Mapping positive change: a case study to simulate a slum-prosperity agenda for inclusive urban development

The population in slums is currently over 1 billion and set to double by the year 2030. Any attempt to tackle challenges and advance the life they can afford needs to be reframed so that they become contributors to prosperity, in themselves, and their wider urban context. This paper puts forward the Slum Prosperity Framework (SPF) that aims to approach slums as a source of potential for appropriately targeted improvement towards prosperity. Slums are in general a first and many a time, permanent port of call for their inhabitants. Their development and population growth are often tied to wider urban contexts, defining a two-way socio-cultural/economic/political relation. Slums are complex physically, spatially, socially, economically, also often hosting entrepreneurship and capital resources. Any form of intervention on slums should, therefore, start from a comprehensive definition of their character by compiling a slum property map (SPM). The properties will include those that describe the slum’s name, place, physical structure, functions, procedures and agencies, processes, people's behaviours and personality traits. On this basis, and through network analysis methods, intervention is then planned through a process, which matches resources, needs, and assets (triggers) to chart a progressive path of fulfillment. One that is, however, responsive to patterns of change in time, allowing slums to thrive and henceforth prosper. An application of this process is presented through the case of Garki village, Abuja. The case study proves the SPF with SPM is useful: in building jointly-agreed interrelating facts about slums in a non-exclusive, organised, and dynamic way; in engaging stakeholders to use such knowledge and collaboratively identify strategic paths of engagement relative to slums' potentials for prosperity, context-specific goals, and incremental action design; and, in enhancing local stakeholder capabilities. This prototype will soon become a workbook for stakeholder implementation in collaboration with experts and local communities.