• Editors' Summary
• Credits

1. An Urban Future
2. The Urban Poor
3. Pollution and Health
4. Impact on the Environment
5. Making Urban Areas Work
• Improving Urban Goverance
• Improving the Lives of the Urban Poor
• Improving Water Supplies and Sanitation
• Curbing Air Pollution
• Recycling Wastes
• A Way Forward

• Figures
• Tables
• Side-bars
• Bibliography

• Developing countries face fastest urban growth
• Why urban areas are growing
• The poor have greatest health risks
• Heavy ecological footprints
• Improving urban governance
• Assuring water and sanitation
• Mumbai cleans up

• POPLINE
• Media/Materials Clearinghouse
• Other issues
• To order copies
• CCP Home Page

Published by the Population Information Program, Center for Communication Programs, The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, 111 Market Place, Suite 310, Baltimore, Maryland 21202, USA

At the Millenium Summit in 2000, the UN General Assembly, represented by heads of states and governments from around the world, reaffirmed its commitment to eliminating poverty. Specifically, they agreed on a goal of improving the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020 (127), focusing on upgrading the most squalid and unserved urban slums and squatter settlements (24). This goal is modest, however, since the number of slum dwellers is projected to reach 1.5 billion by 2020 (86).

Poverty is likely to worsen and become pervasive if economic growth cannot keep pace with population growth. In contrast, slower population growth encourages economic growth, provided that governments institute sound social and economic policies (8, 73). Lower fertility in a country opens a “demographic window” of opportunity —a temporary period when a large group of working-age people supports relatively fewer older and younger dependents. This situation frees families and nations to save more and to make the longer-term investments that help lift people out of poverty. In order to reduce poverty, however, development efforts must be directed to helping the poor themselves, not only to stimulating aggregate economic growth (73, 143).

Don Hinrichsen

In Bangkok, as in many other urban areas, slum dwellers often have little choice but to use unclean sources of water. Providing a clean water supply and improving sanitation would help prevent most water-related diseases and deaths.

The role of local governments. “Pro-poor” social and economic policies that local governments can undertake include: relaxing restrictions on the informal labor market so that low-income groups have more opportunity to earn income; supporting small-scale enterprises by providing access to credit and land; creating jobs for people who would otherwise remain excluded from the labor market due to automation; investing in education and health, including reproductive health and family planning; and reducing gender inequality (51, 73, 143, 154).

Governments can effectively address some aspects of poverty at the community level, despite the limited ability of communities to generate economic growth (106, 154). Improving housing conditions and providing affordable and adequate basic services, such as water and sanitation, are among the most important ways to improve living conditions. Also, when housing and services are provided efficiently, people can spend less of their incomes on these necessities and thus have more for other essentials (45, 104, 132).

Many governments, however, lack the political will to assure affordable, legal housing (24, 44, 106, 158). Two of the most important components of policies to avoid slums are providing both access to land and financing for the poor (137). Governments often need to reform laws and regulations concerning markets for housing, land, and infrastructure. Also, reforming housing finance systems can give the poor more access to credit (154, 155).

Upgrading slums requires a variety of physical, social, economic, organizational, and environmental improvements. At a minimum, improving slums involves assuring basic infrastructure and services, such as a clean water supply and adequate sewage disposal. Other steps include constructing community facilities, such as health clinics, and enhancing income-earning opportunities by providing training and micro-credit (24, 154).

Fundamental to the success of a slum upgrading program is extending security of land and housing tenure to those who lack it (137, 154). Once people feel secure in their neighborhood, they are more likely to invest in their communities (32, 137). Granting security of tenure rights typically motivates occupants to invest two to four times the amount of money that the government invests in infrastructure improvements. Assuring tenure rights also results in more private investment—estimated at US$7 of private investment for every $1 of public funds (154).

Improving living conditions in slums need not cost governments enormous sums of money. When spread over a 20-year period, upgrading programs that would provide services to all slums in developing countries could be implemented at a total cost of 0.2% to 0.5% of Gross Domestic Product, according to the World Bank (154).

Anjte Becker-Benton

An urban street market in Armenia. In many countries local governments could help small businesses by providing better access to credit and land, training, education, and health care.

The role of communities. Community members must participate in programs to improve slums (154). When the poor organize and work together, as in community savings and loan groups, for example, they increase their power to negotiate with the government for land, infrastructure, and services. Over the past decade the urban poor have organized to create many savings and loan associations, often supported by nongovernmental organizations and international donors. Most operate with revolving credit funds set up by community associations. These associations give low-income households access to credit. In essence, the community as a whole acts as the guarantor for the repayment of individual loans (44, 137).

Community groups can often provide housing and services more cost-effectively than governments or private developers by pooling their resources and supplying their own labor. For example, in the Philippines it costs the government 250,000 pesos (US$1 equals 55 pesos) to build a 22 square meter dwelling in a relocation colony. The Philippines Homeless People’s Federation, in contrast, can build a dwelling twice this size for 60,000 pesos. Furthermore, the federation can build roads, drainage, electricity, and water supplies for only 50 to 100 pesos per square meter of developed land, whereas private developers charge 550 pesos per square meter for the same work (146).

The role of donors. The scale of urban population growth and the problems of urban poverty are unprecedented. Addressing them requires a long-term approach that emphasizes institution-building to increase the capacity of urban areas to respond (52). Urban planners increasingly agree with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan that “good governance is perhaps the single most important factor in eradicating poverty and promoting development” (125).

Donor agencies can support better governance and, where government institutions are weak, increase funding to nongovernmental institutions to ensure that low-income groups benefit as intended (52, 106). Whenever possible, international donors should work through local partners, both to increase their credibility with the urban poor and because local partners know most about local problems and their potential solutions (52, 103).