Empowering the urban
poor: The case of “Kaantabay sa Kauswagan” Program in
Wilfredo
B. Prilles, Jr.
Department
of Land Economy,
Introduction
On October 1, 2000, the eve of World
Habitat Day, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) held
the African launch of the Global Campaign for Secure Tenure (GCST) in
One of the invited guests to keynote the
launch is the former city mayor of Naga, a small city in central
The Setting
As a city, Naga is one of the
Over the years, Naga has grown to become
the religious, educational and business centre of Bicol, one of the country's 16
administrative regions. Today, it has
developed a reputation for being a centre for innovations in local
governance. In 1998, Naga received the
Dubai International Award for having one of the Top 10 Best Practices worldwide
in its unique participatory planning practices.
In December 1999, Asiaweek
cited it one of four most improved cities in
Program
Background
Conceptually, the program (hereinafter
referred to as Kaantabay) is a form of social housing. At its core is securing
tenurial rights for urban poor beneficiaries.
This is accomplished by acquiring the landholding they are occupying
through various innovative schemes, with the city government playing a critical
facilitative and mediating role. When
negotiations are completed, the beneficiaries are then able to amortize their
homelots under very affordable terms through community mortgage. When the landholding is fully paid up,
property rights to individual homelots are transferred to beneficiaries,
thereby facilitating asset building by the poor.
But Kaantabay is more than just a simple
social housing initiative by the local state. As an urban poverty program, it
addresses the difficult challenges being faced by local authorities and urban
managers, particularly in developing countries.
Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka, UN-HABITAT executive director, described some
of these challenges:
Lack of access to land, and
fear of eviction, epitomise a more pervasive exclusion from mainstream social,
economic and civic opportunities, especially for women. Precarious conditions
generate poverty as people have no future in which to invest. As their numbers
keep mounting, the prospects for our collective sustainable urban development
look bleak. (UN-HABITAT 2003a, 6)
Crafted in response to a petition for
government assistance by nine urban poor organizations during a visit to Naga
by then President Corazon Aquino late in 1987, the Kaantabay program appears to
have gone a long way in meeting the challenges described by Tibaijuka.
In 1994, it won the Gantimpalang
Panlingkod Pook (Galing Pook) award as one of the country’s 20 most outstanding
local government programs. In 1996, the
UN Centre for Housing Settlements (UNCHS, now UN-HABITAT) cited it as one of
the world’s 40 best practices during the second City Summit in
Research
Questions
The emerging experience arising from the
campaign’s implementation worldwide, particularly in Latin America,
These key principles and concepts already
go beyond UN-HABITAT’s definition of security of tenure, well into the realm of
sustainable urban development and good governance. Essentially, they represent a bridging of its
two parallel global campaigns, which is what the Naga experience is all about.
In view of the foregoing, a case can be
made for subjecting the Kaantabay program to formal policy evaluation. By predating
the GCST by around 10 years, it can provide a useful benchmark for the
effectiveness and efficiency of the global advocacy. By addressing as well the good urban
governance (GUG) norms as envisioned under UN-HABITAT’s parallel global
campaign, it can contribute to ongoing GUG research, especially for developing
countries. By embodying the essential features of a poverty reduction program
as conceptualized by international development agencies, particularly the World
Bank, it can inform and enrich the growing body of literature on poverty.
But before embarking on such exercise, a
close look at the “secure tenure” program is needed to lay down the groundwork
for a more robust, systematic evaluation.
This paper therefore seeks to examine the program by seeking answers to
the following questions: a) How does the “Kaantabay sa Kauswagan” program work?
What has it accomplished? b) What conditions impelled the need to introduce the
program in
As pointed out above, the Kaantabay
program is quite unique in the sense that it is a social housing program with
strong poverty and governance dimensions.
As such, there is a need to assess it from a multi-dimensional perspective,
factoring in the economic, social and political elements in the analysis.
Viewed at another level, the program
represents the interplay between three local institutions: the housing market,
the local state and a segment of the local civil society (i.e. the urban
poor). The situation therefore lends to
institutional analysis as the most appropriate analytical approach, similar to
the framework used by O’Sullivan and Gibb (2003). It is envisioned that the
combination and triangulation of these perspectives will contribute to a richer
and more textured scrutiny of the program.
The Local
Housing Market
The housing market in Naga mirrors that
of the
Nationally, government data shows that up
to 40% of the total household population nationwide rely on informal housing
mechanisms to meet their shelter needs (HUDCC n.d.). Independent estimates by
the Global Urban Observatory place the number of slum dwellers a shade higher
at 44% (UN-HABITAT 2003b, 88). This
indicates the presence of considerable informal settlements, characterized by
congestion and very poor living conditions, throughout most urban areas of the
country.
Of the 40%, the bottom 12% relies
exclusively on informal housing, which is financed either through self-help or
through informal credit. The rest are
able to access some type of formal financing from existing government programs
for low-income households to augment whatever they can raise informally.
Locally, official data show that in 1995,
Naga's housing backlog stood at 6,400 and was projected to increase to 7,400 by
2000 without strong government intervention.
The backlog is mainly a function of access to formal financing. Mortgage financing is largely untapped,
covering only 8% of total dwellings in the city, and underdeveloped, indicated
by a low 8% mortgage-to-credit ratio (ADB 2001, 215-220).
In terms of tenure, there is a marked
difference between housing and homelot ownership. While 72% of households own their housing
unit, only 44% actually own their respective homelots. The difference is not as pronounced among
renters, as only 18% rents their housing unit as against 23% who rent their
homelots.
More than half of the total housing stock
(52%) was built by the households themselves, often with help from friends and
relatives. Only around 27% were purchased from the formal housing market, again
indicating its limited extent in addressing shelter needs. About 18% were built
by hired contractors or skilled workers, usually in close coordination with the
homeowner.
Program
Mechanics
The existence of many non-government
(NGOs) and people’s organizations (POs) in Naga has ensured that all major city
programs are founded on partnerships and participation.
Conceptual framework: Partnerships and
participation
Unlike other Philippine local authorities
who were reluctant in working with NGOs and POs, the city government seriously
implemented provisions of the 1991 Local Government Code promoting partnerships
with these organizations. After the Code
was passed, Naga was among the first to pursue the mandate on NGO
accreditation. During its first run in
1993, close to 80 applied with the city council and were duly accredited.
The emphasis on partnerships and
participation is evident in the governance framework developed by the Robredo
administration (Fig. 2). In this framework, three elements form the foundation
of GUG:
• Progressive perspective.
This component lies at the apex of the triangle, being a function of
leadership which the local administration must provide. Among others, a
progressive perspective seeks to build prosperity for the community at large,
tempered by an enlightened perception of the poor.
• Functional
partnerships. These are vehicles
that enable the local authority to tap community resources for priority
undertakings, in the process multiplying its capacity and enabling it to
overcome resource constraints that usually hamper government.
• Participation. These are mechanisms ensure long-term
sustainability by generating broad-based stakeholdership and community
ownership by both organized groups and individuals over local
undertakings.
Operational framework: Physical, social,
financial dimensions
Figure 3 shows how the program’s focus on
the homelot is a strategic choice that forms the basis for organizing housing
efforts by the local state. To maximize
scarce resources, it delimits program coverage only to the urban poor sector in
Naga and the homelot as core of the assistance package for each household.
The physical and financial dimensions of
program operations are detailed by Prilles (2004), but the following points are
worth underscoring:
• The program has fashioned innovative
approaches to land acquisition, community development and project financing
which enabled it to achieve near universal coverage. In the process, it
overcame resource limitations that handicap national and local government
authorities.
• As of October 31, 2001, it has covered
a total of 6,940 urban poor households, representing 27 percent of the total
citywide. In terms of direct benefit, 67
percent of the households covered are on their way to acquiring their property
titles, having benefited from 27 completed projects under the program. Negotiations are ongoing for 14 more projects
that will cover the remaining 33 percent. Thus, for roughly 2 out of every 3
urban poor households in Naga, agreement has been reached between the
landowner, the urban poor association and the city government; the tenurial status
of the occupants is already secured; and they are in the process of amortizing
their homelots.
• Management
and financial strategies—particularly mechanisms of cost recovery and the
collection of project equity from beneficiaries—are expected to sustain
Kaantabay’s long-term viability, on top of other steps that promote program
institutionalization, community ownership, and participation.
Social aspect: Community
organizing and tripartism
At the social level, the promotion of
partnerships and participation is embodied in two program thrusts: community
organizing and tripartism.
Community
organizing
Putting together a group of potential
urban poor beneficiaries is a critical requirement under the Kaantabay
program. A policy of dealing only with
urban poor organizations, not individuals, compels interested applicants to
take the initiative in organizing themselves.
In implementing the program, the
non-government sector has played a key role in social preparation and community
organizing. The city government recognizes that these areas lie outside its
core competence. The partnership between
City Hall and the COPE Foundation therefore made sense. As a result of COPE’s efforts, there are now
close to 80 urban poor associations belonging to the Naga City Urban Poor
Federation (NCUPF) compared with the only nine in 1989 when Kaantabay begun.
Tripartism
The program's effectiveness stems from a
tripartite approach to problem resolution at the project level, involving the
a) city government and other national government agencies; b) urban poor
associations, aided by NGOs and POs; and c) private landowners. This mechanism enables the involved parties
to sit down and cooperate in solving their disputes.
By adopting a pro-poor bias, the city
government gives the program strength and credibility. This bias is particularly manifested in its
treatment of urban poor associations as "partner-beneficiaries" which
compels them to actively participate in every step of the process. Meanwhile, national government agencies
extend operational and financial support to the program's land acquisition
thrust.
Urban poor associations, on the other
hand, signify their support and commitment to the project through their
willingness to negotiate get organized and raise equity if necessary, including
money for land acquisition and labour for urban upgrading.
Finally, landowners show their
cooperation through willingness to explore more peaceful means of settling
tenurial disputes as an alternative to ejection of urban poor occupants and
demolition of their makeshift shelters.
Participation at
the city level
Citywide, empowerment came with the
creation of two entities that institutionalized the sector’s participation in
policymaking at the program level and beyond. Aside from defining the city’s
urban development directions, the Naga City Urban Development and Housing Board
sets policies governing the Kaantabay program. It is composed of twenty
members, half of whom comes from the government and the other half from civil society,
which is equally shared by NGO representatives and the NCUPF.
In
1997, a landmark legislation called the Empowerment Ordinance mandated the city
government to initiate the establishment of a system of partnership where the
federation of these NGOs and POs into the Naga City People’s Council (NCPC) was
encouraged. This institutionalized a
system of self-regulation among their ranks.
Among others, the NCPC was empowered to
•
appoint
NGO representatives to local special bodies of the city government
•
observe,
vote and participate in the deliberation, conceptualization, implementation and
evaluation of projects, activities and programs of the city government,
•
propose
legislations, participate and vote at the committee level of the city council,
and
•
act
as the people's representatives in the exercise of their constitutional right
to information on matters of public concern and access to official records and
documents.
Analysis
What conditions impelled the need to
introduce the program in
Two recently published research works
that touched on the Kaantabay program offer similar accounts: Problems
associated with urbanization in the late 1980s have cropped up, affecting the
urban poor. The program was fashioned
when a new administration that took over proved to be more responsive to their
concerns.
Tumbaga and Sabado (2003) devoted an
entire chapter to the program as part of its case study on Naga. The case study is meant to exemplify a
Philippine local authority that is pursuing a program of “growth with equity”
through its own initiatives and resources, and mostly without support from the
national government. Together with case
studies on two other local governments, their work sought to understand local
governance amidst demands of local growth and national policies related to
local industrialization.
Kawanaka (2002), on the other hand,
examined local power dynamics to illustrate the role of the state and
institutions in local politics. By
looking at these institutions, not through conventional sociocultural
perspectives but within the framework of the state and urbanization, he
explained the political machine as an elite-centered institution for maximizing
the elite’s control—the predominant elite in this case being the elected
political leader. In a chapter
describing the political machine, the program was categorized as one of its
components aimed at gaining the support and loyalty of the poor using state
resources under the mayor’s disposal.
Market Failure: The Case for Government
Intervention
These studies, together with
other documents on the program, will be examined in the succeeding
sections. This section explores the
economics of the Kaantabay program, which is lacking thus far.
Figure 4 shows the local housing supply
and demand in
But it is the failure of the formal
housing market to address the need of a greater majority of the local society
(represented by the area bounded by S1S2DC)
that provides the justification for government intervention in housing
provision through Kaantabay. Locally,
this market failure stems from the information asymmetries, intergenerational
externality and distributional issues described by Whitehead (2003). The situation is also exacerbated by the
private capital markets’ unwillingness to extend loans to the urban poor, who
are characterized as high-risk borrowers, furthering their exclusion.
Moreover, the graph demonstrates
allocative efficiency as another value-added of the program. By expanding housing services towards
universal coverage, the shift in supply curve from OS1 to OS2
in effect causes a downward shift of the breakeven point from X to Y. As a result, all housing units produced by
private developers will break even at the very least, enabling government to
realign subsidies wholly towards the informal sector.
Beyond Welfare Economics: Empowerment Of
The Urban Poor
The advantage of using multi-dimensional
analysis in investigating complex programs such as Kaantabay can be seen when
one considers its social aspect to enrich the economic analysis presented
above.
Take for instance Kawanaka’s reduction of
the program merely as an element of the city mayor’s political machine, using
state-centered institutions as a key independent variable in the analysis. The approach might be an improvement over the
traditional sociocultural framework used in analyzing power relations in the
Philippine context, and probably empirically valid in its own right. But when one uses other socially-oriented
frameworks to inform the analysis, its limitations become obvious.
Under Sen’s (1999) capabilities theory
and Moser’s (1998) vulnerability framework, for example, the Kaantabay program
would easily qualify as a key urban poverty intervention as it addresses the
personal and tenure insecurity dimension of deprivation and the productive
assets dimension of vulnerability.
Beyond the economic potential in freeing
“dead capital” as
In presenting four case studies of gains
made by urban poor groups in the
This non-partisan body was composed of
NGOs, POs, and private sector groups, who could propose legislation and carry
out additional duties. Soon Council-designated NGOs were sitting on boards,
councils, committees, task forces and other special bodies of the city
government. The Ordinance also provided for representation in the city
legislature of elected non-agricultural labour, women and urban poor. (Racelis
2003, 15)
To be sure, the program suffers from its
own weaknesses, including issues on long-term financial sustainability,
replicability and political dynamics as Tumbaga and Sabado have noted. But
viewed another way, they saw Kaantabay as “an exemplary way by which a local
government could manage the social costs inflicted on the urban poor by urban
growth and development.” (Tumbaga and Sabado 2003, 350)
Managing Urban Development: Bridging the
Ideal and the Real
The political dynamics associated with
the program fits well the managerialist perspective of Knox’s (1984) urban
political economy as well as Healy’s communicative planning theory that
underscores mediation between competing interests among stakeholders (Rydin
1998, 12).
Knox postulates that looking at activities
and ideologies of professional decision-makers, in this case the city’s elected
leaders led by the city mayor, contributes to a better understanding of
sociospatial processes, including the development of policy. Applied to Healy’s framework, decision making
takes place amidst competing demands and therefore requires a balancing act on
the part of the political leadership.
A classic case, which Tumbaga and Sabado
documented well, is the conflict between Robredo and a group of 221 urban poor
households who refused relocation and were thus displaced when the city
government implemented the “leveraged land sharing plus” project. In this instant case, the entry of the LCC
mall development forced the city to prioritize economic growth at the expense
of equity insofar as the affected households are concerned. “That the city government was perceived by
urban poor groups to have taken the side of the landowners/developers was an
ironic twist as the city government prided itself for being ‘pro-poor,’ or at
least being impartial in its role as mediator.”
(Tumbaga and Sabado 2003, 304-305)
The city government, however, believed
their actions and decisions were justified in the search for the most
beneficial arrangement for the city.
Succeeding events, including favourable decisions by local courts and
national agencies, as well as general public support for the city government’s
position, appeared to have confirmed this.
These controversies notwithstanding, the
Robredo administration has on the balance demonstrated a commitment to the
public good, guided by the principle of bridging the ideal and the real. For instance, the land acquisition approaches
it prided itself as having implemented under the Kaantabay program are conceptually
nothing new. In fact, Presidential
Decree No. 1517 issued by President Marcos in the 1970s authorized the state to
use most of the very same techniques listed in Table 5. The only difference is that while the
national government has failed to pursue them, Naga actually did under the
program.
Of course, at one level, Kawanaka is
correct in saying that holding elective position in the Philippine context
means having to survive regularly held elections, compelling power holders to
set up and maintain systems for distributing benefits, i.e. the political
machine, in order to win. But in the
same vein, Racelis pointed out that “genuine participatory governance is good
politics and good politics gets good politicians re-elected.” James Jacob, a
former city councilor-turned-congressman and close Robredo ally, is more
straightforward: “The whole Kaantabay sa Kauswagan program was motivated by
politics. As a politician, you can
ensure your survival by buying votes, or you can improve your performance as a
public servant. By helping the urban
poor, we are also helping ourselves as politicians” (Tumbaga and Sabado 2003,
339). In other words, paraphrasing Adam
Smith, it is all a matter of enlightened self-interest.
The 2003 World Development Report echoes
this, pointing out that
For cities and towns to realize the
promises of a better life…they need stronger institutions to provide wide
access to assets and to balance interests that ensure the provision of public
goods. Such institutions are central to an urban governance that is inclusive of
all residents, responsive to their needs, and conducive to careful management
of natural resources and wastes. (World Bank 2003)
Summary
The foregoing analysis of the economic,
social and political dimensions enables a richer, more textured characterization
of the Kaantabay program. The economics of the city government’s intervention
in the local housing market—anchored on market failure and attendant
distributional issues that exclude a greater majority from accessing housing
services—is not only shown to be consistent with existing literature on the
subject; it also validated the necessary precondition for such intervention as
voiced out by the affected urban poor sector.
A multi-level social analysis that
brought together complementary frameworks of deprivation, vulnerability and
social exclusion bolsters the contention that the program is not merely a tool
of the local political elite’s effort to stay in power. On the contrary, it was demonstrated to have
both empowered the urban poor, thereby addressing social exclusion, and
strengthened their security of tenure and access to productive assets as
envisioned under the UN-HABITAT’s global advocacy.
Finally, analysis of the political
dynamics attending the program has affirmed the implicit mediation function of
state agents on top of their traditional leadership roles, requiring a
balancing act especially by those holding political power. A commitment towards the public good,
anchored on the Smithian concept of enlightened self-interest, is also shown to
be politically beneficial.
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