Planning digital inclusion together, barriers to include marginalised urban communities in the Global South: lessons from Chennai, Nairobi and Malang

Cities in the Global South are often unable to include marginalised communities in smart city programmes. This paper identifies barriers to inclusion and explores new roles of urban planners within the context of informality. We explore case studies from India, Kenya and Indonesia, employing a qualitative meta-analysis. We conclude that informality serves as a paradox, both hindering and facilitating collaborative planning. We identify three barriers to inclusive collaboration: scarce resource allocation, top-down design of smart city programmes and mistrust. These barriers require planners to adopt new roles: institutional entrepreneurship to adapt rules to informal contexts, community development and facilitative leadership.