Recycling Slums the Right Way: Building on Participatory Slum Upgrading

The 10th annual GPPN Conference, hosted by the Sciences Po School of Public Affairs, featured students' solution oriented ideas and prototypes to address public policy challenges identified by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To participate, each GPPN member school carefully selected up to five student teams to present their projects and compete for the GPPN prize. The result: 32 teams from around the world met in Paris to showcase their ideas on how to solve some of the most pressing global challenges of today.

Participatory Urban Planning using simple IT applications is one way to ensure the sustainability of the recycled slums by ensuring that the slums are re-designed in a way that preserves the sense of community - that have arised as a survival mechanism for the squatters in the city - and prioritises dwellers’ needs as opposed to forced slum clearances. (1) Sustainability→ Achieved through preserving the sense of community and belonging. (2) This could be achieved by participatory urban planning for the slum’s design. (3) The slum’s design could be better visualised (development of an image) by simple IT applications.

Meet the team

Amirah Kaca Sumarto is a second year MPA student and an Indonesia Presidential,Scholar. Prior to LSE, Amirah has a four year work experience in IBM. In addition to that, she also has an experience assisting Indonesian local governments implement bureaucratic reform initiatives such as e-procurement and complaint handling systems. She is also a co-founder of Rumah Cerita, a non-profit writing center providing literary education for Indonesian youths.

Engy Saleh is an Egyptian second year MPA student at London School of Economics and Political Science and holder of AlQalaa Foundation scholarship. Prior to LSE, Engy has worked as an Economic Researcher at the Cabinet of the Minister of International Cooperation in Egypt for two years, in charge of US. Economic cooperation with Egypt and cooperation with Sub-Saharan African countries. Engy received her BA in Economics with highest honors from The American University in Cairo. Her main interest is improving public sector productivity and designing incentive systems for public sector employees.

Interested in learning more about the GPPN programs and degrees? Find out here!