The challenges of urban poverty and environmental burdens

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The challenges of urban poverty and environmental
burdens

• David Satterthwaite
• International Institute for Environment and
  Development (IIED)

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Key issues

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

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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)

• 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

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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)

• US18,000 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 dont know what they dont
  know

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All poverty reduction is local

• Involves improvements in peoples 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

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A large part of development is making local
organizations work better for the poor
Contrasts between high-income and low- and
middle-income nations in all of these
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Successful poverty reduction as

• Tangible improvements in peoples 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
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Commercial interests
POLITICAL PROCESSES THAT OVERSEE DONOR AGENCY
Non-commercial development lobbies
Non-commercial environment lobby
A DONOR AGENCY with its policy decisions
PUBLIC OPINION AND MEDIA
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
COMMERCIAL/POLITICAL INFLUENCES
LOCAL GOVERNMENT (usually weak)
THE INTENDED BENEFICIARIES THE POOR
LOCAL CONTRACTORS
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Estimates different aspects urban poverty
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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

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

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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

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Different poverty lines produce different
conclusions
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INADEQUATE INCOME
Illegal housing built or rented (often peripheral
and dangerous location)
High transport costs threat of eviction
Overcrowding inadequate basic services
Fall outside political system Voicelessness
Higher costs for housing, services and health
care, income lost to illness so poverty
exacerbated/ income reduced
Large disease and injury burden
No protection from the law
Work in informal economy - harassment
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Pro-poor urban development including
municipal-community organization partnerships in
upgrading and new land and house developments
Poor and their settlements included in governance
Lower transport costs evictions stopped, legal
houses affordable
Less overcrowding much improved basic services
Protection from the law
Much reduced disease and injury burden IMR down
Poverty much reduced incomes increased
Support for informal enterprises
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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/transparenc
  y 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

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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

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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..

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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

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Commercial interests
POLITICAL PROCESSES THAT OVERSEE DONOR AGENCY
Non-commercial development lobbies
Non-commercial environment lobby
A DONOR AGENCY with its policy decisions
PUBLIC OPINION AND MEDIA
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
COMMERCIAL/POLITICAL INFLUENCES
LOCAL GOVERNMENT (usually weak)
LOCAL CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS
THE INTENDED BENEFICIARIES THE POOR
LOCAL CONTRACTORS OR SERVICE PROVIDERS
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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

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Commercial interests
POLITICAL PROCESSES THAT OVERSEE DONOR AGENCY
Non-commercial development lobbies
Non-commercial environment lobby
A DONOR AGENCY with its policy decisions
PUBLIC OPINION AND MEDIA
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
COMMERCIAL/POLITICAL INFLUENCES
LOCAL GOVERNMENT (usually weak)
LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS
THE INTENDED BENEFICIARIES THE POOR
LOCAL CONTRACTORS OR SERVICE PROVIDERS
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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

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Different degrees of poverty in urban areas