Carry out a targeted street and neighbourhood sweep

Deploy ward-level teams to walk selected streets or settlements, identify unlisted structures, and refresh basic facts for listed ones. A targeted sweep is more realistic than a citywide exercise when resources are limited and undercoverage is concentrated.

• Fast-growing or informal areas have many unrecorded structures.

• Self-registration and desk-based matching are not enough.

• Local leaders can support safe, visible fieldwork.

• Authority to collect property information and identifiable field teams.

• Basic maps, supervisor checks, and a route to enter findings into the register.

• Avoid large sweeps where supervision is too weak to protect data quality.

• This is not the best first move if the city can get easier wins from data matching or register clean-up.

The main risk is that residents experience the exercise as a raid rather than as a register update. The city usually needs visible local communication, identifiable teams, and a disciplined process so that fieldwork feels fair and professional.

The full card would help the city plan where to start, how to recruit and supervise field teams, how to manage safety and quality control, and how to move findings from the street into the register quickly.

• Build a citywide baseline property inventory

• Let residents report property changes easily

• Fix basic record errors quickly.

A targeted sweep is often more realistic than a citywide canvass. It lets the city focus resources where undercoverage is likely to be highest and where paper records are least reliable. It also gives the administration a chance to test forms, routes, supervision, and community messaging before attempting anything at larger scale.

Use visible, supervised fieldwork to identify unlisted structures and refresh basic facts in places where desk-based methods will miss too much.

A city with concentrated blind spots such as informal settlements, fast-growing fringe areas, or neighbourhoods where address data are weak and self-registration will not be enough.

A cleaned and widened register in the first pilot areas, with better evidence on where the city’s biggest coverage losses actually sit.

Choose the pilot geographies, approve the field model, and back the supervision and communications effort needed so the exercise is seen as fair and professional.

Revenue administration with ward leadership, supervisors, and mapping support.

• Undercoverage is concentrated in particular settlements, fringe corridors, or neighbourhoods with weak addressing.

• Desk-based matching and self-registration are yielding only partial results.

• Ward leaders or local structures can support access, explain the exercise, and help prevent tension.

• Choose the pilot areas deliberately rather than trying to cover the whole city at once.

• Prepare maps, route plans, simple data-capture tools, supervisor checks, and a process for loading results into the register.

• If safety or trust is a concern, design the public communication and field identification arrangements before deployment.

• Decide whether the city will use staff, short-term enumerators, contractors, or a mixed team.

• Choose whether the sweep will only identify missing structures or also refresh selected facts on already registered properties.

• Set a realistic quality-control rule, such as supervisor re-checks on a sample of completed records.

First 90 days

• Select the first pilot areas and map routes or enumeration blocks.

• Recruit and train field teams and supervisors, including on scripts, conduct, and safety.

• Prepare simple forms or tablets and agree how completed records will be reviewed.

6 to 12 months

• Run the sweep in the pilot geographies and monitor progress closely.

• Resolve obvious duplicates, incomplete records, and unclear locations while the field teams are still available.

• Review which types of area or structure generate the most missing records and which supervision practices work best.

12 to 24 months and beyond

• Expand to further high-priority areas only if the city can absorb what it finds.

• Standardise the best-performing field procedures and keep the sweep linked to a functioning register.

• Use the findings to decide whether the city needs a larger baseline exercise later on.

• The city usually needs authority to collect property information for tax purposes and a clear way to identify official field teams.

• Local notice, privacy messaging, and coordination with security actors may be needed in more sensitive areas.

• Strong supervision matters more than team size; a poorly supervised sweep can create more confusion than value.

• Field results need a fast route into the register so the effort does not end in paper piles or disconnected spreadsheets.

• Ward-level coordination can improve access, but the revenue team still needs to control standards and data quality.

• Residents may experience the exercise as a raid if the city fails to explain the purpose well.

• Weak supervision can lead to inflated counts, poor-quality records, or uneven treatment across areas.

• If the city does not process results quickly, the energy from fieldwork is lost and the next phase becomes harder.

• Number of structures identified that were previously outside the register.

• Share of field records that pass supervisor checks.

• Turnaround time from field collection to verified record creation or update.

• Coverage change in the pilot areas compared with the starting position.

• This card works especially well with PT-COV-11 on fixing obvious record errors, PT-COV-13 on practical location references, and PT-COV-05 if the city later decides it needs a larger baseline inventory.

• Which neighbourhoods are the biggest blind spots today?

• Who will supervise teams and re-check a sample of their work?

• How will the city introduce field teams so the exercise feels legitimate and safe?

• How quickly can the city move pilot findings into the operational register?