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urban
poverty:
a
world challenge
The
Recife Declaration
march
1996
HABITAT
II
Recife
International Meeting on Urban Poverty
Recife,
Brazil, 17-21 March 1996
"Rich countries,
as well as rich people, must realize that they cannot indefinitely
continue to refuse to see the reality of our times: poverty
is at their borders, it is knocking at their doors. More
than that, it is already a reality within their countries,
within their homes, in the insensitivity and individualism
of certain human beings, that, in reality, are what fuels
and gives rise to the inequities that generate and perpetuate
poverty."
DOM HELDER CAMARA
Archibishop Emeritus
of Olinda and Recife
President of Honour
of the Recife Meeting
"Over the
centuries, the people of Pernambuco have faced and conquered
inumerable challenges. Recife's informal settlers have built
this city on marshland, under constant threat of flooding.
Today, our greatest challenge is poverty. We will overcome
it, thanks to our ability to build consensus and unity,
and to our belief that it is the people themselves, through
their organizations, who will lead the way".
MIGUEL ARRAES
Governor of the State
of Pernambuco
"Poverty
should be addressed in an integrated way. This requires
solid economic policies, promoting job creation, and enabling
policies to improve access to urban land, shelter and basic
services. It also demands the destruction of the barriers
that lead to intolerance and violence, and the reconstruction
of a citizenship which restitutes their pride to those living
in poverty. Partnerships between central governments, local
authorities and community groups are essential to meet these
objectives.
WALLY N'DOW
Secretary-General of
Habitat II
UN-Habitat
United Nations Human Settlements Programme
The Recife International Meeting on Urban Poverty (17-21
March 1996) was organized by:
UNCHS (Habitat)'s Urban Management Programme (UMP),
Settlement Upgrading Programme (SUP) and Community Development
Programme (CDP).
The meeting was hosted and co-sponsored by:
the Government of the State of Pernambuco (Brazil)
Sponsors:
Government of The Netherlands
Fondation Charles Léopold Mayer pour le progrès
de l'Homme (FPH)
Additional support was provided by the Government of Denmark
and Italy
RECIFE DECLARATION
The Recife International Meeting on Urban Poverty, organised
in preparation for the Habitat II Conference, brought together
128 participants from governments, United Nations agencies,
municipalities, private foundations, non-governmental and
community-based organisations, and international experts,
representing 35 countries of all regions of the world, in
Recife, Brazil, from 17-21 March 1996.
The participants carried out an intensive programme of
discussion in sectoral groups (focusing on employment and
the urban informal sector, access to land and basic services,
and social integration), in groups working on poverty reduction
issues at different levels (community, municipal, and national),
as well as in plenary sessions, addressing general cross-cutting
problems and operational proposals.
Based on the concrete experience of participants and backed
by the conclusions of previous international exchanges on
the issues under scrutiny, the Recife Meeting discussed
strategies for urban poverty reduction to provide recommendations
to the City Summit (Habitat II), to community organisations
and to institutions at the local, national and global levels.
1. Globalisation and the Challenge of Urban Poverty
In an urbanizing world where large cities are developing
very quickly, urban poverty and the management of metropolitan
areas are among the major challenges of the coming century,
for developing and developed countries alike.
The ongoing processes of global economic restructuring
strongly affect national economies, but especially the people
who are living in large cities. Far from producing equitable
growth, these processes foster uneven development and polarization,
particularly in urban areas. The major problems related
to city life are increasingly analogous: the urban and social
fabric of most cities is becoming more and more fragmented
and stratified. The tragic loss or degradation of our towns
and cities' public spaces seems to be the rule everywhere.
Some of the impacts of globalisation are positive: above
all, growing opportunities for communications, mobility
and exchange, that foster the emergence of new social actors,
including community organisations and active citizens who,
on the whole, are able to articulate their needs and to
organize themselves in an autonomous way.
Globalisation opens up new opportunities, but carries also
serious risks for the urban poor. Considering the overall
effects of economic restructuring, the globalisation of
financial markets, and structural adjustment, we must recognise
that these tend to further impoverish the underemployed
and under-represented lower classes, and pose serious concerns
for the middle classes as well. The technological and organisational
revolution is leading to an informalisation of production
processes and to highly precarious labour conditions. Government
strategies in this context have often exacerbated the unbalanced
distribution of resources, knowledge, and land among the
population, and reduced the availability of public services,
free goods and public spaces.
Transnational financial markets impinge on national economic
structures and impair the capacity of public decision-making
to control national economic policy. The resulting patterns
of development, giving priority to economic growth and rendering
science and technology ends in themselves, lead to the obsolescence
of previous regulation of human activities and to the disintegration
of many traditional solidarities. Hence, the causes of urban
poverty are multiple, and the solutions cannot be found
only at one level, be it national, local or community. Given
the fact that the aggravation or reduction of urban poverty
is by and large determined by the predominant macro-economic,
urban and agricultural policies, it is impossible to consider
as a solution only what is conventionally defined as the
social policies.
2. Defining Poverty: Understanding Unity and Diversity
Urban poverty presents a paradox for assessment and policy.
For the poor, it is an indivisible whole, an ongoing, day-to-day
reality. Yet for institutions established to eradicate it,
poverty is a condition to be responded to with a diverse
array of programmes, often compartmentalized, disparate
and at best partially effective. There is a manifest discord
between the unity of experience and the diversity of institutional
responses.
Institutions also tend to define poverty by its negative
qualities and ignore the positive role of social solidarities.
And institutions that do recognize human potential often
assume in poor communities a degree of solidarity which
negates the realities of conflict.
On the one hand, the poor experience not only a lack of
income and access to assets and basic services, but also
a devalued social status; marginalisation in urban space
and a degraded living environment; limited access to justice,
information, education, decision-making power, and citizenship;
and a vulnerability to violence and loss of security. But,
on the other hand, urban poverty also means mobilising and
sharing aspirations, solutions, capacities, and solidarities,
particularly among women and youth whose primary and often
only source of social support is derived from the collective
human potential of their community. And yet, the poor themselves
recognise their heterogeneity, their divisions, and susceptibility
to conflict.
Institutional responses also tend to focus on income generation,
without considering the social, political and psychological
factors which constitute the indivisible character of poverty.
Public sector responses to poverty are also usually based
on a simplified view of the poor as a homogeneous group.
In reality, since the poor are very diverse in their difficulties,
needs and capacities, they require a differentiated - but
coordinated - assessment and response.
In short, in assessing and responding to urban poverty,
unity and diversity are usually taken upside down. This
needs to be reversed: the unity of experience must be met
with convergent and coordinated - and not disparate - institutional
responses, while recognising that poverty comprises opportunities
as well as threats, and is experienced differently because
the poor themselves are not homogeneous. Unless this happens,
interventions will continue to be part of the problem, rather
than the solution.
3. Transforming Public and Private Action: Forging New
Relationships with the Poor
The interests and perceptions of the middle and upper classes
strongly affect the way in which public and private institutions
plan and operate. These classes will not be able to create,
even for themselves, a livable world if they do not establish
a new relationship, new solidarities and reinforce common
interests between themselves and people living in poverty.
Large, capital intensive infrastructure investments, for
example, tend to reflect middle class concerns and values,
often at the expense of the poor. The middle and upper classes
must instead accept changes in conventional patterns of
urban development, and seek common ground with the poor.
They must recognize that those living in poverty contribute
significantly to make urban centres work and thrive. If
the image of poverty does not change, its reality will not
either.
Forging new relationships calls for substantive institutional
and cultural change, involving professionals and public
officials as well as all sectors of civil society, including
the poor themselves, and resulting in a transformation of
the action of public and private institutions.
Transforming perceptions among individuals and institutions
requires the application of the following principles, as
elements of a strategy to guide attitudinal change in public
and private action:
- overcoming paternalistic attitudes and clientelism;
- accepting to share decision-making power over resource
allocation, design of programmes and evaluation of their
results;
- acknowledging the resources, vitality and capabilities
of poor communities, and, on the other hand, recognizing
their internal conflicts and contradictions, overcoming
an idealized and romantic vision that stresses only their
capacity for goodwill, consensus and solidarity;
- reducing the complexity and segmentation of the way
public institutions present themselves to people living
in poverty, instead of transferring the responsibility
for coping with such complexity to the vulnerable groups
themselves;
- accommodating diversity and change by overcoming the
rigidity and compartmentalization of bureaucratic structures;
- admitting the insufficiencies of representative democracy
to ensure that the diverse interests of social groups
are expressed and taken into account, and searching for
adequate participatory mechanisms to compensate for such
insufficiencies;
- basing relationships on contracts, ensuring reciprocity
to all parties as equal partners in a long-term association;
- adapting to the pace of the social process of the poor
communities, supporting long-term processes of collective
training, allowing for social and cultural change, instead
of imposing a time frame defined by bureaucratic procedures;
- helping strengthen the voice of the poor, instead of
speaking in their place;
- accepting the need to invest time and resources on
articulation and mediation, and to learn as often as to
teach.
The points that follow try to incorporate and operationalize
the above-stated principles.
4. Towards Enabling Policies for Cities: Investing in
the Poor
People want to be defined through what they are, what they
have and what they can do - and not by what they lack. The
basic point of departure, both in policy and intervention,
should be the respect for what the poor themselves are thinking
and doing, for their initiatives and forms of organisation,
recognising the value of informally produced urban space
and of the informal economy in producing income while catering
to basic needs such as shelter, water supply, etc..
Any genuine enabling strategy, based on the initiative
and empowerment of the poor, must originate from this point
of departure. People living in poverty have shown they have
the capacity to establish their priorities, mobilize resources
and negotiate the terms of local development with external
public and private interests. Therefore, a first priority
should be to support this capacity by strengthening poor
people's security and assets, especially through their access
to land and basic services such as water supply and sanitation,
and assisting them in mobilizing these assets. Respect for
the human rights of the poor, particularly of women, children
and ethnic minorities, ranks high and should be legally
enforced.
To make such an approach possible, legal and institutional
reforms are needed. In addition, governments should: end
subsidization of the substitution of labour by capital;
foster greater collaboration between trade unions and emerging
forms of labour organisation; promote urban land reform
and land adjudication; stimulate decentralisation and the
development of transparent mechanisms to institutionalise
the participation of the poor and their organisations in
decision-making and in the process of allocation of public
resources.
In the economic and social fields, an enabling strategy
should be applied, without abandoning the responsibilities
which correspond to central and local government agencies.
By adjusting legal conditions and helping to establish supporting
institutions in areas such as credit, marketing and technical
and organisational assistance, public and private agencies
should help strengthen small businesses and cooperatives
in the informal sector and foster their access to broader
markets. They should help create productive employment for
non-skilled, vulnerable groups by subcontracting infrastructure
works and public services, wherever possible, to organised
local groups and by applying labour-intensive technologies
to public programmes. An enabling policy also necessitates
changing the patterns of public and private investment in
cities, particularly in the case of infrastructure, to give
a social orientation to urban development.
Government and private agencies in the fields of health,
education, housing and basic services such as water supply
and sanitation can help develop community-based services
and make these more accessible to the poor, through co-financing
schemes, the use of local materials and inputs, and of trained
local personnel, especially women. To be effective, these
and related policies must hear the voice of the poor, recognising
their fundamental right to take part in decisions which
impact on them. Such policies will help integrate the poor
into society and to reduce their social and spatial exclusion.
5. Organising for Action: Articulating Public and Private
Actors
There is no universal rule for the sharing of responsibilities
among different levels: community, municipal, national,
and global. Convergence and articulation of civil, public
and private actions means transcending simplistic partnerships.
It requires establishing results, instead of means or inputs
employed, as the criterion for evaluation of public policies,
and distributing responsibilities in a pragmatic, mutually
agreeable manner. It is at the scale of the city, or of
a local administrative unit in the case of metropolitan
areas, that multiple actors can best articulate and operationalise
strategies for poverty reduction.
For national governments, this means facilitating the integration
of the urban poor, and particularly women, in labour markets,
and increasing their access to urban services, urban land,
and social benefits. This in many cases requires changes
in legal frameworks. Central governments should devolve
responsibilities and resources to local governments, ensuring
that decentralisation does not result in ethnic conflict,
and not simply deconcentrate central powers at the local
level without matching new responsibilities with adequate
resources and capacity-building. Governments should also
assume the costs of making popular democracy a reality for
low income people, by financing training and capacity-building
for local governments to assume new roles in poverty reduction,
based on a new relationship with the poor, and by reducing
financial and cultural obstacles to participatory approaches.
Local authorities should assume a central role in poverty
reduction, by articulating and coordinating the interests
and capacities of diverse actors, with special attention
to women, youth and ethnic minorities. Beside their facilitating
role, municipalities need also to develop public works programmes
which are labour intensive and utilise community contracts,
with due respect for the rights of existing and emerging
forms of labour organisation.
People living in poverty should continue to organise through
women's groups, youth associations, people's movements and
community organisations, to negotiate their priorities,
and not only their labour. The urban poor should engage
critically in partnerships with non-governmental, public
and private interests, educating them about community concerns
and capacities. People living in poverty have a fundamental
right to participate in decisions which affect their living
and working conditions, but they also have a responsibility
to ensure that their organisations are transparent, democratic,
and representative of diverse community interests, especially
those of women, youth and minorities.
International institutions should adopt a progressive orientation
to public action by recommending the course of action suggested
in this document to governments, the private sector, non-governmental
organisations, and people living in poverty, and supporting
partnerships between them. The international community can
catalyse this process by fostering greater North-South and
South-South dialogue and exchange of experiences, overcoming
the preconceived notions that are associated with the so-called
modernity of the North, and recognising common problems
and shared solutions which transcend geographical boundaries.
Multilateral agencies need to work with the private sector
towards aligning production with the flexible, labour-intensive
and decentralised character of the employment that is now
available to those living in poverty. Financial institutions
should be encouraged by international agencies to decentralise
banking services and to modify the terms and requirements
of collateral, recognising the credit-worthiness of the
poor. International agencies should also foster the creation
and development of new financial institutions targeted specifically
at catering to the needs of the urban poor and harnessing
their potential.
6. The Future of Our Cities: Our Common Future
Urban poverty and its attendant human cost is perhaps the
single greatest challenge of our time. The future of our
towns and cities, which is where most of humanity will live
in the next century, hinges on our tackling it successfully.
The centerpiece of urban policy as we enter the 21st
Century must therefore be the struggle against poverty,
with goals such as the integration of the informal city,
the recovery and democratic use of public space, and the
reversal of the trend towards the concentration of wealth
and opportunities, which so often ends in a spiral of violence.
The struggle against urban poverty is a world challenge.
To succeed, we need to tap the experience of individuals
and organisations in the South as well as in the North,
promoting an exchange that, more than the answers, will
teach us what questions to ask. To this end, people living
in poverty must take part in communications networks, which
are often monopolized by intermediaries and experts. The
role of experts is important, but mechanisms should be developed
to facilitate direct, horizontal, global exchange.
Such horizontal, direct contacts must involve local governments,
the private sector, non-governmental and community organisations.
And if public policies are to respond to real needs, these
must be built out of experience, and their formulation and
implementation must involve the people for whom they are
intended.
To do this, safety nets are not enough. Let us resolve
to invest in the struggle against urban poverty, to invest
in the poor themselves. Let us help people confronted with
poverty in their efforts. New means of communication and
successful experiences demonstrate that this can be done
in a democratic and affordable manner. The struggle against
poverty cannot be relegated to second-class expertise and
technology. It is a huge challenge. It deserves the best.
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