Data Are Power: Addressing the Power Imbalance Around Community Data with the Open-Access Data4HumanRights Curriculum

Abstract

Data4HumanRights’ training materials have been developed as open-source and tailored to limited-resource settings, where community data collectors often live and work. Access to training on data collection, analysis, and visualisation to support the advocacy of vulnerable groups is essential, particularly in the context of increasing human rights challenges such as land rights, adequate housing, conflicts, and climate justice. This paper provides an overview of how the training materials were co-developed with community data collectors in Nigeria and Kenya, offering insights into the fundamental principles (i.e., inclusiveness, adaptive, limited resources, and being gender- and incentive-sensitive) and the structure of the open-access training materials. The development process resulted in 28 modules, each designed to be delivered in a face-to-face format in less than one day by a local trainer. To maximize adaptivity, the training modules can be mixed and matched (e.g., as individual modules or a learning path of several modules around a specific training need). The individual modules cover a range of methods and tools that are useful to human rights work and community advocacy, e.g., documenting evictions, performing rapid needs assessments after acute crises, community profiling, and monitoring community development indicators. The training materials contain instructions for the training facilitator(s) and all necessary training materials. To ensure inclusivity, the training covers both basic and advanced topics, with most modules designed to address basic needs that can be followed using a mobile phone, thereby avoiding the need for computers or printed handouts. The training results in Nigeria and Kenya showcase applications, including mapping waste problems and addressing forced evictions. Trained community groups produced maps of waste piles to prioritize community actions, such as finding space for urban agriculture, and conducted rapid needs assessments during a massive eviction. This approach helps reduce power imbalances and empowers community groups to effectively manage and utilise their own data.

1. Introduction

Many global development agendas prioritize eradicating poverty and reducing (spatial) inequalities. For example, SDG 11 has as its first target “to ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services and upgrade slums” [1]. However, open data to monitor progress towards this target are often unavailable at the required scale and lack semantic details to support local action [2]. External actors commonly collect data on deprived communities with limited to no empowerment of community groups [3,4]. Consequently, collected (extracted) data are unavailable to communities [5], and local capacity to work with data is not increased [6]. Within the open-access data community (e.g., OpenStreetMap), a capacity gap is stressed [7]. Access to data is an essential means for community groups to develop local agendas and activate members of the community (internal) and for advocacy and negotiation with local governments and other actors (external) [8]. However, living in deprived communities comes with many challenges; in addition to inadequate housing, poor environmental conditions, and insecure land tenure, access to education is often a fundamental bottleneck [7]. For sub-Saharan Africa, the World Bank reports a literacy rate of 68%. Generally, education levels in deprived communities vary, e.g., caused by early school dropouts or the inability of parents to pay for schooling costs (e.g., uniforms) [9]. As a result, community-based organisations (CBOs) commonly seek assistance from external sources, such as academic institutions, to identify vulnerabilities, document human rights violations, and enhance their data-driven advocacy efforts. Figure 1 (right) shows an example of the joint mapping of a CBO and a research group to provide evidence on forced eviction. Generally, CBOs face challenges in mapping their own often complex living environment (Figure 1: left), creating a power imbalance. Consequently, community-based organisations require access to training to support their data collection activities [10].

Deprived communities often lack legal recognition, causing the exclusion of inhabitants from basic services and infrastructure [10,11]. Community groups play an essential role in advocating for their rights [2,11]. Generally, advocacy “is the act of supporting, defending or arguing for a specific cause or issue” [12], to influence policies and decision making, raise public awareness, mobilise support for specific issues, and promote social change. More specifically, community advocacy focuses on representing and supporting the needs, rights, and interests of a particular geographic or interest group of people [13]. Community advocacy is typically bottom-up, where community leaders and activists develop internal and external communication strategies to achieve common goals and promote a cause to bring about change [12]. Significant steps in advocacy are (1) developing critical knowledge that allows groups to set goals, (2) gaining the capacity to be effective, and (3) implementing actions towards social change [14,15]. For effective advocacy, CBOs are often required to support campaigns with quantitative and qualitative data [16] to produce evidence on living conditions, prioritize community actions, and advocate for their rights [17]. Many communities have gained significant expertise in collecting data, for example, through the KnowYourCity Campaign [18] supported by Slum Dwellers International (SDI) and its affiliates [19]. While in many contexts community groups have existing capacities in data collection [20,21,22], previous research and initial discussions with community leaders showed a massive capacity gap in effectively utilising community-collected data—particularly in organising, analysing, visualising, and communicating data [11].

In many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), urban deprived communities are vulnerable in many ways. Vulnerability has many facets and various conceptualisations, such as individual (e.g., related to age), structural (e.g., socioeconomic conditions), and relational (context dependent) [23]. For example, structurally, communities are exposed to harsh and routine human rights1 violations in the form of forced evictions, lack of access to basic services, mass arrests, and police brutality, to name a few. Individually, residents of deprived communities are often stigmatized on account of their poverty [24]. However, living conditions differ among communities and are therefore influenced by their specific contexts, as outlined in the ‘domains of deprivation’ framework [5].

To document human rights violations, community-centred data are required [25], in general [26], and in particular during crises (e.g., man-made and natural disasters) [27,28]. For this purpose, community data collectors must have access to training with tailored education materials. Existing training materials about collecting, analysing, and communicating data are often made for trainees with a BSc degree (e.g., [29]). Community leaders and activists need access to formal training opportunities to build incremental data skills instead of ad hoc training, which is sometimes offered in research projects. The lack of structural training opportunities is problematic in multiple ways. First, a lack of training puts community leaders and activists in a weak position to collect, analyse, and use data to improve their communities and advance respect for their fundamental human rights. This was very evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, where inequities in access to basic services were pronounced [30,31], but not sufficiently documented [32]. Furthermore, researchers often collect data about residents living in communities without involving members of those communities as co-researchers, which further undermines the power of community leaders and activists. This practice is deeply problematic—treating people and their communities as ‘subjects of research’, rather than partners, thus generating deep distrust and frustration within communities towards external researchers and resulting in low-quality data with significant gaps due to the inability to collect sufficient or accurate data [8].

Engagement, involvement, and training of communities during research are preferred to research subjugation [33,34]. However, this process can also reinforce inequities [30,35]. Specifically, ad hoc trainings are typically offered to community leaders and activists by uncoordinated, disparate outside groups, preventing learners from being able to follow a sequential learning pathway toward certification. As a result, while good-willed academics, professionals, and students advance their own careers and earning potential by teaching one-off community training, community learners spend years—even decades—attending the same types of training and performing the same types of tasks with no substantive improvement in their learning potential, title, job security, and credentials. The Data4HumanRights (D4HR) training targets community leaders and activists who often have only primary education. Thus, D4HR training materials that meet their specific needs were co-designed with them. Consequently, the main aim of D4HR was to co-design an open-access training curriculum fit to increase the capacity of community leaders and activists and put community data collectors in the position to be co-researchers for research conducted in their communities and beyond. Thus, professionalising community data collectors and providing learning pathways were essential aspects of the training. Such learning pathways include the communities’ capacity to systematically collect, analyse, and disseminate data on human rights in communities and use results to support campaigns and advocacy to demand respect for their fundamental human rights. The D4HR training also supports community groups in using data collection as a source of income that can be used to invest in the development of their communities. The training material is freely available online and aims to foster knowledge exchange between communities and practitioners who work with them. In summary, the primary objectives of the D4HR training are as follows:

(1)

Improve the capacity of community-based organisations (e.g., in Lagos and Nairobi) to have a larger and more skilled/knowledgeable group of community data collectors and mappers;

(2)

Enable the collection and documentation of human rights-related data on a large scale in a systematic manner;

(3)

Consolidate and further develop the training materials as an open-source resource that can be tailored and adopted easily to other similar LMIC deprived communities.

The main aim of this paper is to present and reflect on the design of the open-access D4HR training curriculum, which was co-developed to support community data collectors in increasing their professional skills and diversity of data collection methods. The following section provides an overview of the steps and principles of developing the training material. Section 3 presents the results of the designed training materials and the implementation of different training components of the developed training material. Section 4 discusses D4HR training experiences, and the final section provides the main conclusions.

2. Materials and Methods

The D4HR training modules were co-developed with community organisers and trainers at the Justice & Empowerment Initiative (JEI) and the Nigerian Slum/Informal Settlement Federation (Federation), which are the local affiliates of Slum Dwellers International (SDI) in Lagos, Nigeria. The curriculum development process involved (1) co-design of the training outline with JEI and the Federation; (2) initial material development by five trainers from academic and community organisations in the Netherlands and Kenya (CommunityMappers); (3) piloting, feedback, and oversight by JEI and the Federation; and (4) refinement and public release of the materials (Figure 2). While the D4HR modules were designed and piloted in Lagos and Nairobi, they are intended to be used in and tailored to cities globally. To develop the training curriculum, we modified standard capacity-building principles [36,37] to suit the specific environment of the training, i.e., inclusiveness, adaptive, limited resources, and being gender- and incentive-sensitive. The training materials were designed to optimise reuse and be customised by other community groups. This also includes translating the materials into local languages.

It was essential to combine different knowledge fields, including academic and community training experts, with knowledge of qualitative, quantitative, and spatial data to develop training materials. The team members also had diverse backgrounds, representing four different continents (Africa, Asia, North America, and Europe), and had training experiences in LMICs. For the successful development of training materials, trainers co-designed materials with experienced community leaders to guide the development and provide critical feedback. We had several rounds of testing and improvements to develop the material throughout the development process. This included pilots with community groups in Nairobi (Kenya) and several online feedback sessions with community groups in Lagos (Nigeria). The first set of training materials was delivered and evaluated in Lagos. This led to further improvements in the material after the in-person training in Lagos. After publishing the final set of 28 modules on our website (www.data4humanrights.net, (accessed on 1 January 2025) see Supplementary Materials), the materials were transferred to other cities (e.g., Khartoum) [38].

2.1. Co-Design of the Training Outline with Community Groups

The training development started with a community-based needs assessment (online during COVID-19 travel restrictions). The needs assessment included JEI staff, Federation and Physically Challenged Empowerment Initiative (PCEI) community leaders, and other local experts from our network in Nigeria and Kenya. JEI is a non-governmental human rights organisation that supports networks of deprived communities to achieve greater participation in urban planning and governance processes, including the Nigerian Slum/Informal Settlement Federation (Federation) and the Physically Challenged Empowerment Initiative (PCEI), among others. For example, JEI trains and supports a network of community-based paralegals who document and respond to human rights violations arising in their communities—including land grabs, forced evictions, wrongful arrest, and extortion, among many other case types [39].

To optimise learning outcomes, the capacity for learning was reflected upon with all parties involved. The capacity for learning relates to an individual’s abilities and educational experiences that are shaped by the complex interplay of multiple social identities. These identities include, but are not limited to, gender, socioeconomic status, and disability [40]. Intersectionality emphasises that these identities intersect to create unique experiences of advantage or disadvantage [41]. As coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, intersectionality is “a way of thinking about identity and its relationship to power” [42]. Understanding intersectionality in learning acknowledges these diverse experiences and provides a pathway to make education inclusive and equitable. The critical principles adopted during the training included equality that ensures no one is left behind, inclusivity, collaboration, and flexibility with solutions tailored to the context of the training [41]. These acknowledge that with already marginalised groups, experiences are not discrete.

2.2. Principles of the Initial Material Development

Most open-source training materials are created by highly educated, often university-based, professionals and require that learners have a high level of computer and reading/writing literacy. For example, Learn OpenStreetMap for Beginners [43] is almost entirely text-based and unavailable in local African languages. Similarly, face-to-face training sessions provided to the Federation’s Profiling Team by outside groups have, in the past, relied on text-heavy handouts and PowerPoints. Although well suited for a university classroom, these methods are less effective for a group like the Federation’s Profiling Team and prevent community-based trainers from adapting and redelivering the material, reinforcing a dependency on outside “experts” to deliver training sessions and lead field data collection activities. Generally, with repetition and teamwork, practical exercises are critical to ensure that trainees fully understand the training contents. Furthermore, minimising lecture-based instruction is essential, and instead, the training was designed around interactive, practical activities. Moreover, it is critical that all training processes support female leadership and the participation of disadvantaged groups (e.g., people with disabilities). Therefore, the training focused on raising awareness of gender equality and how data collection should be performed in a gender-sensitive way. A final test of whether learning objectives have been achieved and a participant’s certification is an important incentive for participants to participate actively.

2.3. Piloting, Feedback, and Oversight by Community-Based Organisations

An essential principle of co-designing the training materials was to have several rounds of testing and improvement. This process was essential to develop training materials that met the needs of community data collectors. A mixed team of community leaders and academics developed and tested the first set of training materials in Nairobi and Lagos. Due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, the initial pilot programs were conducted in Nairobi by two local trainers, one of whom is the head of CommunityMappers and a respected community leader from Kibera, Nairobi. The pilots in communities allowed us to improve the training materials based on the insights from trainers and participants. To obtain additional feedback from community groups in Lagos, we conducted online feedback sessions with experienced community leaders and data collectors there. These insights resulted in the first revised version of 14 training modules.

2.4. Refinement and Public Release of the Materials

The first in-person large-scale training was conducted in October 2022, and it involved 42 community leaders from more than 15 different urban deprived communities in Lagos (Nigeria), as well as a mix of genders and trainees with disabilities. This training adopted a training-of-trainers (ToTs) approach. As part of the training, sessions led by the ToTs were carried out in two urban deprived communities with the participation of more than 60 community members. The training materials were further evaluated as part of this onsite training, and necessary improvements were implemented together with the ToTs. The final training materials were developed through a set of online workshops with the ToTs team, followed by several online training sessions to test the new material. Onsite training using the final set of 28 modules was conducted in Lagos in January 2023.

The structure of the training materials was designed to support an easy uptake by providing accessible, customizable training materials that included instructions, slides, handouts, and videos (Figure 3). All materials are built on visuals and used limited text to accommodate trainees with low literacy.

• Instructions: These guide the trainer(s) on delivering the training and a participant assessment form and attendance sheet.
• Slides: These provide visuals to help to deliver engaging, informative training. The slides can be projected, though in most cases the content can be delivered using a whiteboard or flipchart paper and the two-page handout (below). (Slides are not required for the training but are an essential orientation for trainers.)
• Handouts: These can be distributed during the training (paper copies) and/or made available for reference after the training (e.g., via WhatsApp). We recommend printing a few copies and laminating them for reuse (to reduce printing).
• Videos: Most modules are accompanied by a short video describing how to deliver the materials and/or demos of the tools used. (Videos are not required for the training but can be shared with training participants and are an essential orientation for trainers.)

2.5. The Importance of Female Leadership During Training Sessions

Community leaders are often men; therefore, it was essential to reach out to female leaders, as well as minorities and people with disabilities. In Lagos, 18 women and 2 people with disabilities co-designed the training development (out of 42 ToT participants). The training development was guided by five female trainers from Europe/North America (2), Asia (1), and Africa (2). The aim was to model diverse female leadership with both female and male participation to normalise the leadership of women from diverse ethnic backgrounds (Figure 4). In deprived communities in Lagos, female leadership is often limited to market associations and women’s groups. In community meetings with rows of chairs or benches, almost exclusively, men occupied the front row while women and children sat in the back rows. We stimulated female leadership during the community training sessions, where local community leaders repeated the training [26,44].

3. Results

The resulting D4HR training materials are open-source and built on freely available tools that do not require licenses and are free of cost for communities. The training materials are available on the Data4HumanRights website2. Each training module is designed to be delivered face to face by a local trainer in less than one day. The training modules are designed to be mixed and matched (“mixed bowl” approach) and cover a range of methods and tools that are useful for data location with a specific focus on deprivation and human rights work. For example, qualitative and quantitative data collection methods allow for documenting evictions, performing rapid needs assessments after natural disasters such as flooding, community profiling, and monitoring community development indicators (Figure 5). The training modules can be delivered as an entire training curriculum, as a selection of modules, or as stand-alone modules, depending on the identified training needs of communities.

3.1. The Developed Data4HumanRights Training Materials

Digital access gaps still exist in deprived communities. However, the availability of smartphones is increasing, partially bridging this gap [45]. Therefore, most modules require participants to use smartphones, which are more commonly available in communities than computers, and only a few advanced methods rely on computers and/or require a training venue with electricity and access to the internet. While the D4HR modules were designed and piloted in Lagos and Kenya, they are intended to be used in and tailored to cities globally. Each module typically includes materials that provide instructions, slides, handouts, and video(s) (Figure 3). Presently, the training material is available in English, and handouts for participants are available in English, Yoruba, and (Nigerian) Pidgin. The training is split into six main groups (Figure 6):

• Applications: These modules set the scene for understanding the importance of data for community building, advocacy, and campaigning for human rights. Topics include an introduction to data for human rights, power and influence mapping, and how to prepare and deliver community training.
• Foundations: These modules provide the basics of working with a smartphone (instead of a computer) to organize information and communication. Topics include working with Google Drive and Docs, Making presentations with Google Slides, and using online meeting tools.
• Quantitative methods: These modules allow data collection on questions about what is happening in communities. Topics include data collection tools such as KoboCollect and Google Forms, survey design, sampling and planning, survey set-up in different tools, and working with tables and presenting data (e.g., graphs).
• Qualitative methods: These modules allow data collection on ‘why’ questions. Topics include focus group discussions, interviews, photovoice, sketch maps, and reconnaissance surveys.
• Spatial methods: These modules relate to ‘where’ questions in communities, enabling them to understand the geographic context. Topics include field spatial data collection in QField (mobile), visualizing data in the Google Maps app (mobile), mapping photos and text in Google Maps (computer), historical imagery and digitising data in Google Earth (computer), and adding to and editing OpenStreetMap.
• Media methods: These modules support communities by communicating about advocacy and awareness campaigns. Topics include an introduction to social media, taking powerful photos, uncovering a good story, and effective social media posts.

3.2. Training of Trainers in Lagos (Nigeria) and Expansion to Other Cities

As a result of the initial training in Lagos, 42 trainers (community leaders and activists) have an improved capacity to collect qualitative data (e.g., photovoice, walking interviews) and quantitative data (e.g., GPS surveys). The trainees were exposed to training units covering human rights/community actions, IT literacy (foundations), quantitative data, qualitative data, spatial data, and dissemination (social media). The units were split into topics that support community data collectors in collecting, organizing, maintaining, and analysing data related to human rights. We guided trainers in running training workshops in communities by leveraging follow-on projects that engage the same groups in Lagos. For example, we collected photovoice and walking interviews on human rights violations experienced by communities, which are common issues that JEI supports communities in addressing (Figure 7).

Subsequent training sessions have already made use of part of the training material. These trainings were carried out with marginalized communities in Khartoum (Sudan) (November 2022 and February/March 2023, just before the start of the conflict) and in Nairobi (Kenya) in 2023/4. To support the sustainability of the training and the developed training materials, we have established WhatsApp groups with the trainers (WhatsApp is the main communication channel, as many community members do not have or do not commonly use email). The developed training material has also been integrated within an extensive network of deprivation area modelling (IDEAMAPS Network3), supporting their ongoing training activities. The key factors that contribute to the sustainable success of the training program are as follows:

• The sustainability of the training is supported by publishing the training materials as open-access material on our website, which allows community data collectors, CBOs, and NGOs to reuse the materials.
• Within community training in Sudan (Figure 8), training materials have been adapted and translated into Arabic for training sessions with CBOs and NGOs4.
• The training materials are presently adapted by CommunityMappers (in Kenya) to fit their needs for community data collection on human rights. This will also include a translation to Swahili.

3.3. Advocacy Examples—The Impact of the D4HR Training Material

The D4HR training improved the participants’ capacities to collect qualitative and quantitative data. In particular, the collection of spatial data and the visualisation of maps benefited ongoing community advocacy campaigns. We highlight two examples, showcasing how the training material was used for community advocacy.

• Waste mapping in Nairobi (Kenya): Prior to the formalisation of Data4HumanRights, community workshops identified that quantifying and visualising the massive waste accumulations in deprived areas was a priority for the community. Through a small-scale fund, CommunityMappers launched a data collection campaign that mapped all trash piles in several communities in Nairobi. The data collection brought awareness of the problem both within the neighbourhoods and beyond. However, community activists lacked the capacity to visualise the data through maps. The D4HR curriculum was used to train members of the groups on how to generate and share maps. This allowed for collaborative collection, sharing, and updating of geolocated neighbourhood data. The resulting maps were used in discussions with local governments to raise awareness about the health and environmental consequences of the lack of waste management (Figure 9). In particular, in the context of floods, the blockage of drainage by waste is often a major cause of floods in settlements. One significant impact of the data collection and mapping was the increased awareness it generated, which led to youth groups taking action by cleaning up land and developing community projects.
• Eviction mapping in Nairobi (Kenya) and Lagos (Nigeria): Both cities have experienced massive evictions in 2023 and 2024. Most recently, severe flooding, that started in late April 2024, ravaged parts of Nairobi, resulting in considerable loss of life and extensive damage to residential properties. Despite widespread media coverage of the disaster, the subsequent government eviction had almost no media attention. The Kenyan government initiated a large-scale eviction of informal settlements along the city’s rivers, resulting in the displacement of approximately 180,000 individuals with limited prior notification. These evictions have exacerbated the crisis, leaving many families without shelter or adequate support. With the help of D4HR training, community groups were able to document the scale of these evictions, highlighting the need for a just and humanistic approach to resettlement. The advocacy being supported by photos and maps stressed the importance of integrating local knowledge and spatial data in disaster response planning to address climate injustice and support vulnerable populations effectively (Figure 10). One significant impact of mapping was the empowerment of understanding the location of the eviction zones, providing certainties for households whether they are inside or outside the eviction zone. This certainty alleviated stress for community members outside the eviction zone and allowed those within the zone to prepare for the eviction. Similarly, massive evictions have occurred in Lagos, with mapping examples for advocacy (Figure 1).

Both examples show the role of data for communities. Community data enable communities to take the lead through an evidence-based approach, position themselves as a centre of resources for other stakeholders, and provide a learning opportunity to understand causes (e.g., of flooding) and develop localized adaption measurements.

4. Discussion

The development of the D4HR training curriculum faced several challenges, particularly adapting academic training materials to suit the context of community data collectors. The goal was to create inclusive training materials that do not perpetuate existing inequalities often reflected in conventional upskilling modules. Furthermore, with travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we encountered several restrictions and adaptations that slowed down the development of the training materials. We moved feedback and interaction sessions online, which was challenging in Nigeria, due to widespread power cuts and low internet bandwidth [46]. We nonetheless developed the first set of training materials and had several feedback sessions that allowed us to co-design the training materials. Initially, developing training material for communities was challenging for the trainers from an academic background. To address this, it was essential to involve experienced community leaders to guide the development and provide critical feedback. Additionally, we had several rounds of testing and improvements to develop the material. This included a pilot with community groups in Nairobi and several online feedback sessions with the ToTs in Lagos. This led to a final improvement of the material after the in-person training in Lagos. Available studies indicate the importance of promoting female leadership [47]. However, there is often insufficient discussion on the methods employed to achieve this. For the D4HR initiative, the advancement of female community leaders played a crucial role in facilitating the adaptation process.

4.1. Main Lessons Learned Towards Designing an Inclusive D4HR Training Material

The main lessons learned, and follow-up actions to maximise the outcomes and long-term impacts, are summarised in Figure 11. To develop training materials that meet the expectations of community leaders and activists (e.g., advocacy activities), it was essential to co-design the material with them. The material had several rounds of review and improvements—to simplify the material and adapt it to situations where no computers and projectors were available. The training material has been split into different levels (Figure 6), basic training units and advanced training units, to enable suitability for different contexts, as well as deeper learning for those interested/able. The training material has been translated into local languages—handouts for running community training in communities without access to computers and projectors. The publication of all 28 training units as open-access material on our website ensures that all interested groups can pick up the materials and adapt the training to local needs. Outreach to related projects (e.g., Nigeria, Kenya, and Sudan) supported the uptake of training materials for ongoing work in other communities, with a growing number of users. We established a network of community co-researchers who can support research in communities. Within the training, we stressed the importance of co-researchers from communities, to prevent extractive research and ensure benefits for all parties. The expected impact is to increase the recognition of the importance of working with co-researchers (for the academia) and to generate livelihood opportunities for community data collectors. It was important to develop materials that do not rely on computers to adapt to the specific context where co-researchers are working. Thus, the material is largely built on the use of smartphones, which are commonly available in communities and facilitate the replication of the training. To promote societal change and develop inclusive training material, we particularly focused on supporting female leaders, developing role models of female leadership, and finding innovative solutions for female trainers to overcome challenges (e.g., amplifying softer voices through the use of microphones or other tools). This also included adapting the training to participants with disabilities, e.g., through the leadership of the Physically Challenged Empowerment Initiative members.

4.2. Supporting Female Leadership Models, Inclusivity, and Reducing Access Barriers

An important lesson learned from female trainers is that female trainers often struggle to give training in environments with substantial background noise (more than most male trainers). Without microphones in environments without access to electricity, we developed a solution that uses male voices as a projection of women’s voices. Thus, women are leading the training and presenting, but male training assistants (with loud and deep voices) repeat their words in environments of limited audibility. In environments with access to electricity, the use of amplifying devices is essential for female trainers. Another lesson learned is that most of the training materials (which have been classified into basic, intermediate, and advanced training materials) need to be available and tailored to settings without access to computers, and instead focus on the use of smartphones, which are more commonly accessible for community training sessions. Thus, the basic, and most of the intermediate, training units do not require computer access for training participants (Figure 8). Also, training materials are disseminated via WhatsApp groups, reducing technical barriers to following the training and reusing the materials. This approach enables training sessions in environments without computers or projectors. Overall, these measures reduced barriers to accessing education, following key principles of intersectionality such as inclusivity, collaboration, and flexibility [36]. However, we did not explore in-depth variations in barriers faced by different migrant groups within the trained communities.

4.3. Community-Based Advocacy Supported by Data

The developed D4HR training curriculum covers essential steps in community advocacy [14,15]. The initial modules (sections 1 and 2 in Figure 6) support scoping of problems and coordinating activities. The modules in sections (3–4) in Figure 6 support the development of critical knowledge that allows groups to set goals and gain the capacity to be effective, and modules in sections (4–6) in Figure 6 support the implementation of actions towards social change, such as visualising data and using social media for outreach activities. Throughout the training, community leaders and activists stressed the importance of visuals in communication (internal and external), as confirmed by other studies [48]. Furthermore, training participants stressed the importance of quantifying community needs as well as providing information on the spatial dimensions of needs, challenges, and community assets [9]. Increasing the capacity of community leaders and activists to handle qualitative and quantitative data and access tools for easy and effective visualisation has the potential to reduce the power imbalance often faced in negotiating with formal institutions [49].

Data democratisation plays a pivotal role in fostering equity and empowerment, aiming at reducing power imbalances, particularly in marginalized communities [50]. Democratized data access and inclusive data-sharing practices can enable local communities to engage in evidence-based decision making [51]. For example, democratized cartographic tools can shift data ownership and use from state control to empowering slum communities to map, analyse, and address their own challenges [4].

4.4. Challenges and Limitations Faced by Community Members During the Training

When evaluating the limitations faced by community members, particularly those in slum communities, in participating in the D4HR training, several challenges have been observed. Key issues relate to accessibility, resource availability, and local challenges. Addressing these limitations is essential for ensuring the training’s success and inclusivity. These might be relevant considerations for similar training plans.

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Limited access to technology: While smartphones are commonly available, the training should equip participants with data bundles so as not to create additional costs for participants. Lack of electricity could also impact the training and power banks might be needed as part of the training.

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Literacy and education barriers: The training should be inclusive and designed to bridge the differences in literacy and education backgrounds. In particular, handouts need simple visual aids.

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Language and cultural barriers: Although materials are translated into local languages, they might not cover the full range of languages. It is essential to ensure that all participants fully understand the materials. Cultural differences might require adjustments in the training, particularly when it comes to gender roles and the active participation of female leaders or people with disabilities.

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Physical disabilities or health-related limitations: Although the training materials are adapted to support participants with disabilities, the training needs to be flexible to support participants who require more personalized accommodations.

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Time and scheduling constraints: Community members often have limited time availability due to work obligations or family responsibilities. This is a major barrier to attending long and frequent training sessions. Also, political circumstances and transport challenges need to be considered to allow participation in training sessions.

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Safety concerns: Depending on the location, safety concerns or political instability might restrict participation, particularly when conducting data collection exercises related to human rights.

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Barriers for co-researchers: Co-researchers from communities may face logistical challenges due to limited resources for long-term involvement.

Any community-based training needs to address such challenges, and it is a great benefit to discuss them with local community-based partners and develop mitigation strategies that fit the local context.

5. Conclusions

The D4HR training materials support the professionalisation of community data collectors, linking to an emerging societal question around justice. Data collectors or data activists play an important role in demanding evidence-based policymaking and acknowledging the rights of communities, e.g., housing, access to basic services, and infrastructure. The training material has been co-designed within sustainable partnerships that have been further deepened as part of the training development. Throughout the training, we focused on the lived experiences and human rights violations experienced, in general, as well as differences experienced by people of different genders and living with disabilities in African cities. This perspective is often insufficiently addressed in the general discussion of human rights. Such hidden experiences of minority groups and marginalised populations can be made visible by community-led data collection and use, where effective communication built on community data is fundamental to support community-based advocacy. We strongly encourage reusing, customising, and translating these materials into local languages while maintaining the D4HR branding and website to accredit the original source.