Can the concept of social capital help us understand the networks, relationships and organisations used by poor people? What prevents the building of social capital? How can external agencies support existing structures used by poor city residents to improve their livelihood opportunities?

A review of the experiences of urban development projects in India and Pakistan, funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), looks at how people rely on their relationships and associations to survive on a day-to-day basis. The report, titled 'Social capital, local networks and community development’, reviews slum improvement projects in India and Pakistan and questions whether they have added to social capital.

The term ‘social capital’ is often misunderstood and measuring the impact of urban programmes on social capital is not easy. There is rarely any baseline data on the pre-existing relationships, networks and associations used by project beneficiaries. What is clear is that the traditional approach to measuring the number of new groups formed, and the size and gender balance of their membership, tells us little about whether projects have built on what was already in place.

Key findings from the review include:

• The neighbourhood committee (NHC) model – with its standard formula for membership and representation – is externally driven and simplifies complex social and political reality for administrative and managerial convenience.
• NHCs are largely male-dominated, constituted along caste or political lines and generally die out after projects and funding dry up.
• Existing social capital tends to be ignored. Only one project attempted to identify or build on existing social organisations or networks.
• False assumptions of stable urban populations have meant that participatory poverty assessment has not explored issues of networks and relationships that go beyond the physical boundaries of a given slum.

More positively, there has been some limited increase in social capital in areas where neighbourhood groups have appeared for the first time. Savings and credit groups have increased the self-esteem of women, nurtured leadership and empowered women to become actors outside their neighbourhoods, in some areas.

DFID-supported projects are now beginning to recognise the diversity of urban populations. However, understanding that slum neighbourhoods are complex social entities could be improved further. Individuals and households have extensive networks based on friendship, kin, ethnicity, religion, work, child care and economic and social exchange.

Urban planners and donors are urged to support analysis of existing social capital before launching programmes intended to enhance it. They are also encouraged to recognise that:

• urban populations are often mobile and transitory and the process of registration of community-based groups, required in order to access state and donor resources, can be highly restrictive
• processes which lead to the domination of organisations by individuals, households and groups with better social and political connections need to be monitored
• social capital formation has political implications: building social capital is about power and attempts to build alternative support mechanisms among the poor are likely to be contested
• participatory methodologies should be used to enable poor people, not outsiders, to analyse their own social capital.

Source(s):
‘Social capital, local networks and community development’ by Sue Phillips, in Urban livelihoods: a people-centred approach to reducing poverty, edited by Carole Rakodi and Tony Lloyd-Jones, Earthscan, 2002, pp132-150 Full document.

Funded by: DFID (IUDD)

id21 Research Highlight: 23 June, 2003

Further Information:
Sue Phillips
Social Development Direct
4th Floor, 2 Caxton Street
London
SW1 0QH
UK

Tel: +44 (0) 207 654 5323
Fax: + 44 (0) 207 654 3951
Contact the contributor: mail@sddirect.org.uk

Social Development Direct, UK

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'Voices from the edge: participatory planning and marginalised groups'

'It’s not what you know - it’s who you know! Economic analysis of social capital'

The World Bank focuses on Urban Development