Beginning June 3, representatives from 185 countries are gathering in the Turkish city of Istabul to discuss the problems of cities at the last of the series of International conferences held in the last five years.  Habitat II, the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements, popularly known as the City Summit, will consider as series of questions revolving round the urban habitat.

The major preoccupation of many governments, particularly developing countries, is the runaway growth of their larger cities.  By 2015,there will be 33 megacities in the world, that is cities with populations exceeding 10 million.  In 1950, there were only two.  The majority of these are located in the poorer part of the world.  Mumbai ranks fifth after Tokyo, Sao Paulo in Brazil, New York and Mexico City in the 25 megacities recorded last year.  But as its rate of growth is several percentage points higher than these cities.  It is likely to outpace them by the turn of the century and is expected to be the second largest megacity in the world. 

Apart from their existing size, the growth rate of these megacities is a principal cause for worry.  For what this guarantees is that even what little is being done to expand the infrastructure and other basic facilities is not enough and is always too late.  The five fastest gorwing megacities are all located in the developing world.  They are, in the order of rate of growth, Dhaka, Lagos, Buenos Aires, Karachi and Mumbai. 

The most pressing urban issues facing the poorer countries are the direct outcome of their economic and development policies.  Years of neglect of rural areas, and a lopsided policy of industrialisation that creates heavy concentrations in a few areas, have led to large scale migration to cities.  As a result, not just the megacities, but even the medium-sized and smaller cities are facing problems of unplanned and unchecked growth. 

Kalpana Sharma in The Hindu, 03.06.96

URBANISATION is the synonym for development and the other name for modernisation.  The extent of under development in an economy is directly proportionate to the degree of dominance of the rural population.  What signals the ascent of an economy towards a higher standards of utilisation of resources is the progress of urbanisation of its population. 

How does this process of economic development occur? Economic experience all over the developed countries yield the universal lesson that as cities multiply and expand and as people migrate from the villages and the sprawling settlements on river banks to the cities alias concrete jungles, their living conditions improve and their access to the good things of live (which for the poor in India include safe drinking water and elementary hygiency also improves.

Migration to the cities serves thus as a passport to a life of ease and comfort it not dignity and security.  Not only is the drift of population towards the cities identified in the Western ethos of development and civilisation and its progress. There is also the other unquestioned formulation that there is something immutable about the exodus of the rural poor to the cities.  

This year’s report of the United Nations Populations Fund ‘ The State of World Population 1996’  represents a vivid portrait of the global urban predicament and to that extent throws a challenge to the policymakers and citizens concerned to apply their collective thinking and feeling towards the amelioration of the intolerable levles of destitution and deprivation to which millions of people in the overcrowded cities of the developing countries arecondemned despite their valuable economic contribution to the sustenance of these cities.

The population projections in the report only confirm the fears that the overcrowded cities in the developing countries of Asia will buckle under the pressure of the enormous increase in their poulation brought about mostly by migration from the rural areas.  Can economic development (industrialisatin), the growth of the services sector and much worse the proliferation of the low-wage, unskilled, labour-intensive informal sector keep pace with the avalanche of a poulation surge in these cities?  If it is an unequal contest between bulging cities and shrinking budgetary resources in  relation to requirements, how will the problem ever be met?  This is the question which the representatives from 185 countries across the world are expected to address at the Istanbul Summit.

The anatomy of poverty in the developing countries of Asia, Latin America and Aftrica has customarily been identified as a combination of demographic pressure on agriculture or mining, relatively backward technologies in application, underemployment, low productivity, little or no new investment, the painfullyslow process of industrialisation and so forth.  Cities have often been portrayed as the avenues of escape from destitution for the rural poor.

It would not be an erroneous generalisation to say that the quest for development, in most of the newly independent countries in the post-second World War period, took the form of carefully devised planning strategies which aimed at drawing away surplus labour from agriculture and directing them towards cities and urban areas which were emerging as industrial regions.

The realisation then dawned that the uncontrolled proliferation of energy – intensive industrial units was itself creating new forms of deprivation, namely burgeoning slum communities caught in the throes of unhygienic  living aggravated by illiteracy, unemployment, the economic burden of new dependents from the villages joining the slum-dwelleers, and the intractable problme of low wages, alcoholism and its inevitable conocomitant of crime.

That urban poverty has become a grave global concern as evidenced by the HABITAT – II is itself  a grim reminder that povertyin cities despiete its smaller numerical magnitude compared to rural poverty (in countries such as India and Bangladesh, for example) can loom larger in the contemplation of global organisation.  Is it merely the manifestation of the “urban bias” in governance which is almost coextensive with developing countries all over  the world ? 

Habitat II in Istanbul

Straddling east and west, Europe and Asia the magnificient city of Istanbul in Turkey is all set to host the UN Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) or the City Summit as it is known now.  This megacity, with a  population that is estimated to touch 13 million by the end of the century, represents many of the problems that will be discussed at several parallel forum in the course of the next 10 days here.

For instance, Istanbul  is known to have the worst air pollution problems of any city in Europe.  It also represents all the depressing aspects of unplanned growth common in megacities in the developing world; 63 percent of the city’s buildings have not obtained prior planning permissions.  Also typical of other cities of this size, city dwellers have to suffer interminable traffic jams not unlike those in Bangkok or Mexico City.  And again,like other cities, slums proliferate alongside modern high-rises of steel and glass.

Habitat II is the first U.N. Conference after Habitat I which was held in Vancouver, Canada exactly 20 years ago, to focus specifically on the problems of human settlements  Much has changed since then in the world and this is evident in the issues that are featured in this conference.  For one, the days of centralised planning are more or less over in most countries around the world and there is an emphasis on decentralisation and empowering local authorities to deal with city level problems.  Secondly, therole of the state in actual provision of services has been scaled down and greater areas of urban infrastructure are being handed over to the private sector to finance and manage.  And thirdly the “Brown Agenda”, or the urban environment and the emphasis on sustainability has also become an integral part of all discussions on the future of cities.

Controversies

Should the right to housing be acknowledged as a basic human right ? Yes, say developing countries and dozens of representatives of urban poor communities gathered here for the UN Habitat II conference.  No, say the United States and a few other northern countries.

On the second day of this international gathering, the first glimmer of a slight ripple of controversy was evident as Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs),  meeting at the parallel NGO forum, geared up their campaign on housing rights.  At the heart of their campaign is a demand that governments stop all forced evictions of poor communities from urban areas.

Under and evocative seven by five metres canvas painted by the well-known South Korean painter, Mr. Byung-Soo  Choi, a young woman broke down as she narrated to this correspondent what the urban poor in here country have to face during frequent evictions and demolitons, Said Ms. Byung – Sook Oh, “The eviction thugs come at night or in the early hours of the morning, assisted by the police.  When our children are still asleep, they come and demolish our homes.  Our childrn have been terriby affected by sights they have seen, of people being beaten up or t heir mothers and sisters being molested.” Ms. Oh is one of several people, representing eight countries in Asia, who have chosen today, the anniversary of the Tiananamen Square killings in China, to demonstrate for the right to housing and against evictions.

Right to Housing

After a week of  negotiations over the precise words that will be used to express the concept of the right to housing, an  agreement was reached on Saturday at the Habitat II conference on human settlements, allowing many delegates a much-needed respite on Sunday.

Reactions to the compromise formula, which has been just about the only controversy at the confeence have ranged from condemning it as” watered down and useless”  to claims of victory.  But according to Justice Rajinder Sachar, who is  U.N. Special Rapporteur on Housing this conference has disowned what its “parent”.  Habitat I, agreed to 20 years ago.  The earlier conference had agreed that “Adequate shelter is basic human right”, Justice Sachar said, Buat at this conference, the working is highly diluted to the point that it is “confused.”

Rather than clearly stating that housing is a basic human right, the document now talks about “the full and progressive realisation of the right to adequate housing as provided for in international instruments.”  This is vastly different from the U.S. demand that housing be viewed as a component of “an adequate standard of living”  and not as a right on its own.

However, the reason many, including Justice Sachar feel the compromise is a diluted version of the original demand is because it proceeds to qualify the right by, for instance, not laying down clearly the responsibility of the state to implement this right.  Also, in the paragraph guaranteeing security of tenure, it speaks of protection against “forced illegal evictions”.  Non-governmental organisations have been pushing for deletion of the world “illegal”  because they hold that governments, the chief perpetrators of forced evictions, can always justify their action as being “legal”.

Justice Sachar holds that the reason this conference has reneged on the Habitat I wording is because it is now a unipolar world.  When the earlier conference was held in Vancouver, the Cold War was still on, and western power like the U.S. had to conted with other equally powerful, blocs.  In 1996,  there is a little organised resistance to ;the U.S., except from the G-77 and China.  Although the latter have pushed to have the right to housing acknowledged in the document, most of these countries also do not accept the demand of NGOs that the right be justiciable and enforceable.

But, Ms. Corazon Soliman from the Philippines, coordinator of the Asia Pacific team at the Ngo forum, is not as pessimistic as Justice Sachar about the compromising wording.  “It is certainly no cause for dancing in the streets,”  she said, “ and we recognise that  it  is watered down and does not look at questions of enforceablility and holding governments responsible for failure to fulfil the right.”

But she argues, having these words in a U.N. document “allows us to make use of it as an instrument for our own processes in our countries and to make our governments accountable.”  The majority of NGOs, she says, are aware that this will not solve their problems, particularly if they do not succeed in removing the world “ilegal” from the section on forced evictions.

NGOs : Good ideas

Mr. Ramon Fernande from the Phillippines, who is part of a sustainable transport network, pointed out that many Asian cities were investing disproportionate amounts of their budgets in building road networks to accommodate the growing number of private cars. Yet, few were thinking either of the transport needs of the poor, which would include cheap public transport as well as safe pathways fro people to use bicycles, for instance.  Also, in their desire to meet the needs of individual car owners, authorities were overlooking the fact that many of these facilities, whether they were roads or transport hubs were leading to wide-scale displacement of urban poor communities.

While Mr. Fernand’s group is criticising the present transport systems, a group in Australia has launched an “eco-city project”.  On 2.4 hectares of land in the centre of the city of Adelaide in South Australia,  the Halifax eco-city project plans to build a model ecologically sustainable city which uses environmentally acceptable building materials, ensure, recycling of all waste and adopts decentralised technologies.

Innovative schemes by NGOs for women to get food, fodder  and employment

It seems ridiculous that one has to come all  the way to Istanbul to hear about the innovative schemes from India that enable women to have access to land, property, credit or even low cost housing that cuts construction cost by 30 per cent.

While the official India delegation and its wordsmiths are busy crafting the final draft of the Habitat Agenda, it is the NGOs that are providing substance to this international conference of scientists, activists, architects and intellectuals.  It is the NGOs who are  the doers, people with the skills translate policy into action.

While SEWA’s creidt and banking facility for women won one of the 12 best practices awards seven other Indian projects have been included in the 100 best practices of the world.

A slightly nervous Gayatri Menon, project coordinator, Society for Promotion of Area Resources Centres (SPARC) gave a presentation of the Deccan Development Society’s (DDS) marvellous work in enabling scheduled caste women’s collectives in over 60 villages of Medak District of Andhra  Pradesh to have access to land and land-based resources.

Despite some laws that give women right over land, the social fabric of  society prevents women from getting land rights.  Hence the DDS model of collectives getting land rights is worth replicating not just in Andhra  and Maharashtra but all over the country. 

Interestingly, the Ministries of Rural Development and Environment and Forests have schemes that enable women to have access to land and land resources but it is the DDS that has zeroed in on them through women’s groups to transform the lives of the poorest.

The Scheduled Caste Development Corporation in Andhra has a wonderful scheme of subsidised loans to landess SC women to buy agriculural land.  Thanks to the catalytic role of DDS, groups of landless women in 19 villages have bought 350 acres. Each woman owns about an acre of land.

The DDS was able to lobby with the Corporation to relax its rules so that women could buy an acre of land with a loan of Rs. 22,000.  The land available at this rate was arid and women have to work hard to make it productive.  Locating landlords willing to sell land and getting it registered in the name of the woman is cumbersome but the NGO was able to help.

Rukmani Rao of DDS says, “if women farm individually the odds are against them.  By bringing women together, you are stacking the odds in their favour for you bring together different skills, ideas, experience and resources.”

Another innovating scheme working efficiently is the collective leasing of land from landlords for four years and the women cultivating it.  The women contribute 25 per cent of the lease money and the DDS provides the remaining 75 per cent as seed money. 

The scheme, in operation in 56 villages, enables landless SC women to meet their needs of food, fodder and employment.  Farmers are happy to lease the land because they know they will get back a healthier piece of land.  The success of the scheme has made the State extend its Development of  Women and Child in Rural Areas (DWCRA) programme to get these land leases for poor SC women.

Another excellent DDS scheme is the Community Grain Fund by which an eighth of the money spent by the State on the Public Distribution System is given to the poor farmers (for three years) to regenerate fallow lands they have acquired through distribution of surplus land.

Not only are more arid lands getting cultivated, but the community grain stock is richer and in the lean season grain is available on the poorest at Rs. 2 a Kg.

Currently, the project is operational in 31 villages on 2873 acres of land.  There are 1698 beneficiaries.  The women’s collectives manage the entire programme from identifying farmers whose lands will be taken up, to managing the community grain bank.  They manage the programme, make payments to farmers and collect the grains after harvest.

Similarly, women’s sangams are raising seedlings for afforestation with the support of the National Wasteland programme and the social forestry division.

Kerala is one State constantly churning out excellent innovative schemes and quite a few of them are put together by its IAS officers.  The Kerala State Nirmithi Kendra (KENSIK) scheme, also selected as a best practice, is the brain child of C.V. Ananda Bose.

Nirmithi Building Material Production Centres set up across the State, make available fair priced building material and impart training in terracota building materials.

Money Matters

In an interview to a news agency here the Secretary-general of the conference.  Dr. Wally N’Dow said, “we do not want to raise any one’s expectations.”  Yet the Istanbul declaration aims at resolving some of the problems facing nearl;y 500 million homeless or poorly housed people worldwide.

If infact, the conference was to calculate the money needed for housing in villages, townships and cities, it would work out to $700 billion, says N’Dow.  “How can you expect western donors to pay such colossal s;ums when they are not paying their dues to the United Nations.”

N’Dow expects most developing countires to find the monies themselves by setting priorities.  Aid cannot be the number one answer for development, he says,” We are allmature enough now after 30 years of  disappointment to know that aid and gifts do not develop anybody.”

The Finale

Istanbul :        The United Nations Habitat II Conference on cities and urbanisation being held here came to sudden life on its last day, with the presence of the charismatic and flamboyant.  Fidel Castro, president of Duba.

Dressed in a dark blue-suit and without his usual battle-fatigues, the salt-and pepper bearded Cuban President was heard in hushed silence. “How many heads of state and government from the developed countries are attending his meeting today?”, he asked tellingly, pointing to the embarrassing  fact that not a single leader from the North had come for the Conference.  Those who have almost destroyed the planet and poisoned the air, the seas, the rivers and the soil are presently showing little concern over saving manking.”

However, the delegates really st up when Mr. Castro exhorted them.  “We  should proclaim  in full force that we have the right to breathe clean air, drink non-contaminated water, be provided a dsecent job, be fed on healthy food, be educated, have our health taken  care of an dbe less poor when others are richer… it is only fair for every family to have suitable housing and for that to be considered one of man’s universal rights …. we should not be exploited, we should not be despised or treated with repulsive exenophobia.”  It was all great, rousing stuff which got even the cynical medial applauding.