Strategic Grant for Kenya, Namibia and Zimbabwe

In 2008, Comic Relief approved a five-year Strategic Grant to support our partners in Kenya, Namibia and Zimbabwe to scale-up their work to address the challenges of overcrowding, forced eviction, inadequate shelter and limited or non-existent water and sanitation facilities, all of which result in poor standards of living.  The grant has been provided under a project named 'Scaling-up community-driven land, housing and infrastructure development in slum areas'.

 

Through Comic Relief support, existing networks of slum dwellers’ savings groups (Federations) in the three countries will be able to work on a much larger scale by strengthening their organisation and improving their engagement with local/national governments and access to affordable finance.  Poor communities will be able to drive decision-making and strategies for developing their own housing and infrastructure.
 
The project will help to improve health levels and social wellbeing, and increase income opportunities amongst these networks of slum dwellers.  People will also have the confidence, capacity and opportunity to take control of the decisions that affect their lives.

The Strategic Grant will also help Pamoja Trust in Kenya, the Namibia Housing Action Group and Dialogue Zimbabwe to:

• Deliver community-driven land, housing and infrastructure initiatives more quickly.  The project will provide communities with flexible resources that enable them to develop new ways of financing and implementing construction.
• Expand innovative community-driven development solutions as part of land, housing and infrastructure initiatives.
• Develop their organisational and managerial capacities which will improve the impact they are able to make in the lives of slum dwellers.
• Increase the local, national and international profiles of the organisations, networks of slum/shack dwellers, the issues they are tackling and the solutions that they are implementing.