How to Meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGS) in Urban Areas

We would have preferred not to use the term “slum” because it is an imprecise term for the many different kinds of sub-standard housing used by low-income groups, and it is often used by powerful vested interests to justify the eviction of “slum” dwellers from land these same interests wish to develop. However, the term “slum” came back into common use during the 1990s because international agencies wanted to specify some goals related to improving conditions for low-income urban dwellers and started to refer to “cities without slums”. The term “slum” also gained more legitimacy as, in some nations, organizations formed by those living in poor quality and often insecure accommodation referred to themselves as “slum” dweller organizations and federations.

For deficiencies in provision for water and sanitation in urban areas, see UN–Habitat (2003), Water and Sanitation in the World’s Cities; Local Action for Global Goals, Earthscan Publications, London, 274 pages; also Millennium Project (2005), Health, Dignity and Development; What Will it Take? Taskforce on Water and Sanitation, Earthscan, London and Sterling, Virginia; for the scale of slum populations, see UN–Habitat (2003), The Challenge of Slums: Global Report on Human Settlements 2003, Earthscan, London; for the scale and depth of urban poverty, see Satterthwaite, David (2004), “The under-estimation of urban poverty in lowand middle-income nations”, IIED Working Paper 14 on Poverty Reduction in Urban Areas, IIED, London.

The role of local organizations in meeting the MDGs is discussed in more detail in Satterthwaite, David (2005), “Meeting the MDGs in urban areas; the forgotten role of local organizations” , Journal of International Affairs Vol 58, No 2, Spring.

This is a subject to which future issues of Environment and Urbanization will give more attention.

See reference 2, Satterthwaite (2004).

See, for instance, United Nations (2004), World Urbanization Prospects: The 2003 Revision, United Nations Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, ST/ESA/SER.A/237, New York .

For example, during the 1970s, most national governments and international agencies made formal commitments to reaching all rural and urban dwellers with good quality provision for water and sanitation by 1990 (or as soon as possible thereafter).

See Roy, A N , A Jockin and Ahmad Javed (2004), “Community police stations in Mumbai’s slums”, Environment and Urbanization Vol 16, No 2, October, pages 135–138.

See Patel, Sheela , Celine d’Cruz and Sundar Burra (2002), “Beyond evictions in a global city; people-managed resettlement in Mumbai”, Environment and Urbanization Vol 14, No 1, April, pages 159–172; this can be freely accessed at www.ingentaselect.com/09562478/v14n1/

See, for instance, Benjamin, Solomon (2000), “Governance, economic settings and poverty in Bangalore”, Environment and Urbanization Vol 12, No 1, April, pages 35–56; this can be freely accessed at www.ingentaselect.com/09562478/v12n1/

See, for instance, the little attention given to these in UN Millennium Project (2005), Investing in Development; A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals, Earthscan, London and Sterling, Virginia ; for more discussion of this, see reference 3.

See reference 2, UN–Habitat (2003) and Millennium Project (2005).

Budds, J and G McGranahan (2003), “Are the debates on water privatization missing the point? Experiences from Africa, Asia and Latin America”, Environment and Urbanization Vol 15, No 2, October, pages 87–113.

The April 2003 issue of Environment and Urbanization was on water and sanitation, and had several case studies showing locally driven approaches to improving and extending provision for water and/or sanitation in “slums”.

See also ACHR (Asian Coalition for Housing Rights) (2004), “Negotiating the right to stay in the city”, Environment and Urbanization Vol 16, No 1, April, pages 9–26.

See the papers in this issue by Somsook Boonyabancha, Alfredo Stein and Luis Castillo, and Sundar Burra; also Sevilla, Manuel (1993), “New approaches for aid agencies; FUPROVI’s community-based shelter programme”, Environment and Urbanization Vol 5, No 1, April, pages 111–121; Vaa, Mariken (2000), “Housing policy after political transition: the case of Bamako”, Environment and Urbanization Vol 12, No 1, April, pages 27–34; Dutta, Shyam S (2000), “Partnerships in urban development: a review of Ahmedabad’s experience”, Environment and Urbanization Vol 12, No 1, April, pages 13–26; Díaz, Andrés Cabanas, Emma Grant, Paula Irene del Cid Vargas and Verónica Sajbin Velásquez (2000), “El Mezquital – a community’s struggle for development in Guatemala City”, Environment and Urbanization Vol 12, No 1, April, pages 87–106; Tindigarukayo, Jimmy K (2004), “An attempt to empower Jamaican squatters”, Environment and Urbanization Vol 16, No 1, April, pages 199–210; and Weru, Jane (2004), “Community federations and city upgrading: the work of Pamoja Trust and Muungano in Kenya”, Environment and Urbanization Vol 16, No 1, April, pages 47–62. Most of these can be accessed at no charge from www.ingentaselect.com/09562478/

See the paper by Somsook Boonyabancha in this issue; also see reference 15, ACHR (2004).

See, for instance, Cabannes, Yves (2004), “Participatory budgeting: a significant contribution to participatory democracy”, Environment and Urbanization Vol 16, No 1, April, pages 27–46.

See Environment and Urbanization Vol 13, No 2 (October 2001) and Vol 16, No 1 (April 2004); see also D’Cruz, Celine and David Satterthwaite (2005), “The current and potential role of community-driven initiatives to significantly improve the lives of ‘slum’ dwellers at local, city-wide and national levels”, IIED Working Paper, London; this is available from http://www.iied.org/human/index.html

This is also at the core of the success of Orangi Pilot Project’s work with urban authorities all over Pakistan, because it reduces the dependence of urban authorities on external funding. See Hasan, Arif (1997), Working with Government: The Story of the Orangi Pilot Project’s Collaboration with State Agencies for Replicating its Low-cost Sanitation Programme, City Press, Karachi , 269-269 pages.

For instance, it is possible to show targets being met for water and sanitation provision if inappropriate definitions are used for what constitutes “safe” water and “basic” sanitation. The dollar-aday poverty line is also an inappropriate indicator of whether or not an individual or household suffers from extreme poverty, and is especially inappropriate in major cities and other locations with high costs.