Fallavier, P. (2009). Participation as an End versus a Means: a recurring dilemma in urban upgrading: VDM Verlag. (original) (raw)
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Participation as an end versus a means : understanding a recurring dilemma in urban upgrading
2007
Since the 1920s, participatory approaches to urban upgrading in developing nations have demonstrated that involving the urban poor in the physical, social, and economic development of their settlements could improve their living conditions. These housing policies and projects have since been central to urban poverty reduction. Yet, while participatory upgrading is still used on a limited scale, it has failed to become a mainstream component of urban development. This dissertation analyzes some reasons for that failure by investigating the trajectory of an urban poverty reduction program that had much potential for success in Cambodia, but whose results yet surprisingly fell short of expectations. It connects the results to a critical analysis of international experience with policies and programs for urban poverty reduction. Contents CHAPTER 1-INTRODUCTION: BENEFICIARY PARTICIPATION IN URBAN UPGRADING .
2007
Since the 1920s, participatory approaches to urban upgrading in developing nations have demonstrated that involving the urban poor in the physical, social, and economic development of their settlements could improve their living conditions. These housing policies and projects have since been central to urban poverty reduction. Yet, while participatory upgrading is still used on a limited scale, it has failed to become a mainstream component of urban development. This dissertation analyzes some reasons for that failure by investigating the trajectory of an urban poverty reduction program that had much potential for success in Cambodia, but whose results yet surprisingly fell short of expectations. It connects the results to a critical analysis of international experience with policies and programs for urban poverty reduction. It explores the issue in two steps: First it analyzes the historical evolution of the policies and practices of urban poverty reduction in developing nations. This highlights the apparently weak link between lessons from experience, international policy recommendations, and the programs actually implemented by governments. Second, it presents a narrative analysis of how a participatory urban poverty reduction policy originated, was implemented, and evolved in Phnom Penh from 1996 to 2004. That story provides a micro-level understanding of the shape and constraints of the evolution of policies and practices, complementing the macro-historical analysis. The findings illustrate that three main issues have prevented international and local agencies from promoting urban development assistance, using lessons learned from concrete experience over time, and thus kept them from adopting a more continuous use of proven practices. First, a conflict of frames between agencies over the meaning of development as human-centered versus growth-led, and of the meaning of participation as an end of development vs. a means to implement centrally-decided projects at a low-cost. Second, the lack of consideration for local institutions and politics in helping them understand why and how new approaches could be absorbed, or instead resisted. And third, an apparently lack of consistency in policy directions over time, with the abandonment of proven participatory practices, and the adoption of single-sided market-based approaches to development, when history had shown that both were needed together.
This report is an update on urban poverty in Phnom Penh as of 2002. It has been published in 2003 as Fallavier, P. (2003). Urban Slums report: The case of Phnom Penh, Cambodia (Case Study for the Global Report on Human Settlements 2003, The Challenge of Slums). London: Earthscan, London. Starting in 2003, UN-Habitat will produce a Global Report on Human Settlements every two years, each time dedicated to a specific theme. These Global Reports will be the equivalent of UNDP’s Human Development Reports, and aim at becoming major authoritative documents on issues of human settlement development. The theme of the 2003 Global Report on Human Settlements is ‘slums and poverty in the city’. It aims at better understanding the realities and dynamics of urban poverty and life in urban slums, and the policies to improve the living conditions of the urban poor. A central part of the report will be a series of 35 City Reports selected from around the world. The joint URC/CVCD/UN-Habitat research team that started to conduct participatory research on poverty in Phnom Penh in July 2001 has prepared the following draft report that describes the situation of Phnom Penh.
Limits to Growth: A Vulnerability Approach to Understanding Urbanization in Cambodia
Limits to Growth: A Vulnerability Approach to Understanding Urbanization in Cambodia, 2021
Research into urbanization and urban development in Cambodia is on the rise in recent years. In Cambodia where nearly 76% of the population is still considered rural, much development work has focused on alleviating the worst forms of rural poverty. 1 However, given rapid rates of urbanization in the country, and given the undeniable linkages between rural and urban environments as a result of internal migration, there is a growing demand to look at Cambodian cities as spaces and systems where much of the rapid social and economic changes in the country are taking place. Cambodia's urban spaces are where the conditions of poverty overlap with the opportunities and constraints of rapid urbanization, and with local and global environmental, social, and economic processes and transformations. Cities are complex spaces where myriad and multi-leveled social, political, environmental, and economic forces collide. Recent research has looked at poverty and development in urban Cambodia, focusing on deprivation, or the lack of resources to meet basic needs. In addition to UN and World Bank approaches (e.g., UN, 2014; World Bank, 2017), key local tools for measuring poverty in Cambodia include a national poverty assessment methodology and Phnom Penh municipality's definition of urban poor in terms of inmigrants and informal workers. A recent study from the World Food Program (2019) compared access to resources and opportunity among households in central Phnom Penh as opposed to those in more outlying areas in terms of assets, access to water and sanitation, economic status and debt, food security, access to healthcare, children's health and wellbeing, and migrant status (in/out migration). Missing, however, is analysis of urban conditions in Cambodia that can shed light on the kinds of risks city residents would encounter in the face of new challenges or shocks to the social, economic, environmental, or political system, especially in the context of rapid urbanization. Also missing is analysis of how well-equipped the city itself is or urban residents are to meet these challenges. This report offers a conceptual framework for looking at urbanization in Cambodia through the perspective
Urban poverty reduction: learning by doing in Asia
Environment and Urbanization, 2012
This paper describes the Asian Coalition for Community Action (ACCA) programme that was initiated by the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR) in 2009. ACCA seeks to catalyze and support community initiatives, citywide upgrading and partnerships between community organizations and local governments. By January 2012, it had helped fund initiatives in 708 settlements in 153 cities in 19 different Asian nations. In each city, small grants support city city community-led initiatives that encourage citywide networks to form, where members share skills with each other and learn to negotiate with their local governments. Further support was available as local governments engaged and then came to support this process, including the formation of jointly managed community development funds. The paper also describes how the design of ACCA drew on earlier work, and ends with a reflection on what has been learnt with regard to more effective ways of reducing urban poverty. This explores the two underlying dimensions: first, the creation of institutions based on relations of reciprocity; and second, the strengthening of relations between low-income community organizations such that they can create a synergy with the state. One key lesson is the need for financial systems that allow the urban poor to be the key agents in addressing their problems and in bringing in city governments to work with them. This collaboration can lead to the urban poor being recognized as legitimate and highly productive residents and citizens of the city.
Environment and Urbanization, 2009
This paper describes the nationwide "slum" upgrading (Baan Mankong) programme in Thailand, which supports community organizations to fi nd their own solutions to getting land for housing. Between 2003 and 2008, the programme supported 512 upgrading initiatives involving 1,010 communities. Community organizations form their own savings groups and draw on soft loans, and fi nd solutions that work best for them in terms of location, price and tenure, and negotiate with the landowners. Infrastructure subsidies can be drawn on to support the upgrading, and housing may be built or just improved. Collective land ownership strengthens the community processes that help households make the challenging transition from informal to formal, provides protection against market forces that often lead poorer households to sell, and encourages ongoing community responses and less hierarchic community organization. Larger citywide networks of community groups work with local governments and other civil society groups to help fi nd land solutions for all those living in informal settlements. KEYWORDS Baan Mankong / community organization / housing / land / slum upgrading / Thailand Somsook Boonyabancha is founder and secretarygeneral of the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights. She was director of the Community Organizations Development Institute (CODI) in Thailand from 2003 to 2009 and prior to that director of the Urban Community Development Offi ce. She began working on housing and land issues through supporting land-sharing schemes in Bangkok in the early 1980s.
2003
Cambodia is a predominantly rural society, with 84.3% of its 14 million estimated population living in rural areas. The remaining 15.7% urban dwellers live predominantly in Phnom Penh, which has an estimated population of 1.2 million in 2002 and is about 16 times the size of the second largest city, Battambang. The population in Phnom Penh grows at a faster rate than in the country overall, with an estimated 8% per annum made of a 3% in-migration rate and a 5% natural increase (see Table 1). The country has one of the lowest Human Development Index in Asia (a HDI of 0.517 in 2000), with a life expectancy of 54.4 years, an adult literacy of 71.2%, and a yearly gross domestic product per capita of $1,257. Conversely, it scores high on the Human Poverty Index (42.53), with a high level of mortality and child malnutrition, and a limited availability of public services (Ministry of Planning Cambodia 2000:4-7). Although the HDI is 21% higher in cities than in the countryside, cities are a...