August 2023

Thank you for your ongoing support and participation in the IDEAMAPS Data Ecosystem project!

The IDEAMAPS Data Ecosystem project aims to design innovative digital technologies and create new channels for data integration and exchange among communities, local governments, and their partners. This will help them overcome barriers to work together on citywide planning, neighbourhood improvement and "slum" upgrading.

The project uses a process of co-design to ensure that key stakeholders have an active voice in the definition of technologies that offer improved information in the right formats to support citywide planning and participatory "slum" upgrading, as well as to monitor progress toward these goals over time.

The IDEAMAPS Data Ecosystem project will produce two software interfaces (for users of mobile devices versus computers) and several maps (geospatial data) that characterise urban deprivation. The specific details of these interfaces are being shaped together with stakeholders in the co-design process and the results achieved so far are summarised in this document.

Co-design Phase #1 Summary

Phase 1 of the IDEAMAPS Data Ecosystem focused on the creation of "user personas". User personas describe the profiles of people who we want to use the IDEAMAPS Data Ecosystem. They capture the motivations and frustrations these people might have - the kind of information they want to see or what formats they want it in.

Our Process

Since the start of 2023, we’ve been creating and iterating user personas with community and government stakeholders in Lagos (Feb 2023) and Nairobi (June 2023) through workshops and discussions.

What We’ve Learned

Lagos - Jan 30 - Feb 05, 2023

• Community profiling is important for government stakeholders and town planners. They also need to know the locations and boundaries of deprived areas such as “slums” to support urban renewal plans and interventions.
• Each local government agency needs citywide information specific to their mandate, for example, about housing, land, water and sanitation, transportation, health, floods, etc.
• The local government agency responsible for urban renewal and “slum” upgrading needs general deprivation/“slum” maps within city administrative boundaries. This information is helpful to other agencies to disaggregate indicators by “slum” / non-“slum.”
• Communities require information about local infrastructure and services that needs to be organized in a way they can easily pull out information when meeting different government agencies. For example, road information when meeting the transportation agency; water and sanitation information when meeting the water or health department, etc.
• Under the real threat of eviction, communities with informal land and/or housing tenure have serious concerns about revealing the exact locations of their local areas.