who is lifting luggage in a market, someone who is selling tomatoes, Can that mother afford a skyscraper? Why don't we join hands with this woman and do in-situ slum upgrading other than evicting that mom? She has children to pay fees. She has children to raise. She needs to keep her life going. She has a small job in the city, but our job is to bulldoze her out of the city. Humble request to everyone here. Kindly support the marginalized communities. Kindly hear our voices. Kindly take us to your tables and we discuss tangible solutions that favor you governments and favor communities. We are saying, let us plan together. Let's co-plan, let's co-invest, and let's co-create. the will for the people to own the city together with everyone. I say this for God and my country. Thank you so much.