Comparative Urban Studies Project

Comparative Urban Studies Project

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Washington DC, USA

Forum on Sustainable Urban Infrastructure and Service Delivery for the Urban Poor

Regional Focus: Asia

Dates: June 24-25, 2004

Location: New Delhi, India

Objectives

• Inform participants and raise awareness of the importance of sustainable infrastructure and service delivery for the urban poor; Audience participants will include stakeholders with an interest in promoting innovative and sustainable infrastructure and services for the urban poor. Stakeholders include: 1) mayors from small, intermediate, large, and mega cities, 2) city and metropolitan council members, 3) managers of urban infrastructure projects, 4) heads of urban planning agencies, 5) leaders of civil society and community groups, 6) academic researchers and urban specialists 7) development practitioners, and 8) representatives from donor agencies including USAID, ADB, and World Bank; Panelists will include both academics and practitioners.

• To promote increased awareness and scholarly work (to include case studies) on sustainable infrastructure and service delivery for the urban poor in Asia, to include highlighting existing or planned programs
• To suggest new areas of research and activity in the field of infrastructure and planning that are emerging in the region out of the experience of local governments, development agencies, and their partners and that can be considered and/or applied in other regions
• To give prominence to the importance of sustainable infrastructure and service delivery in urban areas within the region in order to inform stakeholders and influence policy
• To expand the reach of these innovations so that many people and areas can benefit
• To increase collaboration and partnerships to promote complimentary urban programming

Introduction

The Comparative Urban Studies Project (CUSP) of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (WWIC) in Washington, D.C., USA is organizing a two-day Forum on “Urban Infrastructure and Public Service Delivery for the Urban Poor” that will be held in New Delhi, India on June 24-25, 2004. The Forum is co-sponsored with the National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) of India. Support for the Forum comes from a core grant on urbanization and development from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) administered by the Woodrow Wilson Center. This grant came originally from the Office of Urban Programs/USAID.

About 60 participants invited to the Forum include a mixture of scholars, city and metropolitan government officials, civil society and community leaders, urban planning practitioners, urban administrators, and development practitioners. Papers have been commissioned from scholars and practitioners interested in Asian urban development from Asia and North America. Case studies based on actual experiences in providing infrastructure and basic urban services for the urban poor will be presented at the Forum.

Background to the Meeting

Urbanization is one of the most powerful and insistent emerging realities of the 21st century. Asia, with 60 per cent of the world’s population has a low level of urbanization (37 per cent) but the region is home to 11 of the 17 largest cities in the world. At present, Asia has 1.3 billion urban dwellers and these are projected to double to 2.6 billion by 2030. Although the growth rate of mega-cities in Asia has been declining, the population of small and medium-sized cities continues to grow at almost double the rate of the general population. By 2030, it is expected that about 54 per cent of the Asian population will be residing in cities and towns that, in most instances already lack the basic urban infrastructure and services needed to serve their current populations.

Cities are the engines of economic growth and the agents of cultural and political transformations in developing countries. However, if they are not planned and governed well, their economic and social development roles cannot be optimized. One of the most important elements in urban development is the availability of adequate infrastructure and urban services like water and sanitation, transport, housing, and solid waste collection and disposal. Access to urban services is a key factor for improved quality of life among urban dwellers, particularly to the poor who make up from a fifth to more than half of citizens in Asian cities. The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank have also concluded that the lack of adequate urban infrastructure and basic services is one of the factors that discourage domestic and international investments in Asian cities.

In almost all Asian cities, the urban poor have initiated and carried out self-help and community based infrastructure projects such as: small-scale water and sanitation systems, garbage collection, recycling and composting, low cost housing, squatter regularization and slum upgrading. The poor have relied on walking, bicycling and taking informal para-transit transport modes for mobility. In general, however, most Asian urban authorities pursuing infrastructure policies and programs do not integrate these projects of the urban poor in mainstream urban infrastructure and services. With a few exceptions, city and metropolitan water and sewerage systems are not linked to self-help and community-based sanitation schemes. Solid waste collection and disposal systems based on open dumps, sanitary landfills and incineration often do not consider the garbage collecting, sorting, recycling and composting activities of the urban poor. Transport schemes focused on bus and rail rapid transit systems and subways have inadequate linkages with para-transit modes that are mainly used by, and provide employment for, the urban poor. Public and private commercial housing are pursued independently of the efforts of the urban poor to house themselves and improve their communities.

Improvements in quality of life and human welfare in urban areas, however, cannot occur unless the poor have wider access to infrastructure and better quality services and their community-based and voluntary efforts are integrated into larger infrastructure and urban services systems. Urban specialists agree that services for the poor can only be truly successful when they include all people and when planners and administrators take a comprehensive view of development. According to the World Development Report 2004, there are three ways to improve services for the poor: increasing poor clients choice and participation in service delivery, increasing the poor citizen’s voice, and rewarding the effective and penalizing the ineffective delivery of services to poor people. Innovative service delivery is not enough, what are needed are ways of expanding the reach of these innovations so that many people and areas can benefit. In order to achieve this, an emphasis on the role of information as a stimulant for public action, as a catalyst for change, and as an input to making other reforms work is crucial to the success of improved service delivery. In addition to improved information exchange, citizens need to be better informed about standards, norms, and costs of service delivery, including externalities such as the effects and impact of infrastructure and service delivery systems on the physical and social environment.

Description

This Forum will focus on how the urban poor in cities and towns can have access to safe, reliable, and affordable infrastructure and urban services. Cities of all sizes will be included, small, intermediate, large, and very large mega-cities, with a particular focus on Asia. Key issues to be discussed will include how the urban poor can benefit from small scale and large infrastructure projects, with particular emphasis on the accessibility and affordability of such services on the part of the urban poor. Panels and papers will include experience-based case studies as well as examples of community organized and civil society managed initiatives to improve access, quality, and affordability of services to the urban poor.

Some of the topics to be included in the Forum include, but are not limited to the following:

1. Urban transport Systems – the economic viability of various transport modes, affordability and access from the perspective of the urban poor, efficiency in enhancing mobility, and effects and impact of transport modes on the lives of the urban poor and the environment. Focus on integrating transport modes generally used by the urban poor in comprehensive metropolitan-wide transport systems. Topics for discussion may include:
2. How walking and bicycle riding can be integrated in urban transport systems
3. Improvements of para-transit systems (motorized tricycles, two- and three-wheelers, mini taxis, jeepneys) and their role in a metropolitan transport system
4. Private and public bus systems and how they can be made more efficient, affordable and accessible to the urban poor
5. How light and heavy rail and bus rapid transit systems can integrate schemes that benefit the urban poor in metropolitan-wide transport systems

1. Solid Waste Collection and Disposal – advantages and disadvantages of various methods for collection and disposal of solid waste; how the urban poor are positively or negatively affected by various modes; the environmental effects and impact of various modes. Focus will be on issues such as:
2. How community-based collection, recovery, sorting, composting and recycling systems can be improved and how they can be integrated into larger solid waste collection and disposal schemes such as open dumps, sanitary land fills, and incineration systems
3. How integrated systems, including energy production and use of waste as an input to agricultural production can be designed to include schemes that benefit the urban poor.

1. Water and Sanitation – appropriate scale of water and sanitation systems, effects and impact of various systems on the urban poor, how to increase access of the urban poor to water and sanitation services. Focus will be on issues such as:
2. The effectiveness of small scale, independent water and sanitation systems carried out by urban poor communities
3. How small-scale and community-based water and sanitation schemes can be linked to metropolitan-scale water, sewerage, drainage, flood control, and waste treatment systems
4. What have been the effects and impact of privatization of water and sewerage schemes on the lives of the urban poor?

1. Housing and basic urban services - evaluation of various approaches for making affordable housing and basic services more accessible to the urban poor. Focus will be on:
2. The effectiveness of community upgrading and sites and services schemes in providing housing and basic urban services for the urban poor.
3. Have public housing programs adequately responded to the needs of the urban poor?
4. Is there a role for private commercial housing in meeting the housing and service needs of the urban poor?

1. Urban and regional planning and urban management – inclusion of the urban poor in planning, scaling up, coordinating, and financing urban infrastructure.
2. Master planning and comprehensive strategic planning approaches and how they include the urban poor in the planning process
3. Decentralization of urban functions to local government units, role of the urban poor in decentralization schemes.
4. How to achieve better coordination in planning and managing urban infrastructure and services so that adequate attention is given to various ways to improve the lives of the urban poor.