Limited attention has been paid to platforms in informal settlements, where residents face multiple, simultaneous resource constraints. We address this challenge by elucidating how informal settlement residents use platforms to address resource constraints and by identifying limitations to platform deployment. Conceptually, we combine literature on platforms and informal settlements with that on frugal innovation to distinguish various platform domains and introduce the concept of platform frugality to explain platform deployment. Based on an empirical case study of Mathare informal settlement, we reveal that platform frugality varies across domains. Social media and certain fintech platforms are more frugal than other platforms and are more widely deployed in informal settlements, addressing more resource constraints. More advanced fintech, gig, health, and utility platforms are rarely used in informal settlements. Generic limitations to platform deployment include costs and residents' lack of formal IDs.

This report provides a clear and accessible overview of the multi-stakeholder workshop that was held on 28th of March 2025 in Nairobi. The workshop was organized by Nuvoni Centre for Research, Leiden Delft Erasmus universities (Netherlands) and the Circular Community Foundation and funded by LDE Global. This workshop is part of a wider research project called “The Nairobi River as a driver for Circular Communities – an urgent call for climate adaptivity and social resilience.” The aim of the workshop was to:
1. demonstrate the multiple value creation by localcommunity-based initiatives,
2. map the values of circular and regenerative resourcesystems in the Nairobi riparian river landscape,
3. to co-create interventions centred around the 4 initiatives that enhance the circular and regenerative character of the social-ecological riparian river landscape.

The Circular Value Flower method (CVF) has been used to support both the analysis of the initiatives and the collective design of interventions. Illustrated with photos, visuals and testimonials of participants, this booklet aims to inform local, national and international audiences about project ambitions and methodology, initial outcomes and practical next steps to widen the network of circular communities in Nairobi and include them as essential seeds of social, economic and ecological transition in wider policies related to resilience, climate adaptivity, sustainability, poverty reduction and circularity.

This paper provides insight into how the conceptualization of urban knowledge sharing has developed. Based on a structured review and categorization of the literature, we identify three forms of knowledge sharing in and between cities that are distinctly different: knowledge transfer, knowledge exchange, and knowledge co-creation. We find that the three forms have different boosts and barriers, whereby the complexities of knowledge sharing and hence the capacities required of the actors are lowest for knowledge transfer and highest for knowledge co-creation. We would therefore like to qualify the recent emphasis given in literature to co-creation; with its complexities and required capacities, it is not to be considered a panacea for solving all urban problems. We propose a model within which knowledge transfer and exchange are more suitable for less wicked problems and may sometimes fruitfully reduce complexities.