Slum/Shack Dwellers International (SDI) is a confederation of country-level organisations (called ‘federations’) of the urban poor from 28 countries of the Global South (as of September 2008). It was launched in 1996 and became a formally registered entity in 1999. Several well-developed national federations of community-based organisations of slum and shack dwellers – particularly in India, South Africa and Thailand – joined hands to found SDI
Their mission is to link poor urban communities from cities across the South to transfer and adapt the successful mobilisation, advocacy, and problem solving strategies they develop in one location to other cities, countries and regions. Since SDI is focused on the local needs of slumdwellers, it has developed the traction to advance the common agenda of creating “pro-poor” cities that integrate rather than marganilse the interests of slumdwellers and counter the dominant urban development approaches that are in turn backed and financed by global agencies such as the World Bank, the IMF and the UN.
