Across sub-Saharan Africa, 238 million people live in slums or informal settlements. Because of rapid urbanisation and population growth, informal settlements have become a major challenge in the urban landscape, exacerbating issues related to poverty, inadequate infrastructure, housing and poor living conditions. As part of a collaborative interdisciplinary project ISULABANTU, this paper provides an overview of toolkits focused on informal settlement upgrading (ISU) in South Africa and presents the process of an integrated toolkit development for sustainable human settlements in Durban, which was informed by participatory action research and co-production strategies. A toolkit can be a valuable and effective way of engaging communities in the process of ISU and for community members to take full ownership of the process, designing strategies that best respond to their needs. The review of existing toolkits has revealed several critical gaps related to community-led practices, integrated approaches to housing and environmental management, and gender. The integrated ISULABANTU toolkit aims to fill these gaps and complement the existing resources. It provides a framework for action research, active involvement of and partnership building with local communities in upgrading practices required to achieve sustainable human settlements.

中文翻译：

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迈向可持续的非正式住区：德班社区主导的升级工具包

在整个撒哈拉以南非洲地区，有2.38亿人居住在贫民窟或非正式定居点。由于快速的城市化和人口增长，非正式住区已成为城市景观中的主要挑战，加剧了与贫困，基础设施不足，住房和生活条件差有关的问题。作为跨学科合作项目ISULABANTU的一部分，本文概述了专注于南非非正式定居点升级（ISU）的工具包，并介绍了参与活动研究为基础的德班可持续人类住区综合工具包开发过程。和联合制作策略。工具包可以是使社区参与ISU流程并使社区成员完全拥有该流程的一种宝贵而有效的方式，设计最能满足他们需求的策略。对现有工具包的审查发现了与社区主导的实践，住房和环境管理的综合方法以及性别相关的几个关键差距。集成的ISULABANTU工具包旨在填补这些空白并补充现有资源。它为行动研究，当地社区的积极参与和与之建立伙伴关系提供了框架，以提高实现可持续人类住区所需的做法。