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November 2001 Insights Issue
#38
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to Insights #38
What role for civil society?
There is growing
recognition that good local governance is key to poverty reduction and
that it requires effective civil society organizations. It is clear
that many aspects of poverty need addressing, not just low incomes:
poor quality and insecure housing, inadequate infrastructure, services,
and legal protection, the rights of poorer groups within political and
bureaucratic systems also need urgent attention.
The shift from poverty
reduction programmes that measure poverty by income-levels alone to
programmes recognising the multiple and interlocking deprivations that
the poorest people suffer suggests a more prominent role for local institutions.
Local civil society organizations can and often do contribute significantly
to addressing these deprivations, especially where local government
is weak and ineffective.
The International
Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) carried out a series
of case studies in collaboration with local teams in the following areas:
India and
South Africa: federations of the urban poor formed by thousands
of community-based savings schemes, in housing, land acquisition and
income-generation, working in various cities.
Nicaragua
and Argentina: partnerships between CBOs, municipal authorities
and local NGOs in San Fernando, a municipality on the periphery of Buenos
Aires and five Nicaraguan cities.
Colombia:
the role of foundations funded by local private enterprises in Cali.
Guatemala:
the achievements and limitations of internationally funded programmes
in a squatter settlement.
Pakistan:
water and sanitation projects in low-income areas in Faisalabad implemented
by a local NGO drawing on the experience of the Orangi Pilot Project
in Karachi.
Barra Mansa
(Rio de Janeiro, Brazil): the involvement of children and youth in the
municipal government's participatory budgeting programme and the role
of the children's council in directing municipal investments.
It is clear that
CBOs and local NGOs can play a crucial role in reducing poverty. What
has been learnt from local initiatives?
- CBOs and NGOs
can strengthen the capacity of poor groups to negotiate with local
government: land for housing, housing improvement and basic services
often receive little support from national government poverty reduction
programmes.
- Considerable
diversity exists regarding the design of CBO and NGO initiatives,
who implemented them and how they are funded: some draw entirely on
household, community or local resources whilst others are funded by
national governments and international agencies.
- Far more is
achieved with fewer resources where local organisations work with
groups formed by the urban poor. Examples include South African Homeless
People's Federation programmes and the housing schemes and community
toilets programme of the National Slum Dwellers Federation in India,
collaborating with SPARC, a local NGO and Mahila Milan, co-operatives
formed by women pavement dwellers.
- Many entry points
for reducing urban poverty exist. For example: support for community
credit schemes, for acquiring land for housing, and for negotiating
with local government agencies for infrastructure and services, as
well as more conventional income-generation or micro-enterprise activities.
Some draw primarily on what low-income groups can afford (as in provision
for water and sanitation in Faisalabad) or what local governments
can provide (infrastructure and services) and require little external
funding.
International agencies
should fund local institutions able to support disadvantaged groups,
including the organisations and federations formed by these groups.
This could help widen the scale and scope of their poverty reduction
programmes.
Successful poverty
reduction depends on local government institutions taking on board new
attitudes: for example helping lower income households acquire land
for housing and working with them to develop cost-effective affordable
infrastructure and services rather than evicting them from illegal settlements.
David Satterthwaite
International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
3 Endsleigh Street
London WC1H ODD
UK
T +44 (0) 207 388
2117
F +44 (0) 207 388 2826
david.satterthwaite@iied.org
See also
'Reducing urban poverty; some lessons from experience', Urban Governance,
Partnerships and Poverty Research Working Paper '#31, International
Development Department, University of Birmingham by David Satterthwaite
(2001)
www.bham.ac.uk/IDD/activities/urban/urbgov.htm
www.iied.org/human/index.html
www.catchword.com/titles/09562478.htm |
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