RESEARCH DOCUMENTS:
Resources on Urban Development
This section contains a selection of publications
from the Human Settlements Programme of the International Institute
for Environment and Development (IIED). These include papers from
its journal Environment and Urbanization and from its working
paper series.
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This Programme has long advocated that governments
and international agencies need more 'bottom-up', community based,
locally rooted approaches to urban development (and poverty reduction)
- both to be more effective and to make limited resources go further.
This includes support for low income groups and their community
organizations, since these have been responsible for most new homes
and neighbourhoods in most cities in Africa, Asia and Latin America
over the last few decades. Many of the publications contained here
are case studies of remarkable local initiatives undertaken by low
income groups (usually with the support of their own federation)
and local NGOs. The publications here also encourage a greater focus
on supporting 'good local governance' - city and municipal authorities
that are more transparent and accountable to their city populations
and that can work in partnership with them. The publications here
also include case studies of how international agencies have channelled
funding to local initiatives through local institutions. They also
include case studies of many of the innovations mentioned in the
paper on "10 and a half myths".
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The publications are organized under the
following headings: |
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Appadurai, Arjun (2001), "Deep Democracy:
Urban Governmentality and the Horizon of Politics", Environment
and Urbanization, Vol 13 No 2, pages 23-43.
This describes the work of an Alliance
formed by three civic organizations in Mumbai to address poverty
- the NGO SPARC, the National Slum Dwellers Federation and Mahila
Milan, a cooperative representing women's savings groups. It highlights
key features of their work, which includes: putting the knowledge
and capacity of the poor and the savings groups that they form at
the core of all their work (with NGOs in a supporting role); keeping
politically neutral and negotiating with whoever is in power; driving
change through setting precedents; the development of a horizontal
structure as the Alliance is underpinned by, accountable to and
serves thousands of small savings groups; and community to community
exchange visits that root innovation and learning in what urban
poor groups do. The paper notes that these are features shared with
urban poor federations and alliances and it describes the international
exchanges and other links between them. These groups are internationalizing
themselves, creating networks of globalization from below. Individually
and collectively, they seek to demonstrate to governments (local,
regional, national) and international agencies that urban poor groups
are more capable than they in poverty reduction, and they also provide
these agencies with strong community-based partners through which
to do so. They can be instruments of deep democracy, rooted in local
context and able to mediate globalizing forces in ways that benefit
the poor.
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Baumann, Ted, Joel Bolnick and Diana
Mitlin (2002), The Age of Cities and Organizations of the Urban
Poor: The Work of the South African Homeless People's Federation and
the People's Dialogue on Land and Shelter, IIED Working Paper
2 on Poverty Reduction in Urban Areas, IIED, London. |
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Patel, Sheela and Diana Mitlin (2002), The
Work of SPARC and its Partners Mahila Milan and the National Slum
Dwellers Federation in India, IIED Working Paper 5 on Poverty
Reduction in Urban Areas, IIED, London.
This paper describes the work of an Indian
NGO, SPARC and its alliance with the women's cooperatives (Mahila
Milan) formed by pavement dwellers and the National Slum Dwellers
Federation. This Alliance has shown how work in many different areas
such as community-based savings and credit groups, pilot projects,
housing construction, the development of toilet blocks and the management
of resettlement can contribute to poverty reduction, as long as
these are based on what communities can do for themselves and the
communities retain control. This implies the need for changes in
the relationship between urban poor groups, government and international
donors. The Alliance has also demonstrated the need to work at different
levels, including securing policy and institutional changes through
mass mobilization, based on precedents that are developed by the
poor.
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Chitekwe, Beth and Diana Mitlin (2001), "The
urban poor under threat and in struggle: options for urban development
in Zimbabwe, 1995-2000", Environment and Urbanization,
Vol 13 No 2, pages 85-101.
This paper describes the development of
savings schemes by urban poor groups in different urban centres
in Zimbabwe and their negotiations with local authorities to allow
them to develop their own homes and neighbourhoods. It also describes
how these savings schemes developed the Zimbabwean Homeless People's
Federation (now with 20,000 members), and the constant inter-change
between different savings schemes as they learnt from each other
(and from leaders of federations from other countries) and encouraged
new savings schemes to be set up. Despite very difficult political
circumstances and economic problems, there are housing and income
generation schemes underway in many Zimbabwean urban centres, organized
and managed by urban poor groups' own savings schemes. The larger
ones are inevitably those where local authorities have recognized
their potential and provided appropriate support.
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Arévalo T, Pedro (1997), "May
hope be realized: Huaycan self-managing urban community in Lima",
Environment and Urbanization, Vol.9, No.1, April, pages 59-79.
This paper tells the story of how the
settlement of Huaycán in Lima (Peru) came into existence
and how, from the outset, when the land invasion which was to form
the settlement was first organized, the organizers sought to achieve
a democratic, self-managed community. The author, who was one of
the community leaders involved in the formation and development
of Huaycán, also describes the complex political struggles
they faced, especially with Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) but
also with other political factions and parties. The article describes
how in successive people's congresses they achieved support for
self-management and development and recounts the marches into Lima
to demand that the politicians keep their promises. It also describes
the improvements in basic infrastructure and services achieved in
Huaycán with support from local, national and international
sources.
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Cabannes, Yves
(1997), "From community development to housing finance; From
Mutiroes to Casa Melhor in Fortaleza, Brazil", Environment
and Urbanization, Vol.9, No.1, April, pages 31-58.
This paper describes two new approaches
to financing and supporting the improvement of housing and living
conditions for low-income groups in Fortaleza, capital of one of
the poorest Brazilian states. The first is the comunidades programme
which primarily supports the development of new homes, settlements
and income-generating activities for the lowest-income groups through
mutirão, mutual self-help (as the participants collectively
build and also manage the building process). This is sometimes known
as the mutirão programme. The paper presents a case study
of one project within this wider programme, Parque Havaí,
to illustrate how it works. The second programme described is the
casa melhor (meaning "better house") which provides loans,
subsidies and technical support to households living in squatter
settlements or other poor quality settlements to improve, rebuild
or expand their homes. Although there are elements of mutual aid,
this is primarily support for individual self-help. In Section III,
the paper explains how this fund was developed, along with support
programmes provided by NGOs and government agencies to help it function.
The programme is financed through a combination of savings, loans
and subsidies and has achieved high rates of repayment for the loan
component. This section also describes its achievements and limitations
- and what possibilities exist for scaling-up the support for housing
finance of this kind to meet growing demand. The concluding section
reflects on what the experience with both these programmes implies
for future work in this area.
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Schusterman, Ricardo and Ana Hardoy (1997),
"Reconstructing social capital in a poor urban settlement:
the Integrated Improvement Programme, Barrio San Jorge", Environment
and Urbanization, Vol.9, No.1, April, pp. 91-119.
This paper describes how the continuous
support provided by an external team over a ten-year period in a
low-income informal settlement in Buenos Aires (Barrio San Jorge)
resulted in a development process which helped to improve living
conditions, to change the inhabitants' relationship with society
and to reduce the deprivations normally associated with low income.
Over time, and with each new initiative seeking to build on the
momentum achieved by previous initiatives, considerable improvements
have been achieved, including improvements in housing quality, access
roads, land tenure and provision for water and sanitation and for
child health and development. Perhaps as important has been the
development of a representative community organization within the
barrio since no such organization had existed previously. This,
in turn, has helped change the relationship of this settlement's
inhabitants with the rest of society - the settlement is no longer
"illegal" as the inhabitants are acquiring legal tenure
of the land on which they live, as provision for water and sanitation
is now managed by the official utilities and as an engagement has
developed between the inhabitants and government agencies at municipal
and other levels. This case study suggests that many low-income
illegal settlements need a long and continuous support programme
to allow the many kinds of deprivation and illegality their inhabitants
face to be addressed. Poverty is not "solved" through
one or two quick, sectoral interventions. Action is needed on many
fronts. But this case study also shows the important catalytic role
that international funds can have in helping low-income communities
develop their own representative organizations. This is important
for allowing them to address their own problems but it is also central
to them being able to successfully negotiate with their own local
governments and utilities for the infrastructure and services to
which they are entitled.
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Asian Coalition for Housing Rights, (2001), "Building an
urban poor people's movement in Phnom Penh, Cambodia", Environment
and Urbanization, Vol 13 No 2, pages 61-72.
A photo-essay showing how the urban poor
and their organizations are working with government agencies, NGOs
and international donors in Phnom Penh to develop homes and neighbourhoods
and also income generation and, where needed, to manage relocation
schemes. It also describes how the city's urban poor developed their
own Solidarity and Urban Poor Federation, drawing on the advice
of and exchanges with similar federations from other countries.
The Federation's work centres on linking and supporting community
savings groups that develop their own schemes. The Federation also
supports community-mapping and surveys to document conditions in
the city's many low-income settlements. The essay emphasizes the
strengths and resources that the urban poor can bring to developing
housing and jobs, if external agencies allow them to do so and also
support their organizations.
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Patel Sheela, Celine d'Cruz and Sundar Burra
(2002), "Beyond evictions in a global city; people-managed
resettlement in Mumbai", Environment and Urbanization,
Vol. 14, No. 1, pages 159-172.
This paper describes a resettlement programme
in which 60,000 people moved without coercion to make way for improvements
in Mumbai's railway system. It also describes the resettlement sites
and the attention given to minimizing the costs for those who were
relocated. This resettlement programme was underpinned by strong
levels of community organization among the population that was to
be relocated; their involvement in the whole process included preparing
the baseline survey of households to be moved, designing the accommodation
into which they moved and managing the relocation process, including
the allocation of units. The paper also outlines the difficulties
that the relocation process created and the measures taken to address
these. It suggests the factors that must be in place to protect
low-income groups from the impoverishment that usually accompanies
population displacements caused by infrastructure investments and
central city redevelopment.
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Díaz, Andrés Cabanas Emma Grant,
Paula Irene del Cid Vargas and Verónica Sajbin Velásquez
(2000), "El Mezquital - a community's struggle for development
in Guatemala City", Environment and Urbanization, Vol.
12, No. 1, pages 87-106.
This paper describes the history of the community
in El Mezquital, from the land invasion in the mid 1980s, through
its consolidation and growth, until the present, drawing principally
on interviews with the inhabitants and staff from supporting agencies.
It analyzes the development of the different, and sometimes conflicting,
community organizations and compares their different mandates and
objectives. It shows important processes of community empowerment,
the changing role of women and community self-help initiatives.
It also describes how, in much of the settlement, basic infrastructure
and services were in place and of good quality. However, it also
highlights the lack of employment opportunities, how many people
still live in overcrowded conditions, and the problems of violence,
drug addiction and street children. It also highlights the inadequacies
on the part of government agencies - including their incapacity
to respond to the needs of the community, their under-estimation
of community capacity and the attempts at political manipulation.
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Patel, Sheela Sundar Burra and Celine D'Cruz
(2001), "Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI); foundations
to treetops", Environment and Urbanization, Vol 13 No
2, pages 45-59.
Slum/Shack Dwellers International (SDI)
- foundations to treetops by Sheela Patel, Sundar Burra and Céline
D'Cruz describes the formation and development of Slum/Shack Dwellers
International (SDI), an international people's organization which
represents member federations of urban poor and homeless groups
from 11 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. It also describes
the evolution of these national federations and how they grew to
challenge conventional development thinking and develop new, community-directed
precedents for poverty reduction. These federations and the NGOs
with whom they work formed SDI to support the many ways in which
the federations (and their member groups) learn from and help each
other, and to ensure that global institutions and events became
more useful and relevant to the urban poor.
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Bartlett, Sheridan (1999), "Children's
experience of the physical environment in poor urban settlements:
impliations for policy, planning and practice", Environment
and Urbanization, Vol.11, No.2, pages 63-73.
This paper describes the high costs for
children when their needs are routinely ignored or misunderstood
by urban development policy, plans and practice. Provision for water,
sanitation and housing often fails to consider the requirements
for child health; neighbourhood-wide development can neglect the
significance of play for children's development; and evictions,
overcrowding and neighbourhood violence may have profound implications
for emotional well-being. The paper argues, with examples, that
a concern for children's needs and priorities can be incorporated
into existing interventions without major cost increases and that
this can result in benefits for all inhabitants
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Driskell, David, Kanchan Bannerjee and Louise
Chawla (2001), "Rhetoric, reality and resilience: overcoming
obstacles to young people's participation in development",
Environment and Urbanization, Vol 13 No 1, pages 77-89.
This paper describes the difficult relationships
between those implementing an action research project with children
in a low-income settlement in Bangalore (India), the distant and
unresponsive bureaucracy of an international funding agency, and
the authoritarian management of the NGO through which its money
was channelled. This case study highlights the difficulties that
international agencies face in operationalizing the principles of
grassroots participation that they officially endorse. The action
research was one of several projects within the Growing Up in Cities
programme. It shows the difficult circumstances under which so many
young people live, including six and seven year-olds thrust into
adult roles, and lives cut short by disease and violence. But it
also shows their astonishing resilience and energy, self-reliance
and optimism. External agencies, from local governments and NGOs
to international funders, need to work with children to understand
what does (and what does not) work for them. This means recognizing
that they are important actors in their own communities and that
their insights, energy and creativity should be fostered and supported
rather than ignored.
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Chawla, Louise (1997), "Growing up in
cities: a report on research underway", Environment and
Urbanization, Vol.9, No.2, October, pages 247-251.
This describes the research underway in
many cities to understand how well urban communities function for
adolescents from low-income families and how to work with them in
planning and implementing improvements.
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Souza, Celina (2001), "Participatory
budgeting in Brazilian cities: limits and possibilities in building
democratic institutions", Environment and Urbanization,
Vol 13, No 1, pages 159-184.
This paper describes participatory budgeting
in Brazil, where citizen assemblies in each district of a city determine
priorities for the use of a part of the city's revenues. This is
one of the most significant innovations in Latin America for increasing
citizen participation and local government accountability. After
describing its antecedents, as various local governments sought
to increase citizen involvement during the 1970s and 1980s, the
paper reviews the experience with participatory budgeting in the
cities of Porto Alegre and Belo Horizonte. It describes who took
part in different (district and sectoral) citizen assemblies, the
resources they could call on and the priorities established. It
also discusses its effectiveness regarding increased participation,
more pro-poor expenditures and greater local government accountability.
While noting the limitations (for instance, some of the poorest
groups were not involved and, in other cities, it was not so successful),
the paper also highlights how participatory budgeting allows formerly
excluded groups to decide on investment priorities in their communities
and to monitor government response. It has helped reduce clientelist
practices and, perhaps more importantly for a society as unequal
as Brazil, helped to build democratic institutions.
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Todd, Alison (1996), "Health inequalities
in urban areas: a guide to the literature", Environment
and Urbanization, Vol.8, No.2, October, pp. 141-152.
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Stephens, Carolyn (1996), "Healthy cities
or unhealthy islands: the health and social implications of urban
inequality", Environment and Urbanization, Vol.8, No.2,
October, pp. 9-30. [see Journal]
This paper suggests that governments and
international agencies must address the large and often growing
levels of inequality within most cities if health is to be improved
and poverty reduced. It describes the social and health implications
of inequalities within cities and discusses why descriptions of
the physical symptoms of poverty (and their health implications)
are more common than analyses of the structural systems which produce
and perpetuate poverty. It also describes the health problems from
which low-income groups in urban areas suffer more that richer groups
including those that are not linked to poor sanitary conditions
and those that are more linked to relative poverty (and thus the
level of inequality) than to absolute poverty.
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Stephens, Carolyn, Marco Akerman, Sebastian
Avle, Paulo Borlina Maia, Paulo Campanareio, Ben Doe and Doris Tetteh
(1997), "Urban equity and urban health: using existing dat
to understand inequa,lities in health and environment in Accra,
Ghana and Sao Paulo, Environment and Urbanization, Vol.9,
No.1, April, pp. 181-202.
This paper describes the methods used
to study inequalities in health status and environmental conditions
between different groups in the cities of Sao Paulo and Accra. The
studies used existing data, drawn from different sources, and involved
staff from different government agencies (from city authorities
and higher levels), academic and NGOs in determining how best to
use it. The paper also provides a summary of the main findings,
including a discussion not only of inequalities in health between
the best and the worst quality zones in each city but also on how
health risks differ by age group. The paper begins by considering
why information on such inequalities is so important for policy
makers and why so little data on this are available in most cities
in the South.
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Miranda, Liliana
and Michaela Hordijk (1998), "Let us build cities for life:
the National Campaign of Local Agenda 21s in Peru", Environment
and Urbanization, Vol.10, No.2, October, pages 69-102.
This paper describes
the establishment of a national forum to promote the development
and implementation of Agenda 21 in cities in Peru which, today,
brings together representatives from 41 institutions in 18 cities.
The paper describes the origin, development, vision, strategies
and work to date of the forum, showing how it developed from a conventional
project which depended on the technical assistance and initiatives
of a local NGO into a network of many different actors from many
urban centres in Peru who, together, form an autonomous and independent
entity. The paper outlines the main environmental problems in Peru's
urban areas and the unsupportive national framework within which
urban authorities and other urban actors strive to address environmental
problems.
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Hordijk, Michaela
(1999), "A dream of green and water: Community-based formulation
of a Local Agenda 21 in peri-urban Lima, Peru", Environment
and Urbanization, Vol.11, No.2, October, pages 11-29.
This paper describes
the development of an integrated environmental plan by the inhabitants
of informal settlements on the edge of Lima, Peru - and how this
formed the basis both for local action and for negotiating support
from external agencies. It discusses the different internal and
external groups that were involved, and the measures taken to ensure
real community participation and to avoid the imposition of professionally-driven
"solutions". It also considers the limitations of most
international donor funding for Local Agenda 21s because it is too
'project cycle' oriented and too concerned with 'outputs' to be
able to support such participatory processes.
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López Follegatti, Jose Luis (1999),
"Ilo: a city in transformation", Environment and Urbanization,
Vol.11, No.2, October, pages 181-202.
This describes a city initiative to defend
the environment and reduce pollution. Chimbote is an important industrial
fishing port now considered the third most contaminated city in
Peru due to the lack of urban environmental planning and regulation
and lack of leadership from local government. The paper includes
an account of the work of the Association for the Defense and Conservation
of the Environment of the Province of La Santa (ADECOMAPS), which
started as an ecological movement for the protection and conservation
of an important park and which now brings together 42 different
institutions including grassroots organizations, NGOs, universities,
professional training institutions, politicians and government bodies.
The association has developed an environmental action plan (or Local
Agenda 21) for the city despite the reluctance of the provincial
mayor.
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Velasquez, Luz Stella (1998), "Agenda
21; a form of joint environmental management in Manizales, Colombia",
Environment and Urbanization, Vol.10, No.2, pages 9-36.
This describes the development of Bioplan-Manizales,
a local environmental action plan (LEAP) for the city of Manizales,
and the different groups that contributed to its development including
the municipality. The paper also describes the broader national
and international context for the innovations in Manizales including
the political, legislative and fiscal changes in Colombia that have
encouraged local authorities to develop local environmental agendas
and the city's own historical development.
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Roberts, Debra and
Nicci Diederichs (2002), "Durban's Local Agenda 21 programme:
tackling sustainable development in a post-apartheid city",
Environment and Urbanization, Vol. 14, No. 1, pages 189-202.
This describes
Durban's Local Agenda 21 programme which has been at the forefront
of the Local Agenda 21 movement in Southern Africa since the mid-1990s.
The paper also outlines the difficulties faced in localizing the
sustainable development concept in Durban, key among them the challenge
of establishing the programme during a period of local government
transformation and restructuring. The perception of Local Agenda
21 as "green" and "anti-development" has also
resulted in a lack of proactive and sustained political support.
These problems have been exacerbated by limited human and financial
resources, which have restricted the capacity to build support and
consensus amongst stakeholders. The programme has, however, helped
keep sustainable development on the city's agenda and has provided
a mechanism through which local stakeholders can interact with local
government around environmental management issues. The paper concludes
with a section on the lessons learned and factors required to ensure
future progress.
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Roberts, Ian (2000), "Leicester environment
city: learning how to make Local Agenda 21, partnerships and participation
deliver" participation deliver", Environment and Urbanization,
Vol.12, No.2, pages 9-26.
Leicester Environment City: learning how
to make Local Agenda 21, partnerships and participation deliver
by Ian Roberts describes the pioneering experience of the city of
Leicester (in the UK) over the last 10 years in developing its Local
Agenda 21 and other aspects of its work towards environmental improvement
and sustainable development. It includes details of measures to
improve public transport and to reduce congestion, traffic accidents,
car use and air pollution. It also describes measures to improve
housing quality for low-income households, reduce fossil fuel use,
increase renewable energy use and make the city council's own operations
a model of reducing resource use and waste. It also describes how
this was done - the specialist working groups that sought to make
partnerships work (and their strengths and limitations), the information
programmes to win hearts and minds, the many measures to encourage
widespread participation (and the difficulties in involving under-represented
groups) and the measures to make local governments, businesses and
other groups develop the ability and habit of responding to the
local needs identified in participatory consultations.
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Participatory
Tools and Methods |
Nurick, Robert and
Victoria Johnson (1998), "Towards community-based indicators
for monitoring quality of life and the impact of industry in South
Durban", Environment and Urbanization, Vol.10, No.1,
pages 233-250.
This presents
the findings of research carried out in residential communities
adjacent to petrochemical and chemical industries in Durban, South
Africa during January-March 1997. The purpose of the research was
to begin the process of developing community based indicators for
monitoring and evaluating industrial performance. This was done
using a range of participatory methods with men and women in community
groups, and was a part of a wider set of Local Agenda 21 activities
within the city.
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Nieuwenhuys, Olga (1997), "Spaces for
the children of the urban poor: Experiences with Participatory Action
Research", Environment and Urbanization, Vol.9, No.1,
April, pp. 233-249.
This paper explains why participatory
action research (PAR) could be so important in helping the children
of the urban poor, and those who work with them, generate relevant
insights into their specific needs and priorities and help them
influence decisions that are taken about their lives. The paper
begins by discussing the problems facing children in urban areas
of the South and why more participatory research approaches which
work with children have come to the fore. It then describes what
participatory action research is (and is not) and why researchers
and the institutions that fund them have difficulty in supporting
such a research approach, especially in relation to children. The
paper then addresses the three main implications for researchers
who want to use PAR with children: taking responsibility for the
children's needs and priorities within the research; balancing participation
and mediation; and ensuring the research helps to negotiate more
spaces for children in their environment and more power in their
relationship with the state and society.
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Moser, Caroline O.N. and Cathy McIlwaine
(1999), "Participatory urban appraisal and its application
for research on violence", Environment and Urbanization,
Voil.11, No.2, pages 203-226.
This paper emphasizes the importance of
participatory research on violence and describes the range of Participatory
Urban Appraisal tools that can be used to document the perceptions
of poorer groups regarding the extent, causes and consequences of
violence, as well as the strategies for coping with, or reducing,
it. The use of these tools is illustrated with examples drawn from
the findings of research in 18 low income communities in different
cities in Colombia and Guatemala. The paper also outlines a conceptual
framework on violence, poverty/exclusion. inequality and social
capital that can help in the research design and in analyzing the
findings.
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Revi, Aromar and
Manish Dube (1999), "Indicators for urban environmental services
in Lucknow - process and methods", Environment and Urbanization,
Vol.11, No.2, pages 227-246.
This paper describes
how the development of community indicators was used in Lucknow
both to support a dialogue between representatives from communities
lacking basic services and service providers, and to benchmark existing
environmental conditions and urban services, and set priorities
for improvements. Local organizations were approached in four neighbourhoods
and, through community meetings, interviews with households and
service providers, and a joint workshop, an indicator set was agreed
on. The paper ends with an analysis of what the collection of data
for this indicator set showed and a discussion of lessons for future
work in this area.
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Montiel, René Pérez and Françoise
Barten (1999), "Urban governance and health development in
León, Nicaragua", Environment and Urbanization,
Vol.11, No.1, April, pages 11-26.
This paper describes the development of
a "healthy municipality" initiative in Léon and
of the innovations in local governance that preceded it - especially
the partnerships that local government developed with the university,
bilateral agencies and the long-established urban social movement.
After first discussing why participation and good governance are
so central to "healthy cities", the paper describes the
specific conditions which fostered the participatory approach in
Léon, and the difficulties faced. The paper also analyzes
the process of citizen participation in policy-making and the contents
and results of the programme.
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Abbot, Jo (1999), "Beyond tools
and methods: reviewing developments in participatory learning and
action", Environment and Urbanization, Vol 11 No 1,
pages 231-234.
This
reviews recent innovations in the use of participatory tools and
methods that have relevance for urban areas. This includes the use
of participatory approaches for understanding poverty, involving
children, identifying livelihood opportunities and monitoring and
evaluating projects.
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Hartmann, Betsy
(1998), "Population, environment and security: a new trinity",
Environment and Urbanization, Vol.10, No.2, pages 113-127.
This critically
examines the literature which claims that internal conflict in Africa,
Asia and Latin America is often the result of population pressures
and resource scarcities, focusing particularly on the work of Thomas
Homer-Dixon. The author shows how this literature provides a convenient
rationale for sustaining US military expenditures and gives hardliners
in the population control lobby a justification for moving away
from the new, broader focus on reproductive health back to more
coercive population policies. The paper ends with a discussion of
why it is important to challenge this ideology, not least because
it leads to negative stereotypes of women and "peasant"
farmers and could lead to the militarization of environmental policy.
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Poverty
Reduction; Supporting Local Processes |
Navarro, Lia (2001),
"Exploring the environmental and political dimensions of poverty:
the cases of the cities of Mar del Plata and Necochea-Quequén",
Environment and Urbanization, Vol. 13, No.1, pages 185-199.
This paper presents
a framework to show how information drawn from different sources
for any city allows the construction of poverty profiles and maps.
These not only help local governments to act but they also provide
a catalyst for more participatory and integrated approaches to poverty
reduction. The paper also gives examples of how this framework was
used in two cities in Argentina. The framework brings out the multi-dimensional
nature of urban poverty, including environmental and political dimensions
which are not made evident by conventional definitions of poverty.
The framework also highlights the complex linkages between the different
dimensions and how the environmental dimensions (including housing
conditions) are not just visible features of poverty but also key
'entry points' through which social, economic and political dimensions
can be understood and addressed. Mapping environmental conditions
also brings out key social and spatial inequalities.
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Satterthwaite, David (2001), "Reducing
urban poverty: constraints on the effectiveness of aid agencies
and development banks and some suggestions for change", Environment
and Urbanization, Vol 13 No 1, pages 137-157.
This paper discusses the institutional
constraints that aid agencies and development banks face in being
able to address urban poverty. These include their limited capacity
to support local institutions that respond to the needs and priorities
of low-income groups and that are accountable to them. It describes
the distance between the decision-making processes of most international
agencies and the 'urban poor', and the very limited possibilities
for the urban poor to influence what gets funded and by whom. It
also discusses the political constraints that have inhibited more
effective donor agencies and suggests how support for locally based
funds for community initiatives could help overcome some of these.
It ends by describing the low priority given by donor agencies to
urban poverty reduction and suggests some changes that would help
development assistance to meet its targets for reducing urban poverty.
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Kiyaga-Nsubuga, John Raphael Magyezi, Sarah
O'Brien and Mark Sheldrake (2001), "Hope for the urban poor:
DFID city community challenge (C3) fund pilot in Kampala and Jinja,
Uganda", Environment and Urbanization, Vol 13 No 1,
pages 115-124.
This paper describes a new pilot fund
to support community initiatives for urban poor groups in Uganda's
two largest cities, Kampala and Jinja. Supported by the UK government's
Department for International Development, it is called the C3 fund
since it is city-based, set up to support community-initiated proposals
and includes a focus on capacity-building. The approach is unusual
in that external aid is supporting a local fund to which community
groups can apply, and where decisions about the projects that receive
funds are being taken locally. The paper first describes the decentralization
programme in Uganda and the changes that have encouraged NGOs and
foreign donors to work with local authorities. Then it describes
the C3 fund's design, how it has been set up, and its operational
mechanisms and financial and managerial procedures.
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Etemadi, Felisa U. (2000), "Civil society
participation in city governance in Cebu City", Environment
and Urbanization, Vol 12 No 1, pages 57-72.
This paper describes the range of partnerships
between government and non-government organizations in the city
which provide services targeted at low-income groups or at settlements
with a predominance of low-income households. It also describes
a coalition of NGOs and people's organizations which seeks to ensure
the election of mayors with pro-poor policies and to ensure these
policies are implemented. Their successes mainly involve improved
service provision; the limitations include very limited economic
benefits for low-income groups despite rapid economic growth, difficulties
in acquiring land for housing, and the limited influence of NGOs
and people's organizations on the policies of city government.
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Anzorena, Jorge, Joel Bolnick, Somsook
Boonyabancha, Yves Cabannes, Ana Hardoy, Arif Hasan, Caren Levy,
Diana Mitlin, and others (1998), "Reducing urban poverty; some
lessons from experience", Environment and Urbanization,
Vol.10, No.1, pages 167-186.
This discusses how many donor agencies
are recognizing the need to address the growing levels of urban
poverty in Africa, Latin America and much of Asia. As they develop
or expand programmes on poverty reduction in urban areas, there
are many remarkable initiatives on whose experience they can draw.
This paper reflects on the lessons from seven of these: three from
Asia, three from Latin America and one from Africa, drawing out
the common features between these initiatives.
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Satterthwaite, David (2002), "Local
funds and their potential to allow donor agencies to support community
development and poverty reduction", Environment and Urbanization,
Vol. 14, No. 1, pages 179-188.
This paper describes the growing number
of local funds or local institutions through which international
agencies or national governments channel resources to support community
initiatives. It discusses the advantages that these can have over
more conventional projects in reducing urban poverty (including
their flexibility, fast response time, demand-driven nature and
local accountability). It discusses how they differ from social
funds, and points to their strategic value in changing official
perceptions of "the poor", in strengthening the capacity
of urban poor organizations and in enhancing partnerships between
community organizations and municipal governments. The paper ends
with a discussion of the challenges that these local funds pose,
both for the local institutions who manage them and for donors who
fund them.
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Stein, Alfredo (2001), "Participation
and sustainability in social projects: the experience of the Local
Development Programme (PRODEL) in Nicaragua", Environment
and Urbanization, Vol 13 No 1, pages 11-35.
This paper describes the work of PRODEL
in eight cities in Nicaragua where it provided small grants for
infrastructure and community works projects and loans for housing
improvement and micro-enterprises, targeted at low-income groups.
The external funds provided by the Swedish International Development
Cooperation Agency (Sida) were matched by municipal, community and
household contributions. Between 1994 and 1998, more than 38,000
households benefited and both loan programmes achieved good levels
of cost recovery. This paper describes the micro-planning workshops
and other methodologies through which households and communities
were given more scope for participation. It explains how local governments
and the bank responsible for managing the loans learned to work
in a more participatory way and it outlines the measures taken to
ensure that the needs and priorities of women and children were
addressed. The paper ends by considering some of the lessons learned
in terms of sustaining the initiatives after projects are completed,
and institutionalizing citizen participation in social programmes.
It also describes how PRODEL's methods have come to be used by central
and local governments in other programmes.
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Boonyabancha, Somsook (2001), "Savings
and loans - drawing lessons from some experiences in Asia",
Environment and Urbanization, Vol 13 No 2, pages 9-21.
This paper describes the role of community-managed
savings and loans schemes in poverty reduction and how these are
best supported by external agencies. It draws particularly on the
last ten years work of the Thai government's Urban Community Development
Office including how the 1997 financial crisis and the difficulties
this brought to low-income savers was turned into an opportunity
to rethink how to support savings groups. Community savings and
loan schemes bring people together, helping them learn how to develop
and manage their own resource base. They reduce individual vulnerability
by providing an immediate lending facility the poor can access.
They strengthen community processes so that other key issues can
be addressed - for instance, developing plans for housing and negotiating
with external agencies for land and infrastructure. If savings groups
are supported to learn from each other (through community exchanges),
networks develop, creating stronger, larger groupings of the urban
poor with a greater capacity to negotiate with external agencies
and develop a common fund. The possibilities for collaboration with
government increases greatly as these networks demonstrate cheaper,
more effective ways of addressing housing problems. Thus, community
savings and loans schemes can reduce the poor's exclusion from formal
political and financial systems by providing a bridge between these
and the informal systems from which most of the poor draw their
living. They can also become the means by which the urban poor obtain
good quality, well-located, secure housing with basic services,
without the need for large subsidies.
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Boonyabancha, Somsook (1999), "The Urban
Community Environmental Activities Project, Thailand", Environment
and Urbanization, Vol.11, No.1, April, pages 101-115.
This describes
the work of an environment fund set up to support community-initiated
and managed projects within low-income settlements in urban areas.
Over a two year period, this supported 196 projects benefitting
41,000 families. Although this was managed by a Thai government
agency (the Urban Community Development Office) and with funds from
the Danish Government agency DANCED, it allowed low-income communities
to develop their own projects and to manage their implementation.
It also encouraged inter-community exchanges and a strengthening
of the capacity of low income communities to negotiate and work
with external agencies.
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Sida (1997),
Seeking more effective and sustainable support to improving housing
and living conditions for low income households in urban areas:
Sida's initaitives in Costa Rica, Chile and Nicaragua, Environment
and Urbanization, Vol.9, No.2, pages 213-231.
This
describes three initiatives funded by the Swedish International
Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) for improving housing and
living conditions for low-income urban households in Latin America.
All three centred on support for developing new homes or for improving
or extending existing homes. After outlining the goals and characteristics
that the three initiatives had in common, the paper gives short
descriptions and assessments of each programme and then considers
their relevance to donor assisted interventions in other countries.
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Tacoli, Cecilia (1998), "Rural-urban
interactions; a guide to the literature", Environment and
Urbanization, Vol.10, No.1, pages 147-166.
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Potts, Deborah and Chris Mutambirwa (1998),
"Basics are now a luxury: perceptions of the impact of structural
adjustment on rural and urban areas in Zimbabwe", Environment
and Urbanization, Vol.10, No.1, pages 55-75.
This describes
differences in the impact of the Economic Structural Adjustment
Policy on Zimbabwe's rural and urban areas through the views of
recent migrants to Harare. Although the outcomes of this policy
have been more acutely felt in the city than in the countryside,
rural populations have also suffered in multiple ways. Due to the
strength of rural-urban interactions and the economic interdependence
between city and countryside, the impact of structural adjustment
is not clearly geographically defined.
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Tenants;
Getting a Better Deal |
Mitlin, Diana (1997), "Editor's Introduction: Tenants - addressing
needs, increasing options", Environment and Urbanization, Vol.9,
No.2, October, pages 3-15.
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Barbosa, Ronnie Yves Cabannes and Lucia Moraes
(1997), "Tenant today, posseiro tomorrow", Environment
and Urbanization, Vol.9, No.2, October, pages 17-41.
This tells the
story of FEGIP, a federation of tenants and posseiros working in
Goias State, Brazil and their struggle over the last 17 years to
assist tenants and the homeless. Section I serves as introduction
and Section II outlines the methodology and scope of the research.
Section III provides some basic information on the city of Goiani,
and the situation of tenants within the city. Section IV explains
the central role of tenants' movements in creating an alternative
means through which low-income families are able to secure housing.
It analyzes the specific nature of FEGIP - the Goiania Federation
of Tenants and Posseiros - and former organizations. Section V illustrates
these strategies with a number of histories of individual settlements.
The final sections consider the achievements and impacts, and some
conclusions are drawn following an assessment of their great effect
on both local and national housing policy.
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Alimuddin, Salim, Arif Hasan and Asiya Sadiq
(2001), Community-driven Water and Sanitation: The Work of the Anjuman
Samaji Behbood and the Larger Faisalabad Context, IIED Working Paper
7 on Poverty Reduction in Urban Areas, IIED, London.
This case study
describes the work of a local NGO, the Anjuman Samaji Behbood (ASB)
in Faisalabad, which demonstrated the capacity to support community-built
and financed sewers and water supply distribution lines in the informal
settlements in which most of Faisalabad's population lives. It also
suggests a model by which provision for water, sanitation and drainage
could be much improved in Faisalabad, despite the deficiencies in
the existing infrastructure and institutions, and the limited availability
of local resources.
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Jaglin, Sylvy (2002), "The right to
water versus cost recovery: participation, urban water supply and
the poor in sub-Saharan Africa", Environment and Urbanization,
Vol 14 No 1, pages 231-246.
This paper reviews
reforms that have directly and indirectly affected water services
in urban areas in sub-Saharan Africa over the last two decades,
and discusses the difficulties of reconciling universal provision
with a market-oriented approach. It describes measures to reconcile
these, including different forms of user participation and a greater
reliance on informal reselling of water, and demonstrates that most
participation is about transferring costs from water companies to
low-income households. It also points out that relying on informal
resellers may constrain the extension of better quality services
to low-income neighbourhoods, and that community-based schemes often
fail to raise the capital needed to extend water mains to unserved
peripheries. Whilst many participatory schemes can, under certain
conditions, help ensure wider access to water, they are in no way
a miracle solution and there is a considerable risk of institutionalizing
two-tier services which lock low-income groups into more inconvenient,
poor quality services.
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Solo, Tova Maria (1999), "Small scale
entrepreneurs in the urban water and sanitation market", Environment
and Urbanization, Vol. 11, No.1, April, pages 117-131.
This describes
the importance of small-scale private sector or NGO providers of
water and sanitation in a great range of urban areas in Africa,
Asia and Latin America. Without these operations, large sections
of the South's urban populations, including tens of millions of
low-income households, would be worse off. This paper discusses
how public policy can support such entrepreneurs in water and sanitation
provision while ensuring checks on the quality and price of the
services they provide.
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Thompson, John,
Ina T Porras, Elisabeth Wood, James K Tumwine, Mark R Mujwahuzi,
Munguti Katui-Katua and Nick Johnstone (2000), "Waiting at
the tap: Changes in urban water use in East Africa over three decades",
Environment and Urbanization, Vol 12 No 2, pages 37-52.
This
paper reports on changes in water supplies in 16 sites in nine East
African urban centres (including Nairobi and Dar es Salaam) between
1967 and 1997. The sites included both low-income and affluent neighbourhoods.
In most sites, water supplies had deteriorated. For sites that already
had piped water in 1967, most received less water per day in 1997
and had more unreliable supplies. For households without piped supplies,
the average time spent collecting water in 1997 was more than three
times that in 1967. One of the most notable changes when comparing
1997 to 1967 was the much greater importance of private water-vending
through kiosks or vendors and these had become a booming business
in many of the low and middle-income sites. But on average, those
using kiosks were spending almost two hours a day collecting water
and the water from kiosks was nearly twice the price of piped supplies.
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