Gridding Equitable Urban Futures in Areas of Transition (GREAT) in Cali, Colombia and Havana, Cuba

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The success and failure of initiatives tackling the infrastructural gap in most countries in Latin America and the Caribbean are closely related to trends across a region where poverty affects one in every three households and informality is the norm for 57 per cent of the working population (UN-Habitat 2016, 55). Informality itself constitutes a challenge as seen in the reluctance of authorities to invest in areas which, by virtue of not being recognised as legal, fall into a void which neither attracts public investment nor does it encourage entrepreneurs or cooperatives to seek localised relevant solutions. The contrast between Colombia and Cuba provides a unique opportunity to understand the additional challenges that areas in transition - to peace, in the former, and to a new constitution, in the latter - pose to informality and will contribute to developing the kinds of approaches through which these challenges can be addressed more effectively.Building on well-developed partnerships and the learning of several RCUK-funded projects, GREAT will generate real change in two informal off-grid settlements in Cali (Colombia) and Havana (Cuba). Focusing on transport and waste-management community-led projects, the project will contribute to 'gridding' equitable urban futures through a series of three thematic PublicLabs on urban policy, mobility, and waste innovation. These will combine several in-site activities, participatory workshops, seed-funded projects, capacity training, and work with local policy and planning authorities as well as charitable organisations. Joining the expertise of environmental scientists, transport and geomatics engineers, designers, urban planners, entrepreneurs and sociologists, the project will address key SDGs (5, 6, 9, 10, 11 and 16), by embedding the voice of residents of these settlements into ongoing initiatives such as the Territories of Inclusion and Opportunities, an initiative of the Cali Mayor's Office, and the vision of transport in Havana in 2035, approved in 2003, and led by the Dirección General de Transporte Provincial La Habana (General Directorate of Transport Havana). Both institutions are project partners. In doing so, we seek to answer two main questions: In what ways does being on- and off-grid provide an opportunity to rethink the relationship between people and urban infrastructure in areas of transition? To what extent do current off-grid policies and initiatives in Cali and Havana contribute to the disenfranchisement or empowerment of residents in informal settlements? If funded, the project will transform our understanding of the relationship between urban infrastructure and the dynamics of growth and change of informal settlements in areas of transition and provide unique learning points to help address important barriers residents of informal settlements face to improve their livelihoods, in Colombia and Cuba, and across Latin America and the Caribbean.