The challenges of urban poverty and environmental burdens

David Satterthwaite

International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)

Key issues

1. Most work on poverty reduction & environmental management has to be local BUT most decisions on what gets funded by national governments and international donors

2. Huge under-estimation on scale of urban poverty (and of environmental burdens associated with poverty)

3. Architecture of development assistance needs to change to address urban poverty Presentation based on what I have learned from civil

society organizations (IIED-AL, work with federations formed by slum and shack dwellers, ACHR, OPP....)

Also from managing a fund that supports slum/shack dweller federations direct

INTERNATIONAL DONOR AGENCIES

RECIPIENT GOVERNMENT (NATIONAL)

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (political and administrative

aspects)LOCAL CIVIL SOCIETY

ORGANIZATIONS (NGOs and community

organizations)THE INTENDED BENEFICIARIES (the urban poor)

• What are relationships between these

• Who controls allocation & use of funds; who gets funds & under what terms; how this + accounting for fund-use influences what is done?

• Lines of accountability to the urban poor

• Importance of FCRI because it is looking at these issues

Key actors in urban poverty reduction

INTERNATIONAL DONOR AGENCIES

RECIPIENT GOVERNMENT (NATIONAL)

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (political and administrative

aspects)LOCAL CIVIL SOCIETY

ORGANIZATIONS (NGOs and community

organizations)THE INTENDED BENEFICIARIES (the urban poor)

• US$18,000 to savings group formed by very low-income women in Harare

• $4,000 a year for the TTRC in Orangi, Karachi

• Municipality-driven achievements in Ilo, Manizales....

• External researchers don’t know what they don’t know

Key actors in urban poverty reduction

All poverty reduction is local Involves improvements in people’s lives

Providing/improving schools, health care, water and sanitation, housing, livelihoods, safety nets, “voice”.....

Depends heavily on quality & capacity of local organizations (government and civil society)

National governments & donor agencies only as effective as the local changes they generate and local organizations they support

Almost all environmental improvements linked to development needs local knowledge and action

A large part of development is making local organizations work better for the poor

Local organizations Supportive Unsupportive

Schools (pre-school, primary, secondary)

Health care (all levels)

Providers of water, sanitation

Regulators of people’s access to natural resources and to land for housing in urban areas

Providers of safety nets and credit

Police and legal system

Local government: voting, listening, accountability & transparency….

Contrasts between high-

income and low- and middle-

income nations in all of these

Successful poverty reduction as: Tangible improvements in people’s lives

Increases in what they consume, save and invest Better quality/more secure homes/neighbourhoods ...... Reduced environmental health burdens

Also in better relationships with Infrastructure & service providers (those who run schools,

health centres, water agencies……) Local politicians and civil servants Local law enforcement agencies Landlords and employers NGOs, international agencies………..

Success in urban poverty reduction depends so much on quality of the relationship between the urban poor and the organizations with funding and capacity to address

their (inherently local) needs

A DONOR AGENCY with its policy decisions

Internal structure: - has to spend or lend lots of money with relatively few staff - reliance on other agencies to implement

RECIPIENT GOVERNMENT AND ITS PRIORITIES

POLITICAL PROCESSES THAT OVERSEE DONOR AGENCY

Commercial interests

Non-commercial development lobbies

Non-commercial environment lobby

PUBLIC OPINION AND MEDIA

COMMERCIAL/POLITICAL INFLUENCES

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (usually weak)

LOCAL CONTRACTORS

THE INTENDED BENEFICIARIES; THE POOR

Estimates: different aspects urban poverty

Type of poverty Numbers of urban dwellers affected in Africa, Asia, LA & C

Inadequate income in relation to costs of basic needs

750 million to 1.1 billion

Inadequate provision for water and sanitation

680 million+ for water

800 million+ for sanitation

Under-nourished 150-200 million+

Many African & Asian nations, 25-40% urban kids underweight

Living in poverty 924 million+ in ‘slums’ & squatter settlements

Homeless 100 million?

Proportion of urban populations below the poverty line:

More than half in Angola, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Chad, Colombia, Georgia, Guatemala, Haiti, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger, Sierra Leone and Zambia

40-50 percent in Burundi, El Salvador, the Gambia, Kenya, Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Peru and Zimbabwe

Urban infant mortality rates80-101 per 1000 live births

Average for sub-Saharan Africa. Mozambique (1997), Chad (1997), Mali (1996), Ethiopia (2000), Zambia (1996), Rwanda (1992), Haiti (2000), Benin (1996), Malawi (2000), Tanzania (1996), Central African Rep. (1994/95), Eritrea (1995), Niger (1998)

60-79 per 1000 live births

Guinea (1999), Madagascar (1997), Côte d’Ivoire (1994), Yemen (1997), Pakistan (1990/91), Sudan (1990), Uganda (1995), Bangladesh (2000), Cambodia (2000), Burkina Faso (1998/99), Togo (1998), Comoros (1996), Namibia (1992), Cameroon (1998), Gabon (2000), Nepal (1996)

Among much of the urban poor, IMRs likely to be twice the urban average ie often 160-200 per 1000 live births

Other evidence of urban deprivation Environmental health burdens

Very high prevalence rates for diarrhoeal diseases, intestinal worm infections, ARIs, TB, …… often malaria or dengue

Under-nutrition 1/3rd or more urban children stunted in many nations Most Sub-Saharan African nations, 40+% urban population

with energy deficiencies (above 60% in some) HIV/AIDs prevalence

generally higher in urban areas than rural areas Disasters

Very large increase in deaths and serious injuries from disasters in urban areas 1970-2007

heavily concentrated among poor Climate change

high concentration of risk among urban poor Worst housing, least protective infrastructure, often most

dangerous sites...... Least engaged in disaster preparedness

Urbanization & health: Female Life Expectancy at Birth

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Under five mortality rates

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Why urban poverty is greatly under-estimated in many nations

Governments set poverty lines Usually based on World Bank methodologies Poverty line often based only on the cost of food

But key characteristic of urban; many non-food needs have to be paid for & are often expensive housing (often rented), water, sanitation, health care,

keeping children at school, transport ... If poverty-lines reflect real income needed to avoid

deprivation, most nations would have 40-60% of urban population below poverty-line

High levels of poverty even in prosperous, successful cities (Mumbai, Bangalore, Dhaka, many Chinese cities......) but hidden by inappropriate/incorrect poverty lines

Different poverty lines produce different conclusions

Percent of a city's population in poverty

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1990 1995 2000 2005

% o

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$1 a day

Food consumption

Income for food, healthcare, education

Proper city-specificpoverty line

Relative poverty

INADEQUATE INCOME

Illegal housing built or rented (often peripheral and dangerous location)

Overcrowding inadequate

basic services

High transport costs & threat

of eviction

Large disease

and injury burden

Fall outside political system

Voicelessness

No protection from the law

Work in informal economy -

harassment

Higher costs for housing, services and health care, income lost to

illness so poverty exacerbated/

income reduced

Pro-poor urban development including municipal-community organization

partnerships in upgrading and new land and house developments

Less overcrowding + much improved basic

services

Lower transport costs; evictions stopped, legal

houses affordable

Much reduced disease and

injury burden; IMR down

Poor and their settlements included in governance

Protection from the law

Support for informal

enterprises

Poverty much

reduced; incomes

increased

Reviewing work of local civil society organizations

All with well-established work programmes involving low-income groups in setting priorities/undertaking initiatives

All seek high levels of accountability/transparency to “the poor”

All seek to work with governments All dealing with difficulties faced by poor groups in getting

land or tenure of land already occupied All facing strong opposition from powerful vested

interests Most with problematic relationships with international

funders. All seeking to draw on local resources (including self-

help, local savings) In part because it reduces dependence on external funding

Key roles of local NGOs

Precedent setting (shows what is possible) Community toilets, new building materials, smaller lot sizes

Creating spaces for dialogue between diverse groups Especially between grassroots organizations

Working with local governments Essential for large-scale impacts But “they see us as contractors” Different concepts of participation and accountability

Working with organizations of the urban poor Not necessarily representative Challenges and difficulties

How much do funders support this? Very small proportion of donor funding to local initiatives Difficult to reconcile locally-driven “what needs to done” and

available external funding Pro-poor local processes complex, changing, often slow, need

long time-frames but donor funding tied to short expenditure time-frames and outcomes specified in advance “We do not fund staff costs” “we will not fund capital costs” “we can fund you for only 2 years (show us your exit-

strategy)” “we cannot fund travel costs” “we can no longer fund you because the country in which

you operate is no longer a priority for our agency” “we have changed our priorities; your work no longer fits

within these” We only fund rights-based approaches now “your application cannot be considered until the next

committee meeting in six months time”…..

Problems with international funders

International agency staff do not know what they do not know

Monitoring & evaluation frameworks often inappropriate. How does an external evaluator:

Judge or measure changes in relationships? Measure what has been achieved against what could

have been achieved Go beyond assessing everything using logframe that

local NGO was forced to produce, regardless of whether it was appropriate

Evaluate complex local processes in a few days often without speaking local languages?

‘Good practice’ in evaluations (i.e. supporting self-reflections of local organizations, not being seen as ‘external police’) rarely followed

A DONOR AGENCY with its policy decisions

Internal structure: - has to spend or lend lots of money with relatively few staff - reliance on other agencies to implement

RECIPIENT GOVERNMENT AND ITS PRIORITIES

POLITICAL PROCESSES THAT OVERSEE DONOR AGENCY

Commercial interests

Non-commercial development lobbies

Non-commercial environment lobby

PUBLIC OPINION AND MEDIA

COMMERCIAL/POLITICAL INFLUENCES

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (usually weak)

LOCAL CONTRACTORS OR SERVICE PROVIDERS

LOCAL CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS THE INTENDED

BENEFICIARIES; THE POOR

Some new rules Do not demand set proportion of matching funds BUT

local organization sees what local resources could be mobilised

Do not demand a proportion of funding provided as loans BUT funder can work with local organizations to identify what

might generate partial or full cost recovery Do not demand that local organizations work in partnership

with local government BUT support them to see if such partnerships are possible

Appreciate the importance of local organizations’ long-term engagement for success

Do not press local organizations to spend Require careful accounting and detailed narrative instead

of complex pre-conditions

A DONOR AGENCY with its policy decisions

Internal structure: - has to spend or lend lots of money with relatively few staff - reliance on other agencies to implement

RECIPIENT GOVERNMENT AND ITS PRIORITIES

POLITICAL PROCESSES THAT OVERSEE DONOR AGENCY

Commercial interests

Non-commercial development lobbies

Non-commercial environment lobby

PUBLIC OPINION AND MEDIA

COMMERCIAL/POLITICAL INFLUENCES

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (usually weak)

LOCAL CONTRACTORS OR SERVICE PROVIDERS

LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS

THE INTENDED BENEFICIARIES; THE POOR

NEW ROLE FOR AID AGENCIES Support local innovation in pro-poor basic

services as catalysts for new approaches And new relationships between urban poor, local

governments, local NGOs Long term support for urban poor groups to

demonstrate real solutions to their governments and become organized to negotiate and work more

effectively with government key roles for local NGOs

New funding architecture needed Including funds located within countries Far more attention to supporting pro-poor local

processes Funds to which local civil society organizations can apply

direct within ‘recipient’ nations eg Urban Poor Funds

Different degrees of poverty in urban areas

Degrees of poverty Each with different implications for

• Inadequacy of income• Quality of housing (and range of options to choose from)• Access to services• Asset base• Vulnerability to economic shocks• Risk level from disasters and everyday hazards

Destitution

Extreme poverty

Poverty

At risk