RIGHTS: When People Help Themselves

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Sanjay Suri

GLASGOW, Scotland, Jun 21 2006 (IPS) - South African women living in squatter settlements build new homes, about 18,000 of them. Tens of thousands of new homes and many new police stations are coming up in Bombay slums. Neither is the result of a government programme, or of some kindly NGO.

At both places local people have combined with government agencies in bold new ways to improve their homes and their lives. And this is the way David Satterthwaite, a leading expert on city environment at the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) says cities need to develop.

Thirty years back experts had gathered in Vancouver in Canada to consider the challenges by urbanisation. They met again this week to see what has not worked – because a lot has not.

“In 1976, governments formally committed themselves to work with those living in slums and squatter settlements to improve conditions and to ensure universal provision for water and sanitation,” Satterthwaite told IPS in an email interview. “But the number of people living in such settlements has more than tripled since. In 2006, far more urban (and rural) dwellers lack good provision for water and sanitation than they did in 1976.”

The time has come now to confront some new truths, and to discard some old myths, Satterthwaite said. “In 1976, the need for governments to work with their ‘squatter citizens’ was stressed but not much practised. Squatter leaders were there, but most spoke of their struggle to avoid eviction and none were allowed to speak at the official government sessions.”

This year has brought a new truth – the solutions offered by partnerships between governments and those living in slums and squatter settlements, he says.

The number of slum dwellers whose living conditions need to get better is huge.

“There are no precise figures for this, in part because each government has different definitions for what is a ‘slum’, which makes international comparisons difficult,” Satterthwaite said. “The number of urban dwellers living in poor quality, overcrowded housing that usually lacks adequate provision for water and sanitation is around 900 million worldwide.”

India and China have the largest number of people living in such housing. There are inevitably fewer slum dwellers in rich countries, but developing countries have handled this problem too. Porto Alegre in Brazil has a long history of innovative government and a very low proportion of the population living in poor quality housing.

In some countries now there is a greater willingness to listen to squatter leaders. “But it is more than a willingness to listen because it involves real partnerships, working together,” Satterthwaite said. “Most examples of this are city governments working with federations formed by those living in ‘slums’ and squatter settlements – for instance Durban (South Africa), Windhoek (Namibia) and many cities in Thailand and India.”

This is inevitably a national and local problem, but “international forums allow the slum or shack dwellers federations and the government officials with whom they work to describe their partnerships and the results they are producing in terms of new houses built, existing houses upgraded, land tenure problems solved and improvements in provision for water and sanitation,” Satterthwaite said.

The basis for the new partnerships was provided by the shift in what the slum or shack dwellers federations did, Satterthwaite said. “Traditionally, such federations were organised to make demands on governments – give us housing, give us land tenure, stop evicting us, provide us with water and sanitation. This new generation of federations realised that this was not producing results.”

Most of the governments they were negotiating with were incapable of meeting their demands, he said. “So the federations changed their approach. They organised themselves and started doing projects – building homes, community toilets….then they asked governments to work with them. The National Slum Dwellers Federation in India was the first to make this switch, under the leadership of Jockin Arputham.”

But are cities around the world ready to follow the example set in India and in South Africa?

“It is too soon to say how much the example of the South African government’s support for the South African Federation of the Urban Poor will encourage others,” Satterthwaite said. “But the government of Malawi has also made a bold commitment to support the house building programme of the Malawi Homeless People’s Federation. Several city governments in Ghana and Kenya are discussing partnerships with the Ghana and Kenya federations.”

The international agencies are unlikely to deliver, the city environment expert said.

“There is a massive disconnect between international funding agencies and the thousands of local initiatives organised and managed by those that officials define as ‘slum dwellers’,” Satterthwaite said. “International funding agencies need to learn how to talk to and listen to these ‘slum dwellers’ and learn how to support their initiatives – and where possible their partnerships with local governments. It often does not need large sums of money.”

People themselves are showing the way now, he said. “It may sound like a cliché – but people-centred, people-driven, people-managed initiatives are happening all round the world, organised and managed by those living in the worst conditions.”