In the last century, massive growth in urban areas has led to a rapid increase in urban poverty. Slums the world over are marked by overcrowding, poor sanitation and a lack of basic services. The 1996 UN Summit on Human Settlements reached a consensus that greater people-power is the key to better urban governance. Five years on, this Panos report assesses what lies behind the rhetoric of empowerment and examines whether the strategies proposed at the summit have led to real improvements in peoples’ lives.

The report outlines the growth of urban poverty in the last century and assesses the impact of globalisation on cities. It then examines different strategies used to increase people-participation in urban policy-making. The report contrasts policies in Sri Lanka, where political changes at the top undermined a successful community planning system, and Porto Alegre, Brazil, where political support ensures that poor communities have a say in allocating 20 percent of the city’s budget. Successful empowerment, argues the report, relies in part on an understanding of the multiple interests – local, national, and international – of decision-making bodies and in ensuring that the poor share in the shaping of priorities.

Further findings include:

• Cities cannot be successful if divisions between rich and poor continue to widen, if the poor have no rights to the land, and if they have no voice or form of self-organisation.
• The type of partnership widely seen today as crucial to good urban governance and poverty reduction involves poor people participating with governments in making policy decisions and contributing to implementation and costs.
• Cities are not politically independent entities but operate within a larger political framework of the nation state. Their ability to make governance choices depends on the extent to which a national government is willing to share or relinquish power.
• In a globalised world the hands of many developing countries are tied on many issues. Decisions are linked to funding; institutional changes are brought in to accommodate these demands and not to respond to the needs of the urban poor.
• National and regional reports, particularly from developing countries, identify a lack of domestic financial resources as one of the main constraints against adequate sustained shelter provision.
• The image of the urban poor living off the state is rarely true. In many countries poor settlements generate enormous revenue through informal industries, waste recycling and other home-based industries.

Implications for policy include suggestions that:

• Change cannot happen solely at a governmental level. Change should also involve local authorities and associations: civil society needs to ensure that the system really does change.
• Policies should take into account the complex layering of civil society, in particular the differing and sometimes conflicting interests of the poor and the better-off, so that quality services are within the reach of the poorest.
• Building the capacity of non-state groups is an essential prerequisite to forging real partnerships between the state and NGOs, and to providing better governance.
• Participants should be careful in deciding who dictates priorities when decision-making is multi-layered, involving not only the local authority, the private sector and civil society, but the national government and international players as well.

Source(s):
‘Governing our cities: will people power work?’ Panos Briefing: London, by Kalpana Sharma, Sameera Khan and Kitty Warnock, May 2001 Full document.

Funded by: Netherlands Organisation for International Development Cooperation (Novib)

id21 Research Highlight: 21 December 2001

Further Information:
Kitty Warnock
Panos
9 White Lion St
London N1 9PD
UK

Tel: +44 (0) 207 239 7603 / 278 1111
Fax: +44 (0) 207 278 0345
Contact the contributor: kittyw@panoslondon.org.uk

Panos Institute, UK

Other related links:
'City politics: a voice for the poor?' Insights #38

'Who Runs Cities? Relating urban governance to poverty'

Urban Governance Partnerships and Poverty provides a series of theme papers and case studies

See also IIED's work in Urban areas

MOST's key theme is Urban Development and Governance

TUGI promotes urban governance through information sharing

UNDP concentrates on Public-Private Partnerships for the Urban Government