President William Ruto has made the ambition plain: “We will not revamp slums—we will eradicate them.” It is a worthy aim. No Kenyan should live with flooding, fire risk, insecurity and no sanitation. This month in Eldoret, the President handed over keys to 2,157 homeowners at the Sh5.3 billion Pioneer estate. Yet what decides whether urban transformation is real is not how many slums vanish from the skyline, but whether the people who lived in them gain secure housing, a livelihood and a say in the city they helped to build.
This is not an argument against slum upgrading or affordable housing. It is a warning that clearing a settlement is not the same as overcoming poverty.
The 2026 Economic Survey counts 18.1 million people working informally against about 3.3 million in formal wage jobs, and many informal workers, such as traders, vendors, artisans, domestic workers and waste collectors, live in settlements close to customers, suppliers and neighbours who provide childcare, credit and help in hard times. Moving the family may break the income meant to pay for the new home.
Eldoret shows how this can go wrong. In January 2024, days before the Pioneer project’s launch, more than 1,000 tenants were evicted from county houses in the town, many from Pioneer estate itself, some after thirty years.
They said they had received no official notices, and the government offered Sh10,000 per family to move, which many said had not arrived. One 69-year-old said no one had explained how the families would benefit. Whether those families are among the new owners is something the public deserves to be told.
Allocation is where exclusion becomes mechanical. Boma Yangu applicants need an ID, a KRA PIN and a deposit. Applicants must document their income, while allocation is automated to minimise human intervention and favouritism. That is a sound aim, but the numbers show the gap.
At New Mukuru, 20,426 people applied for the 4,342 social housing units meant for households earning under KSh 20,000 a month, leaving more than 15,000 waiting. Street-connected children and families, older persons, people with disabilities and women heading households may not be able to apply at all.
For them a building is not the whole answer. Many need help obtaining identification, education, healthcare, social protection and livelihoods. Children need safe accommodation alongside protection, nutrition and psychosocial support.
Three thinkers help here. Amartya Sen measures development by people’s capabilities: the freedom to earn a living, reach work, educate children and shape their future, not only the infrastructure a society builds.
James C. Scott warns that states plan for the society they can record, using standard categories and eligibility rules, and overlook what they cannot read. Henri Lefebvre’s “right to the city” says inhabitants should have a voice in shaping urban space. Together they suggest a test: does the project expand what people can do, and were they involved in deciding it?
It can be done. In Mukuru, Nairobi, home to roughly 300,000 people, residents, the county and more than 40 organisations spent 2017 to 2020 drawing up a plan together, and more than 5,000 residents took part in community planning forums. Researchers have noted pitfalls, but the process shows that the urban poor can be co-planners and not only beneficiaries.
Three commitments would turn ambition into inclusion. First, keep the promise made in Kibera: enumerate residents before demolition, issue proof of residence and guarantee priority in allocation, with transport and livelihood support where people must move.
Second, publish for every project how many people were displaced and how many received units, by gender, age and disability. Third, open an allocation route for people without payslips or papers, through helping in obtaining IDs, flexible deposits and savings-group routes.
Success should be measured by lived outcomes: whether households can afford to stay, hold secure tenure and keep or improve their incomes, and whether women, young people and persons with disabilities share the benefits.
The measure of a modern city is not how well it changes its appearance but how meaningfully it expands opportunity for all who call it home. The urban poor should be recognised not merely as beneficiaries of transformation, but as citizens, workers and contributors whose experiences can help make that transformation sustainable.
Kenya’s urban future will therefore be strongest when the improvement of places goes hand in hand with the transformation of lives.
Anne Wairimu Kimani is a PhD Student, Institute for Social Transformation, Tangaza University, Kenya.
