Urban Upgrading for Inclusion, Sustainability and Resilience in a time of Global Pandemics

Unprecedented circumstances created by the COVID-19 pandemic have presented huge challenges to a third of the global urban population living in slums around the world. The e-learning course “Urban Upgrading for Inclusion, Sustainability and Resilience in a time of Global Pandemics” aims at supporting policy makers and urban practitioners to better respond to the challenge of slums, especially in a time of global pandemics. The course focuses on the conceptual and operational aspects of designing, implementing and sustaining a slum upgrading intervention, while underscoring the main policy and programmatic approaches at city level for scaling up upgrading and better planning for future growth.

Week 1: The Case for Upgrading __

How to articulate urban policies, institutional reforms, and spatially targeted interventions to better address existing and future slums.

Week 2: Planning Informal Settlement Upgrading __

How to plan upgrading interventions from a neighborhood project level to a city-wide scale. __

Week 3: Financing Informal Settlement Upgrading __

How to finance upgrading interventions, leveraging public, private and community resources and the role social enterprises play in servicing the poor.

Week 4: Improving Land Tenure __

How to increase tenure security in informal settlements incrementally, from protecting local communities from forced eviction towards formal land tenure rights.

Week 5: Upgrading Infrastructure __

How to design infrastructure improvement intervention in informal areas to improve accessibility, water and sanitation, drainage and erosion control, electrification and street lighting, as well as community facilities.

Week 6: Incremental Housing and Resettlement __

How to address shelter needs in informal areas, from managing voluntary resettlement in upgrading interventions to providing technical and financial support for housing improvements.

Week 7: Social Inclusion in Upgrading __

How to involve local communities during the design, implementation and post-occupation of upgrading projects, how to promote social development such as income generation, and how to integrate urban informal workers and their livelihoods in urban upgrading.

Week 8: Sustainability and Scaling Up __

How to ensure that investments are well-maintained during post-occupation phase and that upgrading is scaled up continuously.

Week 9: Managing Health Outbreaks in Slums __

How to apply a framework for action in urban upgrading to respond to the needs of the urban poor in the short, medium and long terms during and after a health outbreak.