A Special Report On Community Regeneration iNovember 1999, 7,~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~% M4~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~. 'Lo~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~f KIlISU * :1 N a t *GLOBAL POLICY CHANGE AFFORDABLE, COMMUNITY-BASED SOLUTIONS EXIST to provide the urban poor with access to basic services. Why then do 40 to 50 percent of city residents in many developing The Cities country cities-including the vast majority of the urban poor-live in slums and squat- ter settlements without access to clean water, sanitation, healthcare, roads and schools? L aunched in May 1999 by the Slums and squatter settlements are the result of failures in governance and public LWorld Bank and UNCHS (Habitat), the Cities Alliance is policy in coping with rapid urbanization. Given this terrible legacy of failed policies and creating a coalition of cities and faced with the doubling of the urban population of developing countries over the next their development partners com- mitted to making unprecedented 25 years, how can we possibly hope to respond to this challenge? How can we ensure improvements in the living con- that the next generation of urban poor will benefit from the enormous opportunities ditions of the urban poor. The Alliance aims to achieve this goal for human development that urban life offers? by mobilizing commitment and resoures forcitywie andFirst, we must take up the challenge of urban poverty reduction as a global public resources for citywide and nationwide upgrading programs policy issue. Strategies to improve the urban poor's access to city services must be devel- which are conceived by local stakeholders within the broader oped beyond the boundaries of sector strategies and within the broader frameworks of framework of city development both city development strategies and national poverty reduction strategies. strategies. Working together with cities and their national and Second, we must capitalize on the trends of decentralization and international associations on democratization by working more directly with local authorities to new tools and knowledge shar- ing, public and private sector help them respond to the issues facing the urban poor. Many local partners in the Alliance will mar- authorities now have the responsibility and authority they need to take shal their experience and knowl- edge to support both the formu- decisions at the local level. Moreover, democratization has strength- lation and implementation of ened their accountability, and since the urban poor are voting in ever increasing num- these strategies. The Cities Alliance Consultative Group will bers, their demands for basic urban services are now frequently showing up as political serve as a global public policy priorities for local leaders. forum to share the lessons learned and agree on policy ori- Third, to achieve the above we need to invest in a collective effort to harness the entations and standards of prac- tice in areas related to the power of existing networks of local authorities, private sector institutions and develop- Alliance's goals. The Cities ment agencies. Investing together in a focused effort to broaden the benefits of local Alliance will draw upon the existing capacity of its partners solutions through global learning will create a coherent effort necessary to dramatical- for implementation. The objec- ly scale-up the impacts of urban development investrnents. tive is to catalyze partners' actions in ways that go beyond The Cities Alliance is building a coalition of cities and their development partners their individual actions and to to meet these chalenges. It will draw upon the vast experience of community-based help create a new coherence of effort in urban development urban upgrading programs, while addressing the public policy, regulatory and institu- cooperation. O tional issues that have in the past constrained replication and scaling-up. Its strategy is to address inequities in the provision of basic infrastructure and services within the framework of broad-based city development strategies. This strategy has been inspired t« , L<.rl-by courageous mayors in cities of all sizes and in all regions who are demonstrating the This publication political will to invest in this opportunity. was prepared by Whether new urban residents over the next 20 years will live as disenfranchised cit- Urban Age Magazine on behalf of izens in conditions of misery and degradation, or in conditions of dignity and well- the Cities Aliance, being, will depend to a great extent on decisions that we collectively take now. In a glob- Washington, DC. Design: alizing world, it is clearly in our self-interest to join forces to meet this challenge.0 lann Alexander Design, Inc. 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As Herclides dented rate, the slums and squatter settlements in Quinto Rangel, a longtime resident of an upgrad- cities of the developing world are set to prolifer- ed Rio favela proudly states, "We have progressed ate over the next 25 years in staggering dimen- from favelados to citizens." sions, doubling in population by 2025. It will be Upgrading has proved to be affordable, the lives of these disenfranchised citizens-grow- replicable and, most importantly, has the power ing up in poverty and forced to drift between the to transform the lives of slum dwellers. city and its fringes-that will characterize the face Yet, despite a few notable exceptions (the Slums hold of global poverty. successful Kampung Improvement Program in Slums hold tremendous untapped potential. Indonesia, for example), the institutional com- tremendous The contributions of these individuals to the mitment and political will to expand upgrading broader economy are considerable; they consti- citywide and nationwide have not been forth- untapped tute the core of the urban labor force and have the coming. Replication and sustainabiity have also potential to produce a significant share of domes- been limited, since often local authorities and pri- potential for tic capital formation through self-built hous- vate sector financial institutions have not been ing-yet their lives are made insecure by the engaged in the process. In short, a favorable domestic absence of key public interventions that would working environment-the political will and catalyze and facilitate private investment. There effective governance working with local consen- capital are myriad stories, only some featured here, of sus and the private sector-has been lacking. As a how, given a chance, slums' residents' self- result, the urban poor remain alienated from formation. reliance, resourcefulness, and responsibility, vast- property and finance systems. ly contribute to a city's success. Slum upgrading But the global trends of democratization and confers on them this chance. decentralization are making dramatic impacts on In the 1970s, with the support of a host of this process. As the stories illustrate, democratiza- international development agencies, the prob- tion and decentralization are giving the urban lems of slums and squatter settlements in the poor a stronger political voice and local authori- developing world were the starting point for ties more responsibility and control over their urban poverty-alleviation actions. Pilot projects resources. This increased accountability is moti- were carried out that improved communities' vating political leaders to forge new partnerships supplies of water, electricity and paved roads. with communities, civic groups and the private _ xf ~ iw = These aimed to demonstrate to politicians that sector to create city development strategies to T* , there were viable alternatives to bulldozing slums. provide equitable and sustainable futures for all l The complexities of securing tenure for residents, of their citizens. These visions are built around E recovering costs, devising targeted subsidies, city economic strategies, engaging the private sec- > strengthening institutions and winning over pol- tor, including private financial institutions, and icy makers were also tackled by these early efforts, scaling-up serice delivery to aUl of the city's slum with varying degrees of success. areas. Over time and with experience, the upgrad- The stories from Rio and Johannesburg are ing concept has evolved and matured. particularly inspiring examples of city develop- Development agencies, along with NGOs and ment strategies where all partners are working governments, have continued to refine their together to scale-up service delivery to the urban approaches to slum upgrading. What has been poor as an integral part of broader strategies for learned? That successful slum upgrading relies on economic growth and revival. Here are two cities l ' a cooperative effort among citizens, community working on the investment frontier, where coura- groups, community banks, businesses and local geous leadership at the local level, supported by l 111 -:authorities to make improvements-from paving slum dwellers and private enterprise, are invest- roads to improving health care. That investments ing in citywide upgrading programs to build civic in local public goods through upgrading and capital for a brighter future. S conferring security of tenure on slum dwellers, removing their fear of demolition or eviction, The above is in part extracted from the "Cities leverages private capital and stimulates people to Alliance for Cities Without Slums" Action Plan begin to invest in improvements to their own which was distributed at the World Bank's Annual homes and communities. Meetings in September 1999. T THE C IT I ES ALL IAN C E F R O M FAVELADOS u CITIZENS Once considered "cities within cities"-an expression of their marginality-today the favelas are becoming increasingly integrated with the rest of Rio. By Flavia Sekles ESS THAN 10 YEARS AGO, ONE OF THE their residents would not be able to move away fi L mmost beautiful cities in the world, Rio from the center of their economic livelihood. de Janeiro, had one of the planet's For years, the city tried to improve living most intractable urban problems. Of conditions in the favelas through small, occasion- j- its 5.5 million inhabitants, a full quar- al public works projects that brought water, elec- ter of the population lived in squatter communi- tricity or sewage systems to scattered communi- ties, or favelas, occupying lands to which they had ties. The projects did little to raise the quality of no title or right, in communities formed haphaz- life in the slums. Previous programs also failed ardly along narrow streets or on the slopes of because urban planners tried to impose on fave- unstable hills. las the norms of the formal city. Today, over 400,000 people have left the fave- The Favela Bairro program seeks to correct las, without moving or losing their homes. the problems of the past by giving social policy Through a program known as Favela Bairro, the precedence over urban policy. The central concept government of Rio and the Inter-American behind the slum upgrading program is that even Development Bank (IDB) have created a synergy the poorest families make a personal and material between urban and social policy. By enabling investment in the houses they build. "Favela favela residents to legalize their tenure, pay for Bairro was never a unilateral government inter- good access to water and sanitation, paved and vention," says economist Jose Brakarz, a member illuminated streets and footpaths, and phone and of the IDB team that formulated the project with mail service, Rio is integrating the favelas into the city officials. "By creating a personal stake for rest of the city and transforming them into those who live in the favelas in the reconstruction neighborhoods, or bairros. and ultimate transformation of the place they call "The favela represents a part of the culture of home from favela to neighborhood, the program Rio, although until four years ago, it was a segre- established the basis of its success" gated entity, a second city within the city," says The program is working because it has no set Rio de Janeiro mayor Luis Paulo Conde. "In the model, says Sergio Magalhaes, the city's housing Favela Bairro, we chose to respect that cultural secretary and one of the project's main architects. The lives character of the favela, while integrating it into "This is a program that respects what already of Herclides the formal city and ending our system of social exists, without predetermined models of how, Quinto apartheid." Rio's urban planners have long where or in what shape the streets or a main RangeL and known that the unplanned parts of the city could square should be. Each favela is a case by itself, his wife never be removed from its midst. During the molded by its pre-existing characteristics. Our Catia Regina 1980s, the population in the favelas rose by 34 urban planners' point of departure is a sense of have greatLy percent, compared with just 8 percent in the for- respect for what the residents had already built improved as mal city. before they got there.' a result of From a practical standpoint, it would be The project is nearing the end of phase I, in Rio's FaveLta impossible to raze the favelas, the economic and which Rio and IDB invested about $380 million. rro social costs of such a policy would be senseless. Started in 1996, the program initially focused on Even if Rio could build a new house for each favelas with 500 to 2,500 families, which represent program. favela family at a cost of around US$20,000 each, about three-quarters of the city's slum popula- T H E C ITI ES ALLIANCE tion. So far, about 105 of the city's 300 favelas years is removed. All houses are connected to a have benefited. Under limits imposed by the IDB, safe water supply, electricity and, in some cases, projects cannot exceed $4,000 per family. Once phone service. Uninhabitable areas of the favela residents are contacted with a proposal to are reforested. upgrade their favela, a group of community lead- To solidify a sense of community, a central ers is identified to work with city planners. plaza is created. A child-care center for children Muddy and frequently impassable alleys are up to age 4 is built, as is a career assistance center, replaced with paved roads and, in some cases, where residents can be trained on computers and cable cars. Shanties clinging to unstable hillsides get help finding jobs. Residents vote on the place- are secured with concrete supports. The most ment and design of each component of the pro- precarious housing is removed. Sewage systems ject. When disagreements arise, creative solutions are built, and garbage that has piled up over the are sought. Rio's favelas have been known for their crime, especially as havens for drug-dealing gangs, but the Favela Bairro program may be helping to discourage crime in these areas. "The desire of the residents of the favela to live in the city is essential to this process'" says Magalhdes. "The drug traffic, as strong an element as it may be, cannot change the will of a whole communi- ty. In any place where government is present, criminality drops." Still the drug gangs are there and pose a con- | - tinuing challenge. During the summer, 12 people o o hwere killed in a weekend of gang warfare in one favela. The mayor has expressed concern that drug traffickers are having a bigger inpact than expected on the projects, delaying construction by interfering with workers and, in some cases, trying to choose who is hired. In Fernao Cardim, a small favela that was one of the first in the program, Herchdes Quinto Rangel 74, who was one of the favela's original tants-over aueohoaresidents and an early member of its Resident's an enormous n r i l t g e t bn .oAssociation, is pleased with the result. "I feel so happy now. I come home more secure, no longer afraid of being assaulted by gangsters on every n n1997 the City of Rio estabirshed a Department of Labor to stimulate corner. He said he didnt even mind that the pro- "-micro enterprise and self employment in low income communities as an ject managed to kil two large shade trees in creat- integral part of its citywide slum upgrading program. One million inhabi- ing the favela's central plaza. "You should have tants-over a quarter of the overall workforce-are self-employed. They face seen the mess it was before' He added, "We have an enormous number of difficulties trying to develop their businesses. The progressed from favelados to citizens." Department of Labor runs various programs to help the small business per- Phase II of the program shoufld get under son. They range from micro-credit schemes, computer technology training, way at the beginning of next year, with nearly the business management and job training courses, technical assistance and other same amount of money as the first phase. In the services. As part of the Favela Bairro program the Department of Labor set up second phase, Rio wants to expand the child-care "Rio On-line"---designed to give low income communities access to informa- centers to accommodate children up to 14 years tion and computer technology. Ten computer centers have been established of age. The administration of the centers will be since 1988 training 1,183 people in desktop publishing, computer program- turned over to NGOs, which will bid for the right ming and design. Micro-entrepreneurs can lease computers by the hour. to run them. Training centers might also be Commercial space has also been built and leased by the city's department of expanded to include dasses for residents without housing to community residents. * school diplomas. By the end of the program's current project- ed run in 2004, Rio expects to have improved liv- ing conditions for 70 to 75 percent of its slum population, and to have tackled even the biggest favelas of the city, including Rocinha, which has *; T H E C I T I E S A L L I A N C E 48,000 residents, and Jacarezinho, on the out- skirts of the city with 42,000. Besides the loans from IDB, Rio has secured financial support for the project from the European Community. Critics of the program argue that by offering n uring the go-go years of double-digit growth I By A. Lin Neumann benefits to current favela residents, the city is D in Thailand, an architect like Somsook Boonyabancha could have grown motivating the creation of new favelas or the very rich designing the gleaming office towers and luxury condominiums that expansion of existing ones. "The favelas grow tumed Bangkok from a sleepy river town into a traffic-choked megacity. because of the benefits the city provides to its res- Instead, the 1977 graduate of Chulalongkorn University carved a much idents," says Rio resident Maria Lucia Massot. different career for herself Working both inside and outside of government, Eight years ago Massot, an architect, bought a Somsook has devoted herself to alleviating poverty and transforming social house in one of the city's middle dass neighbor- relations in Thailand through innovative housing and small-scale develop- hoods. Since then, she has seen what used to be a ment projects that have at their core her belief in listening to and learning small favela across the street grow from 300 resi- from her people. dents to 6,000. "Favela residents have access to social It was a lesson she learned early in her career when she was working with benefits without paying taxes, and there are no lm- the National Housing Authority (NHA) on slum alleviation. Sent to "do its to where they settle and no long-term planning something" about a slum, Somsook started talking-and really listening-to to limit the growth of the favelas," she says. people in the community. The program's defenders say the question of Out of this experience with NHA grew an innovative and world- taxes is part of the "not-in-my-backyard" syn- renowned urban land-sharing program built around a mutually beneficial drome. While most of Rio's residents approve of deal between urban squatters and the landowner who wants to develop for the program, most would prefer that the favela commercial purposes. Working outside of government and d closest to their home be removed. with local NGOs, Somsook created a system in which slum Rio officials and IDB recognize the tax prob- dwellers get new, more solid housing on a back portion of the lem. Residents will only be able to pay property plot in dispute, and the owner gets the street-front portion __ taxes once they gain title to their residences, and for immediate development. The program sought to avoid there is a long bureaucratic process to gain a title. confrontations and to create a scenario in which everyone Since, as of this writing, it has been less then a wins. The slum dwellers get quality housing at affordable cost and they year since completion of the first project, most become legal and secure. They also emerge, in Somsook's way of orchestrat- residents are not there yet. ing such deals, organized and able not only to negotiate but to go on and deal Brakarz disagrees that the Favela Bairro pro- with other problems. gram itself creates an incentive for favelas to grow. Some 10,000 families have benefited from land sharing in Thailand since "No one lives in a favela by choice,' he says. Somsook began the program in the early 1980s. She stopped working full time "There are no new waves of land invasions taking on land sharing when the government lured her back into service as manag- place. What we see is simply a demand for afford- ing director of NHAs Urban Community Development Office (UCDO) in able housing." 1992. With an initial capitalization of $50 million for low-cost loans, Somsook The Favela Bairro program has received is trying to use UCDO to expand the principles of community participation international recognition. Other governments, into other sectors. including Venezuela, Uruguay, Colombia, Bolivia UCDO provides low-cost loans to local groups for housing, land pur- and Argentina, have sought information on the chase and income generation. "This is not a bank as such," Somsook explains. program, and Brazil's own federal government "It is a way to stimulate a dynamic process." wants to create a national program based on Rio's Organizers from UCDO work with some 500 local community groups to experience. get them ready to accept and implement their projects. A squatter communi- "What is sweeping the low-income neighbor- ty facing eviction, for example, can come to UCDO for help in negotiating hoods of Latin America is the concept of empow- with the landowner to purchase a tract of land. UCDO has provided start-up erment", says Enrique V. Iglesias, president of IDB. funds for a slum community to open a small clothing factory and helped them "When governments give the people the right tools negotiate contracts to sew school uniforms for the local district. to upgrade their way of life, such as services and "In a rapidly changing society, people need someone who can give them infrastructure, huge advances in neighborhood the tools to approach the capitalist system," says Somsook. "When it is work- development take place. Homes and community ing, the people gain a new political status. They can negotiate and change their activities become better, streets safer and new situation. We give them the financial and institutional back-up." opportunities are created for the young." * Looking back on her career, Somsook doesn't regret forgoing riches for community development. "This is much more satisfying," she says. "Besides, I FL4vL4 SEKLES is Washington correspondent for think there is no limit to a person's ability to make change." K Jornal do Brasil, a Rio de Janeiro daily. JANICE PERLMAN, founder and president of Mega- A. LIN NEUMANN has covered Southeast Asia for NBC News, the San Francisco Cities also contributed to this report. Examiner and other news organizations for 15 years. T HE C IT I Es ALLIAN C E In Mumbai, a formalized land deal among slum dwellers, the railways, NGOs and the government succeeds in voluntary resettlement and new homes. By Sheela Patel and Gautam Chatterji If N MUMBAI, A CITY OF MORE THAN 10 MILLION AND state government of Maharashtra and the Indian the commercial capital of India, the railways play Railways needed to lay new railroad tracks. a vital role for business and industry. Rather than eradicate the surrounding slums, But the rail system provides more than a way in they looked to develop a win-win strategy for and out of Mumbai for millions of passengers each rehabilitation. day; it also provides a home for some 20,000 people The effort brought NGOs and communities, who have settled in the railway corridors, some liv- state government and the railways together to ing little more than one meter from the tracks. design a partnership strategy. In the end, the gov- These illegal settlements of poor migrants ernment agreed to an experiment: the state = have existed for years, mostly ignored or over- government would give land, the railways would looked. Whenever the railways have needed the give resources to develop the land and the NGO land, they would evict the residents and demolish Society for Promotion of Area Resources their shanties, but the houses would soon be (SPARC) would help the rail dwellers move. rebuilt because the residents simply had nowhere The CEO of the Slum Rehabilitation else to go. Authority arbitrated between the slum This stalemate approach has been challenged dwellers along the railway lines and the rail- by a new problem-solving paradigm. In 1995, the ways. As a result of his facilitation, several Above: Some - I precedents were set, each of 20ove00 om which required innovative 20,000 ~ l (: solutions and the participation people have of the state government, the settled in the = railways and the slum dwellers. dangerous, Take, for instance, the land. noisy and The state had to convey the land dirty raiLway to the slum dwellers. But the slum corridors of dwellers could only be given land Mumbai. after they lived on the site. It Right: Nine would take three years to build hundred formal houses; by then, the families now momentum driving agreement live in brick ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~on the strategy would be lost. The slum dwellers who wanted the housquares ofeet 1 i land then suggested a two-step square feet rehabilitation strategy: They eac. Twould move to the land they were THE CI T IEs AL LIA NCE being given and live in temporar-y housing in one area of the site while permanent structures were built elsewhere on the site. This approach seems to have worked for hobhas finest moment was when I By Patralekha Chatterjee everyone involved. Members of 900 households 0 she was called to a hut to help a woman give birth. "There were no clothes are living securely and safely on their own land, I the trains can run faster and more track can be for the baby, so I tore up her husband's best shirt to make diapers," she laid for new lines, benefiting commuters, the rail- explains. Shobha, a newly trained community health volunteer, epitomizes the ways and the city. transformation of Ekta Vihar, a once squalid shantytown in South Delhi. Ten The housing on the new site is not ideal, but years ago, Shobha lived in a make-shift hut surrounded by filth and disease. 120 to 150 square feet of space with community "Every time it rained, I thought my roof would blow off. There were no roads, water and sanitation and paved roads is far better wtha the conditions in which these people lived no dispensary. There was garbage all around. Malaria and tuberculosis were than the conditions in which these people lived apn. along the tracks. And, because they are living on rampant." the land from the start, they "own" it, both in for- Then, a Delhi-based NGO, Action for Securing Health for All, stepped in mal and personal terms. The residents of these and mobilized the residents to form mahila mandals, or women's groups. The relocated communities are forming cooperatives first step was to help them get land tenure. Within a year, the city government and flourishing credit programs. The poorest had awarded plots of 12.5 square meters (135 square feet) and provided low- people who have no skills or jobs are working on interest loans to cover construction costs. the construction site, learning skills they can later Today, Shobha lives in a one-room brick house. Paved lanes have replaced use to get other jobs. Some are moving into new lines of work. They have moved their children narrow mud tracks. The fetid pools where residents once bathed have given into nearby schools, begun discussions with the . local police on security issues and with the municipality on garbage collection. They are thus c creating a true community, filled with ties and Shobha, a c connections that will remain in place after the J voheaLth construction is completed. volunteer Senior officials of the Railway Board in in the Delhi, impressed with the project, have begun South DeLhi discussions with the alliance to replicate this 1 community model in other parts of Mumbai. The city's Slum of Ekta Vihar, Rehabilitation Authority advocates this strategy is often the and has proposed to use it to relocate 11,000 first Line other households. of defense The model community built with the two- against step approach at Kanjur Marg has become a iLLness. training site for local, national and international NGOs and government officials from other countries have visited the site. Authorities in way to a community-managed toilet complex. There is a health dinic, a youth Thailand have agreed to use the strategy to deal wyt omnt-aae oltcmlx hr sahat lnc ot wThaan slm d reler livi une ithsbridgyes forum, a children's club and even a primitive gym-unheard-of luxuries for with slum dwellers living under Its bridges. oto eh' iinsu wfes As with any other project, the key elements most of Delhi's 4 million slum dwellers. are the legal and policy environment, the cooper- There is also education. With picture flash cards, Shobha learned the ation of the bureaucracy, and a strong, vibrant basics of health and hygiene, how to deliver babies and administer shots. This community network. When these elements come is paying off; she notes that "The incidence of malaria and tuberculosis has together, all the players emerge as winners. come down.' Shobha now spends her days making rounds, medical kit in The Kanjur Marg experiment exemplifies volun- hand. "Before, I was not only uneducated, I was ignorant. Now I know a lot tary urban resettlement that secures the entitle- about low-cost home remedies. That makes me confident. When my son con- ments of the poor even as it benefits the larger society. * tracted malaria, I knew the treatment and the medicines. I did not have to rush to the doctor." Shobha is now in a position to help others, thanks to the SHEELA PATEL is thefounding director of SPARC, an empowering quality of education. S NGO that works on issues of the urban poor in India. GAuTAM CHATTERII is the chief executive offi- PATRALEKHA CHATTERjEE is a New-Delhi based journalist who specializes in cer of the Slum Rehabilitation Authority of the gov- development issues. ernment of Maharashtra. T HE C IT I ES ALLIAN CE African National Congress faced the threat of bankruptcy and the prospect of growing urban decay. They formed the Council of 10, a joint executive of the five former councils that grew in membership to 15 and, this year, renamed itself the Transformation Lekgotla-"lekgotla" being the Setswana word for "tribunal meeting of the elders.' At the end of 1998, Ketso Gordhan, for- mer director-general of the national Department of Transport, was appointed CEO. Gordhan, whose performance-based con- tract includes turning a sinking ship into an attractive investment prospect, had been respon- Only recently on the brink of sible for slashing the transport department's bud- get and trimming the once-bloated bureaucracy financial collapse, Johannesburg is now by two-thirds. In April Gordhan and Pascal Moloi, former CEO of one of the sub councils including everyone-even the poorest- and now the transformation project manager, launched Igoli 2002, a sweeping, management- in its strategy for competitive focused restructuring plan that aims to resolve, once and for all, Johannesburg's perpetual crisis. development. By Adele Sulcas Using the Zulu name for Johannesburg- "city of gold"-the plan aims to create a stream- lined, cost-efficient "unicity" administration, eliminate duplication of functions, form city- based corporations and privatize some services, FTER FIVE YEARS OF DEMOCRACY, JOHANNESBURG, control costs and upgrade management skills. South Africa finds itself teetering on the brink of Alleviating poverty is a major focus of the _ collapse. It would seem that all should be well in plan, Gordhan says. He offers the proposed _ _ the country's premier metropolitan center- model for water services as an example of how it responsible for 12 percent of GDP and home to will work. Currently, Johannesburg faces a back- about 11 percent of the population (3.8 mil- log of 20 percent in terms of providing access to lion)-but in fact it is struggling to deal with water, as well as huge wastage from unmaintained massive economic and social problems. The city infrastructure and lost revenue because of "unac- mirrors elements of a national crisis, with low counted for" water. levels of economic growth, high unemployment "Our answer to pover-ty is to have an institu- and extreme economic disparities among its citi- tion that is capable of delivery," Gordhan says. In the zens. It is racked by massive debt, hobbled by case of water, that means "corporatizing" the func- inefficient delivery of basic services and revenue tion, creating a separately mandated utility and collection, and plagued by violent crime. At the bringing in an experienced water company to run it. heart of its problems is the fact that a majority of "Cutting unaccounted-for losses by about 20 its people live in poverty. percent a year (achieving savings of US$3.5-4.8 Under apartheid, Johannesburg, like all other million), improving revenue production (earning South African urban centers, was fragmented another $3.5million or so) and raising capital so along racial and economic lines. After the 1994 we can start addressing the backlogs is the mini- elections, it was transformed into a two-tier met- mum we can achieve." ropolitan system: a metropolitan government Extrapolating that principle, he and his col- overseeing five separate mixed-race municipalities. leagues hope to provide land tenure to "everyone The period that followed was one of administra- currently living in Johannesburg" within five tive and political chaos. There was no clear alloca- years, and six kilolitres of free water to all resi- tion of resources or functions between the two dents, part of another plan-in-progress called tiers, nor were fiscal responsibilities defined, so the Igoli 2010. "Even if you are living in a shack, at transition to the new system was not smooth and least if you own the land it's an investment and the servicing of old debt was not properly handled. can be used as collateral," Gordhan says, adding Not surprisingly, the city soon found itself in a that "We have to manage political, administrative, financial and service delivery crisis. institutional, fiscal and financial reforms simulta- The new political leadership under the neously, [and] we are building coalitions with our * TH E C I T I ES A L L IA N C E communities, civic groups, labor unions, the pri- will run through Soweto all the way to The aim is to vate sector and other tiers of governments." Johannesburg's central business district. Not everyone is on board. Some 20,000 The Bank, USAID and the French develop- provide land members of two major unions are protesting ment agency are providing support to the city's against the plan, arguing that it will cause job economic development initiatives, notably the tenure to losses (though Igoli 2002 is officially a "retrench- Newtown project-a former industrial zone of the ment-free" package). As in all periods of change, inner-city now in decay. This is a culturally led ever-yone many are waiting to see results on the ground. urban regeneration initiative that seeks to create The coalition extends into the donor com- jobs by unleashing the potential of the existing cre- currently munity. Through a partnership that links devel- ative and cultural activities. The Newtown project opment agencies from the United Kingdom, the will be used "as an opportunity to raise issues living in United States and France, and the Cities Alliance around the role of arts and culture in urban regen- with the UN's Urban Management Programme eration from a national perspective," says Steven Johannesburg and the World Bank, donors are providing techni- Sack, national director of cultural development. cal support to Igoli 2002 through, for example, a The Bank has developed the fundamentals for within five workshop on metropolitan policing with experts the city's Economic Intelligence Unit, a system that from Brazil, the United States and England. monitors economic activities in the region. It will years. While acknowledging the need to access look at the types of economic activities in the formal international experience, Gordhan emphasizes and informal sectors, their location (e.g. township, that Igoli 2002 was created through a political inner city, suburbs) and the nature of the activities process owned and driven by the South Africans (e.g. small family-owned business, or larger vertical- themselves. The donors are responding to this ly integrated ones). The unit will then set up "base- plan at the invitation of the city's leadership and line" information on how many people have jobs, under its management, he says. how many have access to water and electricity, and Also on the cards: the long-awaited upgrading so on, as a way of seeing whether service delivery of the former townships, now a part of greater systems "are having an impact on the ground," says , Johannesburg. The Bank will support (through I o technical assistance) Johannesburg's plans for i l upgrading disadvantaged areas; key project loca- j A sense of = tions being the townships of Alexandra and Soweto. pride and IgLeila McKenna, planning coordinator for j identity is Igoli 2002,says that Alexandra is akey focus. The y j evident in 3 approach-a holistic one-also recognizes the this crowd economic potential of "the entire corridor," she ceLebrating a - says, referring to a main highway linking ,' sports - Alexandra, the burgeoning Midrand area and the , victory ~ Johannesburg airport. "If we just go for a housing r ~ - strategy for Alex, we're not going to deal with the AA ' fact that employment is an essential requirement Junaid Ahmad, Deputy Resident Representative in for greater development," she says. the Bank's Pretoria office. It will take the guesswork The business plan intends to look at devel- out of trying to understand the changing nature of opment of the area with respect to the approxi- business and the market. mately 500,000 residents already there. This Though these changes are still largely in the means not displacing anyone, and catering to the conceptual stages, and there is no "overnight community rather than isolated needs. solution,' says Ahmad, "laying this groundwork is Two catalytic projects out of 10 "priority crucial to poverty alleviation." Assistance at the intervention zones" in Soweto are Baralink and city level "may become as important as national Kliptown. Baralink has "remarkable potential assistance strategies" if other metropolitan cen- because it is a central commuter and transport ters can learn from one city's experience. "If a city hub;' McKenna says. The aim is to relocate exist- doesn't get it's fiscal story right and begins to go ing commuter-taxi ranks and construct new ones bankrupt you can forget about poverty allevia- to improve access from the freeway and sur- tion measures', Ahmad says. "People forget that rounding areas, and to open up land ripe for when institutions of delivery aren't efficient, it's commercial investment. Kliptown, an area with the poor that suffer." S historic significance for its apartheid-resistance, is the focus of mixed-use development that ADELE SULCAS is a journalistfor The Sunday includes the establishment of a tourism train that Independent, Johannesburg. T HE C IT I ES ALLIANCE Cl In Aguablanca, Colombia, a private foundation finances an evolving number of services tailored to the economy of the poor. By Patrick Breslin W WTHEN MEMBERS OF THE CARvAjAL FOUNDATION FIRST Aguablanca today is no paradise. The major- saw the mushrooming slum called Aguablanca in ity of its inhabitants fall into the bottom two of Cali, Colombia, in 1981, they found an unusual the six socioeconomic strata into which and flourishing litte business: parking lots for Colombian statisticians divide the population. shoes. Without a land plan, without services or But the area, which contains dose to 400,000 peo- infrastructure, this community of tens of thou- ple, is no longer a slum. It is now largely made up sands of people lived tenuously amid frequent of solid brick houses, many of them two stories floods and a sea of mud. So inescapable was the high. There are health posts, hospitals, schools, mud that people leaving Aguablanca for work or some 6,000 local stores, paved streets, concrete errands would carry a clean pair of shoes to the drainage channels, bridges, neighborhood parks, nearest paved road. Before boarding a bus, they some with swimming pools. A web of local orga- Food of good would leave their mud-caked footwear with some- nizations and religious groups provides child-care quality and one living along the road who would guard it for a centers, vocational training and cultural activities affordable few pesos until the owner returned in the evening. for young people, shelters for expectant single cost is now Mud wasn't the only problem. People lived in mothers, and soup kitchens. The crime rate is no avaiLabLe ramshackle cambuches made of cardboard, flat- worse than the overall city average. in the tened tin cans, reed mats and sheets of plastic. Many individuals and groups contributed low-income With no guarantees against sudden eviction, they over the years to turn Aguablanca around. But community of had no incentive to imnprove their houses. There 1981, when the Carvajal Foundation decided to AguabLanca. were no city services, few jobs and plenty of crime. get involved, was clearly a seminal year. Twenty years before, the Carvajals, a wealthy Cali family with a propensity for charity, created a family-run foundation to help solve Cali's social problems. They subsidized five community cen- ters around the city, offering education through high school, health, cultural and recreational activities, and stores selling basic goods at low prices. In 1981, they decided to take on the chal- lenge of Aguablanca. By then, faced with the reality of thousands of people living in the district, the municipal V ~ ~ ~ ~government had incorporated Aguablanca. That decision led to a building boom. Aguablanca's residents, galvanized by their new security, scrambled to turn their cambuches into permanent houses. But the same specula- tors who had profited from the initial land sales were profiting again by selling construction materials at exorbitant prices. In early 1982, Carvajal opened a construc- * THE C I T I ES AL LIA N CE tion materials "bank" an enclosed space in the El also provided space for mini-businesses run by Poblado neighborhood where manufacturers local people, like solid waste recycling and the could get concessions to sell directly to the public. manufacture of floor tiles and paving stones. They paid Carvajal a percentage of sales in return Education was the next major problem tack- - for the space, utilities, sanitation, 24-hour securi- led. The schools that served Aguablanca were ill- ty and overall administration of the enterprise. equipped and most students lacked quiet spaces . vi With this arrangement, Aguablanca's do-it-your- to do homework. With the help of a Spanish - ; ____ self homebuilders could get good quality building NGO, Foundation CODESPA, and a number of materials at reasonable prices. The manufacturers computers donated by IBM, Carvajal took enjoyed attractive profit margins in a booming Aguablanca into the digital era. La Casona, the market. The center generated new jobs for third of Carvajal's centers, offers local students a Aguablanca residents and with the income from large study room and library, traveling lending the concessions, the center was self-supporting libraries of books and educational videos for the within two years. schools, a Montessori-type classroom for Carvajal went on to open two centers in preschoolers and 20 online computers. The other Aguablanca neighborhoods, El Vallado in equipment and facilities also support training 1985 and La Casona in 1991. Most people needed courses to improve the skills of local teachers. loans to help them build. With the newly Carvajal's basic services centers have become C a l acquired land titles this was now possible. as permanent a part of the life of the district as is Carvajal's Carvajal invited savings and loan banks to open the plaza in towns and cities all over Latin branches in the centers and lured architecture America. Fifty-four manufacturers now sell asic students from the university to help local resi- directly through the centers. Some 6,000 local dents with home design and building techniques. shop owners buy their merchandise there. Of the services From housing, Carvajal moved on to gro- 450 jobs directly created by the centers, more ceries. Most Aguablanca residents lived day to day, than 90 percent are held by Aguablanca residents. centers have buying basics like cooking oil, sugar and coffee by And lower prices have left more disposable be the spoonful. The combination of the high prices income in residents' pockets. become as charged by shopkeepers and the minute purchas- But if the centers have become permanent a es meant they were paying at least twice as much fixtures, they are not static. They will probably permanent a for food as people in better-off parts of the city. keep changing, especially as others copy them. Despite the high prices, the neighborhood Carvajal has advised organizations in other part of the stores constituted an irreplaceable distribution Colombian cities and in half-a-dozen foreign lif f h system tailored to the economy of the poor. The countries that are interested in setting up similar 1ie o the trick, Carvajal staff realized, was not to try to centers to reverse the growth of slums. CODESPA d r a is replace the shop owners, but to work with them. has adopted the Carvajal model and is promoting district as iS Drawing on the previous experience with con- it internationally. h i struction materials, in 1985 Carvajal opened a Meanwhile, in Colombia, the same forces the plaza m wholesale grocery market that gave producers that have been driving rural Colombians to the and manufacturers direct access to a large num- cities for half a century are still out there. towns and ber of shop owners at a single location. Squatters still arrive in Aguablanca. The con- c a Shop owners, instead of being the next-to- struction materials banks Carvajal started almost cities a last link in a long supply chain, were now the only 20 years ago are still there to help people like intermediaries between producers and cus- Carlos Prado, who earns a living by guarding over Latin tomers, resulting in savings. Under their agree- parked cars. Prado, his wife and children recently A ment with Carvajal, they passed some of the sav- moved from a cambuche built illegally near a ings on to their customers and received training drainage canal to a new subdivision in in running their businesses more efficiently. Aguablanca. With materials and technical help Soon, enough had signed up that they effectively from the La Casona center, he's already built the set price ceilings throughout Aguablanca, lower- shell of their new house. "In the cambuche," he ing costs for about 70 percent of the consumers explains, "There was no hope of advancement, no there by roughly 15 percent. reason to invest in it. Frankly, many of the pesos I The centers have offered a steadily expand- made went into drinking. But here, we can put ing menu of services since then. Public tele- down roots. Here, the next pesos I earn go into phones and automatic tellers were installed, glass for that window frame beside the door." ' health clinics and post offices opened. Government services and a notary public were PATRICK BRESLIN is a Washington-based writer and concentrated in storefront offices. The centers program officer at the Inter-American Foundation. T HE C IT I ES ALL IAN C E The improvement of technician workshops in Kumasi, Ghana, has led to increased produc- tivity and a reduction in crime. By Kojo Larbi | T - HE STENCH OF DIESEL HANGS IN THE AIR OF THIS upgrading affected about 70 hectares (173 acres), dusty enclave where years of spilled fuel-tell-tale the oldest section of Suame, where Bartrop- byproduct of the automotive service industry- Sackey notes, about 60,000 people work. has darkened the earth. But business has picked "When the power stabilized, many of us were up greatly in this small section of Suame able to bring in heavy-duty electrical equipment," Magazine in southern Ghana in recent years, explains Godfred Oppong Peprah, a technician thanks to an infusion of US$1.2 million in multi- who put a lathe in his shop in the wake of the lateral agency funding that has been used to pave rehabilitation. Tenants were allotted more roads, construct storm drains and install running space-though some say they need even more to water and electrical power. Today, the drone of handle the increased business. As workers became heavy-duty power tools is replacing the clattering more sure of their security on the land, they of hammers and chisels. And, in contrast to three replaced their shacks with buildings with con- years ago when business was limited to those crete foundations and walls of blocks made from vehicles that could navigate the pitted roads into sand and cement. Telephone service was extend- Suame, today nearly all the cars and trucks in the ed to the new structures, and streetlights were Kumasi metropolis line up at the shops of installed. mechanics, scrap metal dealers and other techni- Despite the upgrading, some problems per- Mechanics cians. sist. The tarred road that borders the site has at work in a Suame Magazine became the focus of gov- already become pitted and covered with dirt, and renovated ernment attention because of its economic some complain about power fluctuations. Some workshop. potential. About 100,000 people work on Suame's workers say they still do not feel safe leaving after 500 hectares (1,235 dark for the trip home, but note that they are acres), making it the thankful that pilfering has been reduced. largest grouping of The rehabilitation was a good idea, accord- mechanics in Ghana. ing to Samuel Owusu Ansah, secretary of the Moreover, since its Legal Affairs Division of the Ghana Association rehabilitation, says of Garages, which enforces discipline at the Elliott Bartrop-Sackey, Magazine. But "it covered too small an area and who was the project's catered to too small a number of people." A vast coordinator, the area area still remains to be tapped. This constitutes draws not just people the main challenge facing the project in the from Kumasi but from future. 0 other parts of the country to work in Kojo LARBI writes on social and political issues for Suame or to learn an The Independent, a biweekly newspaper based in automotive trade. The Accra. T THE C IT IE s A LL IA NC E T h hirty years ago, 60 percent of Jakarta's 4.8 million people lived in sub- p standard settlements known as kampungs. Then, in 1969, on the ini- Poor tiative of the Jakarta City Council, the Kampung Improvement sanitation Program (KIP) was established as an independent agency to provide and disease these settlements with basic amenities, sanitation and infrastructure were and to foster self-sufficiency within the communities. Instead of razing the rampant kampungs and building high-rise apartment blocks in their stead-a hous- in rubbish ing projects approach frequently used elsewhere-the program focused on flooded upgrading what was already in place and recruiting the help of the people streets. who lived there "The people are there, the houses are there. What is missing?" reflects - _J Darrundono, who has been central in masterminding KIP projects since their inception. "We found out which leaders in the community were pow- erful and invited them to our KIP offices to discuss ways of improving the An I,Vl , JidonIA ianI . kampungs with minimal E disturbance to people's Mastermind .#1i prVeSSettlements were ap- - on an individual basis. At - first, many kampung dwellers were reluctant to accept the program, but when it became clear that people were not being displaced and that real improvements were being made, residents actively approached KIP asking to join. There were up to 1.2 million beneficiaries of KIP in the first five years. KIP was given a further boost when, in 1974, the World Bank began assisting the Jakarta City Council. Per capita costs rose from US$39 to $118 (in 1993 dollars), facilitating more ambitious projects like building schools and health clinics. KIP took care to avoid gentrification in making these ; upgrades, since that could lead to dwellers "selling up" and establishing slums elsewhere. And even though property values rose by up to 400 percent L within a year, only a few of the original owners sold and moved out; these were residents of properties along wide roads. In response, KIP built fewer roads and more footpaths. In 1979, the central government, impressed by KIP's success and afford- ability, endorsed and adopted the program nationwide. Unfortunately, the Streets are slum upgrading program suffered an almost immediate setback when, in the now ave early eighties, urban renewal came into vogue with central government. nd have "They thought they could build Jakarta as Singapore," observes Darrundono. and have This deviation from mission did not last long, however; and, with the help proper of international finance, KIP has been back on track in the past decade. drainage. Today, about 15 million Indonesians reside in areas that are part of the program. And, as long as there are capital investments in the settlements, res- idents enjoy de facto tenure security. While conferring land titles on dwellers has never been part of KIP, Darrundono envisages this as a desirable next step. "If you ask people, 'Why don't you improve your house? they say, 'It doesn't belong to me.' By giving them land rights, I think the condition of the kampungs will be much improved." 0 T HE C IT I ES ALL IAN C E The Cities Achieving the promise of well managed cities Marshalling the capacity otT citiea and their The Alliance works to: development -ector partners * Improve the quality and impact of urban develop- in a global public ment cooperation and lending. policy network tocu,ed on * Expand the level of resources reaching the urban alleviating poor by increasing the coherence of effort of existing urban poverty programs and sharpening the focus on scaling-up successful approaches. * Support city-based consensus-building processes to establish priorities and city development strategies. -.. *' Incorporate citywide upgrading of low-income set- tlements within the framework of city development strategies and national development goals. 0 Provide a structured vehicle to advance global knowledge, learning and capacity. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, CONTACT * The Cities Alliance The World Bank, Room F4P-268 1818 H Street NW Washington DC 20433 Tel: +1 202-473-10575 Fax: +1 202-522-3232 E-mail: citiesalliance@worldbank.org Web site: www.worldbank.org/urban