International workshop Venice - March 11-12 1999 Concepts and Paradigms of Urban Management in the Context of Developing Countries
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Carole Rakodi (Department of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University)

"Key elements of a European urban management approach for the developing countries: priority to the poor"

The lessons of experience in implementing projects designed to improve the living conditions of the poor and recent research on the characteristics of urban poverty and deprivation suggest a number of principles on which urban poverty projects should be based, a range of possible components, and possible approaches to project design and implementation. However, these raise a number of issues or dilemmas for potential funders, which may require changes in practice by the latter.

Although I would argue that a specific project focus on poor people is appropriate in many cases, this is never sufficient and may, in certain circumstances, be less effective than city-wide (sectoral?) approaches which fully take into account the needs of the poor. Finally, the nature, extent and dynamics of urban poverty are the outcomes of both the patterns and levels of economic and social development and different levels of policy: macro, meso and local/city level. Urban programmes can only tackle local and some meso-level policy issues, so they will not be more than ameliorative if the causes of poverty are left intact, redistributive issues are not tackled, and/or the impacts of macro-economic and national level meso-policies outweigh the impacts of urban programmes.

1. Improving the wellbeing of the poor

a) principles of project/programme design

• involvement of local primary and secondary stakeholders, with significant roles in decision making for all
• project/programme design based on adequate understanding of the situation and priorities of the poor
• local ownership
• institutionalisation, to ensure sustainable operation and maintenance and make replication possible
• involvement of local primary and secondary stakeholders in developing criteria for evaluation.

b) potential components - their aims:

• promoting the growth of good quality urban employment
• enabling people to take advantage of opportunities in the formal wage sector
• direct employment promotion
• creating an enabling environment for the informal sector and enabling people to take advantage of the opportunities
• creating opportunities for poor households to increase their physical assets
• provision of basic utilities and services . support to community self-organisation
• provision of access to legal entitlements and safeguards
• establishment and maintenance of safety nets accessible to the most vulnerable and the poor in times of stress or crisis

c) possible approaches to programme/project design and implementation

• collaborative approaches to design and implementation at city and community levels
• demand-driven, at both community and city levels
• establishment of mechanisms for negotiated decision making, coordination, disbursement of funds to support implementation of local action plans, and monitoring and evaluation

d) issues for external funders

• support for bottom-up initiatives
• funding participatory approaches to urban poverty reduction
• the need for multisectoral interventions
• support for a special project unit vs ongoing administration
• constraints on urban poverty reduction project approaches

2. Strengthening urban management

The critical task is to define appropriate allocation of responsibilities for urban management tasks at city level, between the public sector, NGOs, CBOs and large and small scale private sector organisations, followed by support to strengthen the capacity of these actors to fulfil their roles. There is scope for supporting individual actors, but advantages in working with more than one together, as a basis for developing new working relationships. Principles of sustainability and replication may imply support to capacity building agencies instead of/as well as to individual local authorities.

Priority sectors for support:

• land administration and management
• finance: revenue generation, planning and budgeting, and administration
• development of strategic planning and policy making capacity
• local economic development: developing knowledge and understanding, support to appropriate initiatives
• infrastructure and service provision

3. Support to national governments

There is an important role for policy dialogue (both with the governments of recipient countries and within donor agencies) in

• the design of macro-economic policies to take account of their impact on the demand for urban labour and real incomes
• the design (and support for the implementation) of meso-policies to compensate for any poverty-increasing effects of macro-policies, encouraging specific attention to be paid to their impact on the urban poor
• the establishment of legal, policy and financial frameworks for autonomous local government for urban areas.

Responsible ministries need to follow the latter with provision of policy guidance, technical support, and an appropriate level of financial resources to local authorities, as well as appropriate checks and balances on the exercise of their powers and responsibilities by local authorities. There may be a role for external agencies in assisting central government agencies provide these.