So anyone who’s taken INDEV 387 will remember Slum/Shack
dwellers International… and how my inner planning nerd came out when I heard
about them. It wanted to write about them because I just think the whole
premise of their organization is brilliant. They are pretty much the reason I
decided to make my blog about urban planning initiatives.
In a nutshell, SDI is a network of organizations in 33
countries that use SDI’s global influence to help further their local
initiatives. They focus on the localized needs of slum residents to advance
their common goal of creating “pro-poor” cities. The poor are notoriously
excluded from the economies and politics of cities, and SDI wants to change
that. They provide a medium for slum residents to engage with their governments
, so that cities can harness the benefits of urbanization. To quote from their
website, “When communities and
authorities learn together and produce developmental outcomes together, they
are able to reach many more communities than the top-down initiatives that some
countries attempt. Further, when communities own the process of upgrading, they
are able to ensure that it is sustainable and continues to grow over time”. SDI
believes in managing the growth of arrival cities by putting the urban poor at
the heart of strategies for development. Can you see why I think they’re brilliant
yet?
First of all, SDI really gets what the future of poverty is
going to be. All the estimates say the world is over 50% urban, and will
increase to 60% by 2030. And where is urban growth the fastest? Developing
countries of course. The Global Health Observatory estimates that between 1995
and 2005, 165 00 people a day were moving to the cities of the developing
world. The image that people will have of a person in poverty will no longer be
a rural farmer struggling to produce enough food for their family… it will be an
aspiring entrepreneur trying to start a business from their cardboard shack in
a slum.
Second of all, SDI is focused on bottom-up initiatives. In
other words, they want the poor involved in, and informing, the decision making
process. Just like their website says, involving locals makes sense because it ensures
that the initiative reaches as many people as possible, that it’s embraced and
that it’s sustainable. This is something I’ve heard time and again as a
development student… if you just tell the poor what to do, any progress you
make towards solving their problems will disappear when you do. Community
involvement has kind of become a standard requirement for development
initiatives for me, and SDI clearly understands why involvement is so
important. When I wrote a paper about the work SDI is doing in Brazil, I
discovered it’s the locally-run savings groups they inspired that have been
their biggest success in slum improvement. That doesn’t surprise me one bit.
If you want to learn more about SDI, here’s there website. I
highly recommend checking it out: http://www.sdinet.org/about-what-we-do/
Here’s the GHO page about urbanization… also a great read.
Gives you a good summary of the scale/pace that urbanization is happening at: http://www.sdinet.org/about-what-we-do/
So what are your thoughts on the urbanizing third world? How
do you think we should deal with this massive rural-urban migration? What do
you think of SDI?
I think SDI seems like a great organization, particularly that they empower people to help themselves rather than dictating what needs to be done.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the growing populations in developing countries, do you think urbanization will slow the birth rates of countries down to where the growth rate levels out?
Great question Darrelle! I don't think anyone really knows the answer. I mean, intuitively it makes sense, right? Urban lifestyle is healthier than rural lifesyle = more babies live + not as many children needed (because families aren't working on farms where those extra children used to be needed) = lower birthrate = stable growth rate. It's the demographic transition model we've seen over and again. BUT, I think this may not happen in developing world cities (at least for a long time) for 3 reasons. 1) rural-urban migration, right now, is just moving poverty to cities not eliminating it 2)Slums breed disease and other health issues so mortality rates are high 3)The poor continue to move into cities, at unprecedented rates. Unless cities embrase the rural-urban migration and make the poor part of the cities (as Slum Dwellers International is doing), then cities will keep growing with nowhere to put more people. That's just my take. Any thoughts from my fellow INDEVOURs? I'd love it if someone could find an article about population growth in developing world cities... I'll have to look into it.
ReplyDeleteFound a stat on WHO:
Deletehttp://www.who.int/gho/urban_health/situation_trends/urban_population_growth_text/en/index.html
Says the urban population growth rate in developing countries was 4% from 1950-1975 and is projected at only 1.55% per year from 2025-2050.
For now, people will keep streaming into cities, but eventually there probably won't be enough people left in rural areas to keep up that level of migration.
Hummmmmm, very good point! Eventually there will be no more rural people to move into cities because they will all be in cities. How does that change how we should plan third world cities I wonder...?
DeleteHere's an interesting forum kinda addressing the slowing of rural-urban migration I found. Definitly an insightful read http://www.worldurbanforum.org/urban-planning/can-rural-urban-migration-really-be-stopped
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