The ultimate beneficiaries of our research are poor urban residents in Bangladesh and Tanzania. This includes the current poor urban population and the tens of millions who will move to urban areas in the next few decades. We will co-produce knowledge about how their wellbeing strategies are linked to accessing services from urban green and water ecosystems, and the ways in which policies and institutions support or hinder such strategies.

We intend this to open up the political space for the ideas and preferences of the urban poor, encouraging them to form, participate in and consolidate collective action. Our involvement with grassroots organisations such as Nagar Daridra Basteebashir Unnayan Sangstha (NDBUS) in Dhaka and Shack/Slum Dwellers International in Dar es Salaam will be an important component of our impact strategy. The process of co-producing knowledge through interactions between scientists and community-based experts will create a platform for dialogue for poor people’s expertise to inform the knowledge community. This will put research into use, not least by empowering our community-based experts as agents for change.

We are also targeting the professions in Bangladesh and Tanzania. Through our activities with trainee researchers at partner universities and the involvement of think-tank and NGO case workers/municipal community officers, civil servants and members of civil society, we will raise awareness among professionals of the need to optimise poor people’s access to ecosystem services, minimise potential disservices and engage with urban residents.
We will also target policy-making elites at three levels:

• At the local level we will engage with municipal civil servants and politicians during our research and invite their participation in local workshops and policy dialogues.
• Nationally, we will engage at ministerial and advisory levels through our final dissemination conferences, media coverage, and communication of academic and policy findings.
• Internationally, the dissemination of our findings through a book, high-level papers, conference presentations, BBC World Service broadcasts, press articles, website and social media will seek to influence the country strategies of international agencies in Bangladesh and Tanzania and in turn help shape the debate on sustainability and urban poverty.