The above image shows Kibera, a neighborhood in one of Africa’s largest cities. What types of infrastructure are most likely missing in the neighborhood? Give two examples of how new infrastructure could help the neighborhood develop socially and economically.
Answers
Kenya, the largest economy in East Africa, has some of the starkest inequality in the region. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Nairobi, where the wealthy and middle class live and work next to slums housing some of the country’s poorest.
American photographer Johnny Miller, supported by Code for Africa and the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s Slumscapes project, has tried to capture that inequality through aerial images taken by drone. Miller previously photographed similar scenes in Cape Town in South Africa. In some ways the inequality is worse in Kenya. ”The level of poverty is much greater than in South Africa,” he says, noting the challenges of operating in Nairobi. “It is much more fast-paced, chaotic, and difficult to maneuver.”
With a local pilot familiar with Kenya’s strict drone laws, Miller photographed areas like the wealthy suburb of Loresho in northwestern Nairobi, where government workers and other upper-class Kenyans live in gated housing complexes neighboring shacks made with scrap metal, sticks, and mud.
JOHNNY MILLER/THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION
A highway separates a slum from an upscale neighborhoods in the Nairobi suburb of Loresho in Kenya.
Kibera, a sprawling slum that is home to anywhere between 170,000 and 400,000 people, features heavily in Miller’s project. Some estimates put Kibera’s population at one million, making it the largest slum in Africa. New highways, housing estates, and a golf course have been built next to Kibera.