From professionally driven to people-driven poverty reduction: reflections on the role of Shack/Slum Dwellers International

Abstract

PERHAPS THE SINGLE most important factor in the limited success or scope of so many housing and urban projects supported by governments and international agencies over the last 40 years is the lack of influence allowed groups of the urban poor in their conception, location, design, resource mobilization, financing, implementation and management, and evaluation. Or, going beyond this, the very limited support for urban poor groups to develop their own local representative organizations that can influence these projects or develop their own – and for these organizations to be able to work together in larger federations at municipal, city, regional or national level to influence policies, laws and resource allocations beyond the local levels. In many nations, it is not only a question of lack of support for organizations formed by the urban poor but of official disapproval, harassment or suppression. But it is difficult to envisage much success for the new emphasis given by some governments and many international agencies to poverty reduction without organized, representative urban poor groups at neighbourhood and city level. It is difficult to envisage successful national and international “poverty reduction” policies if these are not influenced by these groups. However, this depends on urban poor groups having the capacity (and political space) to produce representative organizations able to work at national and international level, as well as in their own locality. The discourse about urban development (and within this the discourse about reducing urban poverty) is dominated by professionals – the staff of NGOs, government departments and international agencies. These professionals have long had the means and resources to learn from each other – through their capacity to travel and through journals (including Environment and Urbanization), newsletters, seminars and conferences. Urban poor groups have to rely on these professionals to articulate their needs at national and international levels, and this includes the many official reports and speeches produced by governments and international agencies about “the problems of the poor”; however, the politicians, civil servants or consultants who produce these have very rarely consulted the urban poor groups. When reading official reports produced by national governments about their enabling housing strategies or their commitment David Satterthwaite is Director of the Human Settlements Programme at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), and Editor of Environment and Urbanization. The work of his programme has long included an interest in the work of community organizations and their contribution to city development. This was the theme of the book he wrote with Jorge E Hardoy in 1989 entitled Squatter Citizen: Life in the Urban Third World (Earthscan, London).