The working group on "Shelter, Employment and the Informal City," provided continuity to the first international conference on Urban Poverty that was held in Recife, Brazil. In Recife, participants explored the interlinkages between shelter construction and employment creation. The debates in Florence in plenary and later in smaller, working group sessions maintained thinking on shelter and employment and advanced it significantly. Participants considered "home-based" enterprises and the importance of shelter as a place of work as well as a place of residence. They explored the links between shelter and employment within the context of parallel social and economic structures characteristic of what has become popularly known as the "informal city". Building on discussions about home-based enterprises and the informal city, participants considered these in terms of the overall conference theme of "governance and participation". What follows is a brief overview of how such elements of shelter, employment and the informal city unfolded throughout the conference, first in plenary and later in working group sessions. This section concludes with a synthesis and action plan for future collaboration among applied scholars and practitioners.
1. Plenary Presentations
The presentations in plenary included a keynote paper on the role of shelter in economic activity by Professor Edmundo Werna of the University of Sao Paulo (Brazil), and a case study on International Labour Oorganisation support to homeworkers in the Philippines by Ms. Lucy Lazo of ILO.
Professor Werna provided participants with a comprehensive overview of shelter and employment, and governance and participation within the context of a rapidly changing global economy. He indicated that the promotion of housing construction (and inputs) through labour-intensive, small-scale production was an ideal strategy for generating employment and making shelter more affordable. However, it was unrealistic in a highly competitive market economy unless government introduced regulatory measures. The issue of governance, then, is about the role of the state in intervening in the market to enable small-scale producers to compete (e.g. contracting directly to small-scale producers, encouraging small-scale producers to "cluster" and form umbrella companies, to target training to such producers, etc.). Professor Werna emphasized that because the home is increasingly the place of work, investments in shelter construction provide opportunities for adequate shelter and for productive activity. As with small-scale producers, however, the home-based enterprise faces stiff competition and requires state intervention to establish links with the market. Regarding participation, Professor Werna stressed the importance linking small-scale production and home-based enterprises to people's organizations, integrating social organization and local economic development.
In her case study on the ILO-Danida homeworkers' project in Manila, Philippines, Ms. Lazo emphasized the need to distinguish home-based enterprises from homeworkers or "outworkers". The latter are persons, mostly women, who are subcontracted by large multinational corporations to produce garments, rugs, and/or shoe-uppers, while the former are self-employed producers of crafts and services. Homeworkers work long hours for low wages and lack social security. Ms. Laso explained that the ILO project facilitates collaboration among workers' organizations, employers' associations and government labour ministries, people's organizations, and NGOs to support homeworkers. It is designed to raise awareness, organize homeworkers, and empower women economically and politically. The project has since its inception in 1988, reduced the relative "invisibility" of homeworkers, extended social protection, and enhanced their access to education, training, credit and international networks.
2. The Working Group
The working group sessions were subdivided into three modules of approximately 90 minutes each. Each module began with a case study presentation followed by discussions. Participants of the working group held a final module to consolidate the previous three modules and to develop a plan of action. The final module was divided into three subgroups organized by region--Africa, Asia and Latin America.
In Module One Professor Graham Tipple of Newcastle University (UK), presented a paper on the role of shelter production in generating income and employment in sub-Saharan Africa, and Mr. Shayer Ghafur of Oxford University (UK), presented a paper on home-based income generation and slum improvement in Bangladesh.
Professor Tipple argued that the "good news" on housing in agrarian and newly industrialized countries outweighs the "bad news", provided governments promote labour-intensive production, support small-scale producers as contractors, and enable community participation and management. Sitting cases in Ghana and Sri Lanka, among other countries, Professor Tipple stated that the demand for housing far outstrips the supply, and that the deficit is aggravated by inappropriate government housing policies. Governments use scarce public resources in inefficient ways, promoting capital-intensive housing schemes that rely on imported inputs, reduce opportunities for employment, and never reach low-income residents. Where governments transfer responsibilities to the private sector, the latter tends to retain capital-intensive approaches with negative consequences for employment and equity. Government and private sector initiatives that target production to small-scale producers and community organizations increase jobs, create more houses, reduce costs associated with maintenance, and engage low-income people's capacity both to earn and consume.
Mr. Ghafur presented a micro-analysis of the ways select households in Bangladesh generate income at their places of residences, and how settlement improvement projects can support such employment. In describing home-based income generation (HIG), Mr. Ghafur stressed the importance of forward and backward production linkages, spatial consumption patterns, and of the central role of women. He argued that HIG not only increases spending on subsistence, but can also change behaviour from dependency to self-reliance, especially when residents organize and coordinate their practices. Mr. Ghafur described how municipal settlement improvement projects that support HIG significantly reduce poverty. This is particularly so when such projects integrate physical, social and economic development thereby leveraging ongoing household initiatives. Mr. Ghafur concluded by mentioning the contradictions inherent in interventions that promote self-reliance.
In Module Two participants heard presentations from Professor Vinay Lall of Society for Development Studies (India) on linkages between shelter and employment in informal settlements in India, and from Professor Alex Abiko, University of Sao Paulo on strategies for upgrading informal settlements in Brazil.
Stressing the need for municipal/national officials and development practitioners to overcome conventional approaches (and attitudes) to planning, employment and shelter, Professor Lall proposed an alternative conceptual framework. Drawing upon case studies in Delhi of projects for resettlement, "in-situ" upgrading, and improvements in secondary cities, he indicated that city planners largely failed to incorporate informal economies/settlements into master plans, despite the fact that 90 per cent of the urban populations lived in informal settlements. Professor Lall also said that national and municipal shelter projects do not promote employment creation through forward and backward linkages, nor do they support home-based enterprises and micro-economic initiatives, despite overwhelming evidence of the synergy realized by integrating shelter and employment. He concluded by presenting a conceptual framework for the Integrated Shelter and Income Programme, a proposed initiative of the Government of India to enhance its national Poverty Alleviation Programme by linking housing upgrading with comprehensive economic and social development.
Drawing upon the experiences of large-scale, World Bank settlement upgrading projects in Chingapura, Guarapinranga and Lote-Legal, Professor Abiko emphasized two key lessons learned. First, the projects demonstrate the importance of creating the conditions (legal, social, financial, environmental) for households to access shelter through a participatory process. Second, experience shows that by enabling families to remain in existing settlements, upgrading projects build upon (rather than artificially replace) established forms of social organization, social networks and economic activity. Professor Abiko added that private consulting firms, universities and research institutes played an important role in these projects. NGOs provided "accompaniamiento social" (social assistance)--technical expertise designed to create the conditions for sustaining community actions.
In Module Three included presentations by Mr. Lamberto Tozzi, Municipality of Florence (Italy) on efforts to improve the living and working conditions of Chinese and Gipsy immigrants, by Mr. Ricardo Jordan, ECLAC, Santiago (Chile) on urban management strategies for municipalities in Latin America, and by Mr. Seydou Sow, ENDA (Senegal) on strategies for community groups to manage improvements in informal settlements of Dakar.
Mr. Tozzi described the ways in which the Municipality of Florence served as a liaison between the city population and Chinese and Gipsy immigrants. He stressed that theirs was largely a task of integration and normalization and to build tolerance among residents about immigrants. The municipality works with immigrants to integrate them into the education system, institutionalize their restaurant and small-trade activities, link them to unions to enhance their workplace conditions, and to promote lending programmes for home buying and improvement. Mr. Tozzi argued that Florence like many European cities faces difficulties accommodating immigrants. The presence of new populations in old, established cities challenges identities and life-styles of the city. Municipalities, therefore, need to be innovative and establish ways of overcoming perceptions of "inside/outside", and "us/them".
Mr. Jordan argued that the economic, political and social changes ongoing in Latin America place new roles and responsibilities on municipalities. Local governments today must radically transform management practices. Drawing upon the experiences of ECLAC- supported projects, Mr. Jordan indicated that participation must be institutionalized as a permanent (not ad hoc) function of urban management. In their efforts to work with low-income suburbs, municipalities must develop a planning system of gradual integration. This includes mobilizing local resources, upgrading shelter and social services, creating public spaces, and rehabilitating historical areas to promote tourism. Mr. Jordan said institutionalizing new forms of local management is best facilitated through training, information exchange, and the establishment of district forums.
Mr. Sow focused squarely on the issue of poverty and on practical methods communities use to improve their own living and working conditions. Drawing upon the experiences of families in the Yeumbeul neighbourhood of Dakar, Senegal, Mr. Sow outlined how families formed economic interest groups, women's promotion groups, cultural associations to increase their productive capacity, mobilize local resources, and undertake settlement improvements. Residents of Yeumbeul negotiated with NGOs, including the Enda Tiers-Monde Urban Social Development Programme, and the municipal government to further and better integrate economic, social and physical developments. Mr. Sow stressed consensus- building within the neighbourhood as essential for overcoming rivalries among associations competing for external (often NGO) resources, and for resolving tensions in lending programmes between individual entrepreneurs and collective borrowers.
Module Four consisted of three subgroup discussions, one per region. The Africa working group undertook a frank debate about shelter on the continent. Participants agreed with Professor Tipple's assessment that government (national and local) policy did not match the conditions on the ground, particularly in informal urban settlements where the vast majority of Africans now reside. Participants agreed with the Recife Declaration and Professor Abbott's view that work is needed in linking local government institutional structures with the more flexible actions of households, communities and their organizations. Land regularization, access to credit and modernization of public-sector shelter regulations were also mentioned as important shelter strategies for the coming decades in Africa.
The working group on Latin America concurred with Mr. Jordan's assessment of the importance of urban management in a changing regional political economy. However, participants urged the need to develop tools and methods necessary to advance management practices. A debate ensued about what kind of capacity-building was required, and what methods were needed to institutionalize participation, specifically, what training was required to enable all actors to participate effectively.
The Asia working group agreed with the assessments of Professors Tipple and Lall about the need (and difficulties associated with) integrating strategies for employment and shelter. Participants argued that such integration was hampered not only by government lethargy and slowness to change attitude, but also by the sheer intensity of land speculation in Asia. Rapid growth of privileged segments of the economy has led to high rates of return in investments in land. This has in turn displaced large segments of the poor, and discouraged neighbourhood initiatives. The working group agreed measures were needed to promote shelter together with employment but in a manner which is politically and economically realistic.
3. Synthesis
3.1 Issues raised germane to topic: Shelter, Employment and the Informal City
Participants raised three central issues throughout the discussions of the working group:
Participants carried further debates on integrating shelter and employment by discussing shelter as a place of employment. Home-based enterprises can be small-scale entrepreneurs attempting to launch self-employment, or they can be "outworkers", persons, often exploited women, who take on short-term contracts for large-scale shoe and textile companies. Participants agreed the former provide employment for very low-income families, promote self-reliance, and can redistribute wealth locally; while the latter tend to be exploitative. In order to overcome the "invisibility" and "social exclusion" of these outworkers, governments must take strong measures to create a legal framework enabling homeworkers to organize and defend their rights. Governments, international agencies and NGOs have an important role to play to promote home-based enterprises as regards training, linking product to market, linking entrepreneurs to CBOs to minimize externalities, and to help cluster disparate enterprises.
An important, third issue raised by the working group touched on settlement upgrading in the informal city. Participants argued that upgrading was in part an exercise in "formalizing" a city's informal activities to the point where these are rendered legitimate. Others held that the sheer size of the informal city demonstrated it was linked to formal activity, at times exploitatively. Most participants agreed upgrading was, where possible, preferable to relocation because low-income residents retained economic and social ties. As regards upgrading interventions by international and public-sector agencies, participants overwhelmingly agreed that these should not be sector interventions. They should integrate economic, social, legal, financial elements of development, creating conditions that enable community action. Participants also agreed that NGOs should maintain a facilitating role, furnishing technical expertise and should not displace efforts by communities and local government to work in partnership.
3.2 Issues raised germane to Conference theme: Governance and Participation
Discussions on governance and participation brought into focus the practical realities of promoting shelter and employment, home-based enterprises, and settlement upgrading. Participants agreed that government, particularly local government must alter its management practices in order to be effective in advancing these strategies for reducing poverty. Governments must not only overcome attitudinal bias, but also engage in a process of planning that engages directly the relative capacities and needs of small-scale producers, low-income families and their organizations, and NGO intermediaries, as well as central governments. It is the primary responsibility of local governance to create and sustain forums for dialogue and communication, such that all human resources are channelled towards reducing poverty.
Members of the Working Group on Shelter, Employment and the Informal City recognized that participation of low-income communities in municipal-led forums such as those described by Mr. Jordan in Latin American "District Forums" do not automatically result in actual participation. Presence and impact in such forums are two separate things. United Nations organizations, NGOs, and municipal authorities must plan for participation, conduct training, familiarize all partners, so as to increase the capacity of low-income families and their organizations to participate. Small-scale producers and community contractors should cluster so as to increase their bargaining position when working with municipal government to obtain contracts. Producers of home-based enterprises require training and legal assistance so that policies designed to assist them reflect their particular needs and capacities. And low-income families need to increase their ability to mobilize community resources and democratically identify priorities so as to maintain a stronger negotiating position in District Forums.
4. Action Plans by Region
The subworking group on Africa concluded the working group discussion by outlining a proposal for applied research that could link research institutions: Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA), Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR), University of Cape Town, innovative UN programmes and NGOs (Community Development Programme (CDP), Urban Management Programme (UMP), Environnement et Développement du Tiers-Monde (ENDA)), and select community organizations and municipal governments. The applied research would focus on the nexus between urban management and community action on select elements of shelter improvement.
Those participating in the subworking group on Latin America reviewed the existing networks of United Nations efforts in the region and how these may collaborate in future. These included the Urban Management Programme, the Community Development Programme of UNCHS (Habitat), as well as ECLAC, based in Santiago, Chile. Efforts will be made in future to identify areas of applied research and joint operational activities, likely focusing on capacity building for urban management.
The subworking group on Asia proposed applied research on practical
strategies for linking shelter and employment. The research will link ongoing
efforts in the region, highlighting those in Delhi and Bangkok where established
institutions Society for Development Studies (SDS) and Asian Institute
of Technology (AIT) are pursuing related research agenda. In addition to
taking an inventory of demonstrated experiences of integrated shelter and
employment, the research will also review constraints, obstacles and viable
solutions to operationalizing this important strategy.