Lagos

Lagos' child street workers

According to UNICEF, roughly 15 million children under the age of 14 were employed in Nigeria's semi-formal and informal sectors in 2006. The most common forms of employment include street vendors, beggars, shoe shiners, mechanics, bus conductors, and domestic servants. This high incidence of child labor follows Nigeria's high poverty rate: these children's labour sometimes serves as the only source of income not only for themselves, but also for their families. Child labour has become an avenue for impoverished families in Lagos to provide basic needs for themselves, at the expense of the child. Read more or join the discussion.

Submitted by Wura — Mon, 06/10/2013 - 00:00

Women empowering women through vocational skills

The importance of empowering women goes beyond giving them a means to sustenance and income. It is fundamental to building the fabric of society. A successful woman who is a productive member of society is more likely to create a strong community both in her home and her society. According to CARE, women and girls suffer disproportionately from the burden of extreme poverty, and make up 70 percent of the 1 billion people living on less than a dollar a day. Read more or join the discussion.

Submitted by Editor — Mon, 06/03/2013 - 00:00

Makoko's floating school project — an uncertain future

Makoko is a slum settlement on the Lagos Lagoon. There are no reliable population figures, but estimates for the number of inhabitants range from 100,000 to 300,000. According to the NGO Social and Economic Rights Action Center (SERAC), Makoko supplies forty percent of the dried fish sold in Lagos. The settlement is not a face of Lagos that the state government is proud of, and there have been attempts to pull it down and evict the inhabitants, as has been done elsewhere. The first time I visited Makoko, in November 2011, residents showed me (I was visiting with two foreign journalists) evidence of what the demolitioners had accomplished on a previous mission. Read more.

Submitted by Tolu Ogunlesi — Fri, 05/10/2013 - 09:37

Bridging the health care information gap and creating free treatment in Lagos

The lack of access to health care information, such as treatment options and preventative measures, as well as the dearth of affordable treatment relevant to the urban poor have been the focal points of the Lagos State Government's awareness programs. It has been ascertained that some of the health information issues arise due to insufficient communication channels, or the use of inappropriate channels for target audiences. For example, television commercials tend to be ineffective, as most urban poor do not have access to such devices, and general illiteracy levels are high. With information materials usually in English, the message is lost on the majority of the populace that need it. Read more or join the discussion.

Submitted by Editor — Mon, 04/08/2013 - 00:00

Inclusiveness is all about smashing barriers, not selling statistics

It just doesn't add up. Nigeria is one of the world's fastest growing economies (we've been in that exclusive club for years); Foreign Direct Investment ($8.9bn in 2011, a four-fold increase from a decade before) and Diaspora remittances ($21 billion in 2012) are growing impressively; crude oil prices are at record-high levels — but none of these is managing to make an impact on poverty rates. Read more.

Submitted by Tolu Ogunlesi — Thu, 04/04/2013 - 11:08

Event: African Perspectives 2013
14–17 November 2013 Lagos, Nigeria

African Perspectives is a series of conferences on Urbanism and Architecture in Africa, initiated by the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (Kumasi, Ghana), University of Pretoria (South Africa), Ecole Supérieure d'Architecture de Casablanca (Morocco), Ecole Africaine des Métiers de l'Architecture et de l’Urbanisme (Lomé, Togo), ARDHI University (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania), Delft University of Technology (Netherlands) and ArchiAfrika.

The objectives of the African Perspectives conferences are:

  • to bring together major stakeholders to map out a common agenda for African Architecture and create a forum for its sustainable development
  • to provide the opportunity for African experts in Architecture to share locally developed knowledge and expertise with each other and the broader international community
  • to establish a network of African experts on sustainable building and built environments for future cooperation on research and development initiatives on the continent.

Learn more.

What's the vision for the poor, in this mini-planet of slums?

It made international news headlines. An estimated forty thousand persons, rendered homeless in no time, when a demolition squad rolled into Ijora Badia community. It's the way of Lagos, it seems. The poor — who make up the 'informal economy' that reportedly constitutes about 70 percent of the city's population — are perpetually on the run, hounded by government policies that seem to exist for the purpose of making more land available for the minority well-off to play with. (Apparently the bulldozers' metal fist has been dangling above Ijora Badia since 1996/97.) Read more.

Submitted by Tolu Ogunlesi — Mon, 03/11/2013 - 13:28

Linking gender concerns to urban sanitation improvements

In the area of sanitation, access to improved facilities, expanding women's management and planning opportunities, and improving women's safety and security are inextricably linked. For example, for women working in the market, commuting between destinations, or even for young girls in school, gender concerns limit their access to finding and accessing private spaces to go to the toilet. An October 2012 poll of 500 female residents on their sanitation and safety concerns in the slum communities of Ajegunle, Ijora Badia, Oko Agbon and Otto-Oyingbo sets the scene: two out of every five women said they lack access to sanitation facilities. They develop their own, informal solutions, relieving themselves outside, and in the open, such as behind buildings, in open drains, or off roadways. Read more or join the discussion.

Submitted by Victoria Okoye — Mon, 03/04/2013 - 00:00

Social Media Week spotlights Lagos media and tech innovations

"How can we use technology to help share information?" asks Peter Ihesie, who developed iPolice Nigeria, a mobile app that crowdsources information on neighborhood-level crime. With the app, users can search and locate the nearest police station, report a crime in the area, and obtain local security and crime news, as well as emergency phone numbers. With this app, Peter is hopeful that people will not only share information, but share it strategically, using his app as a central depot. Read more.

Submitted by Victoria Okoye — Thu, 02/28/2013 - 11:45

Keke, a progressive transport mode with potential

In March 1998, 500 three-wheeled keke vehicles first appeared on the streets of Lagos. Bright yellow in color, powered by a motorcycle engine, balanced on three thick wheels and covered by a metal half-shell replete with plastic windows, the city's most innovative transport mode was introduced by then Governor Mohammed Buba Marwa. The vehicle came to be known colloquially as keke marwa: Keke being the Hausa word for "tricycle," (Marwa's native tongue); and Marwa being the surname of the governor himself. Read more or join the discussion.

Submitted by Victoria Okoye — Mon, 02/04/2013 - 23:00

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