The M illennium Development Goals and urban areas

David SatterthwaiteInternational Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)

Millennium Development Goals 1-48 Goals 18 Targets Examples of 48 indicators

1. Eradicate extreme poverty & hunger

1 and 2: 1990-2015: halve proportion of people:* whose income is less than US$1/day* who suffer from hunger

* Propn with below $1 a day* Share of poorest quintile in national consumption* Prevalence of underweight children

2. Achieve universal primary education

3: By 2015 all boys & girls able to complete full course of primary school

* Net enrolment ratio in primary education* Literacy rate, 15-24 year olds

3. Promote gender equality & empower women

4: Eliminate gender disparity in primary & secondary education preferably by

* Ratio of boys to girls in all levels of education & in literacy* Share of women in non-agricultural wage employment

4. Reduce child mortality

5: 1990-2015, reduce by two thirds under 5 mortality rate

* Infant & under 5 mortality rates* Proportion of 1 year olds immunized

Millennium Development Goals 5-7Goal Targets Examples of indicators

5. Improve maternal health

6: 1990-2015, reduce by three quarters maternal mortality

* Maternal mortality rate* Proportion of attended births

6. Combat HIV/AIDs, malaria & other diseases

7 and 8: By 2015 halt & begun to reverse * Spread of AIDs* Incidence of malaria & other major diseases

* HIV prevalence among 15-24 year old pregnant mothers* Contraceptive prevalence rate* No of children orphaned by HIV/AIDS

7: Ensure environmental sustainability

9-11: Integrate principles of SD into country policies; Halve proportion without safe water; Significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers

* Land area covered by forest * Land area protected for biodiversity* Energy efficiency and global warming gases* Proportion with water, sanitation, secure tenure

Achievements in urban areas seem impressive?

-

-Most urban dwellers:

Have improved water: 95-98% (Northern Africa, Asia, Latin -Saharan Africa

Have improved sanitation: 94% (Northern Africa, Western Asia), 86% (Latin America) 79% (South-

But all these are highly inaccurate or highly misleading statistics

The $1 a day poverty lineIs less than 1% of the urban population poor in North Africa, the Middle East, China, Central Asia & East Europe?

Set a poverty line low enough & no-one is poor$1 a day poverty line based primarily on cost of food

Low-income urban dwellers have to pay for many non-food needs

Rent for housing (often 20-30% of income)

piped to home & use public toilets) Health care & education (expensive if no public provision)Transport (especially living on periphery)

Case of inappropriate transfer?Poverty lines in UK did not need to include costs of education &

Moving to realistic urban poverty linesPune: Officially 2% are poor yet 40% live in poverty (Bapat 2009)Cairo: Officially, 5% are poor but half live in very poor quality housing/informal settlements lacking infrastructure & services

Cost of non-food needs (housing, keeping children at school,

and the upper poverty line (Sabry 2009)Buenos Aires: 30-40% facing multiple deprivations & have difficulty feeding families even with incomes above official poverty lines & $1 or $2 a day poverty lines (Hardoy and Almansi 2011)Lusaka: Cost of food & non-food needs nearly 3 times the official poverty line & more than US$2 per person per day (Chibuye 2011)

Who gets safe water?

95-98% of urban dwellers (Northern Africa, Asia, -Saharan Africa

But this is no measure of access to safe waterIncludes those dependent on public taps & standpipes,

Can mean 500-1000 persons to a standpipe so very long queuesStandpipes too far away from homes to get adequate suppliesWith water of poor qualityAvailable for a few hours a day

Again, set standard unrealistically low & the problem disappears

% urban population with improved water

0

20

40

60

80

100

Angola

Madaga

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Rwanda

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Ethiopia

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% urban population with pipe to premises

0

20

40

60

80

100

Liberi

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0

25

50

75

100

Angola

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Nigeria

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Kenya

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% improved% with pipe to premises

Who gets adequate sanitation?

Urban dwellers with improved sanitation: 94% (Northern Africa, Western Asia), 86% (Latin America), 79% (South-

But improved sanitation includes pit latrines with slabs or ventilated improved pit latrinesNo measure of whether these are maintained and emptied

Most urban centres in Africa & many in Asia with no sewers or only a small minority connected to sewers

Different standards of provision mean different risk levels

No improved water supply and open defecation

Shared standpipe Pit latrine

Improved latrine

Good emptying service

Water kiosks and vendors

Piped supply to home

Drinkable supply available continuously at home

Pour flush seal

WC with sewer or septic tank & handwashing facility

Risk of contamination with faecal-oral pathogens

VERY HIGH

VERY HIGH

HIGH

MEDIUM

MEDIUM TO LOW

LOW

M D G Goal: Significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020

UN says that 227 million people escaped from slums 2000-2010

Including 60 million urban dwellers lifted out of slum conditions in India

Would mean that the % of urban population

But most of this from a reclassification of

slabs (which meant a large drop in the proportion of urban dwellers living in slums)

Urban malnutritionGoal: Halve the prevalence of underweight children

Common for a third of urban children to be stunted in low-income nations (over 40 percent in Ethiopia, Rwanda and Madagascar)

% of urban children undernourished (stunted); selected states in India

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

UttarPradesh

Maharashtra Bihar Delhi MadhyaPradesh

All India Rajasthan West Bengal Jharkhand

Perc

ent

Poorest quartileRest of urban population

Infant, child & maternal mortality

GOALS: 1990-2015Reduce by two thirds under five mortality rateReduce by three quarters maternal mortality

Unlikely this is being achieved among most national urban populationsMany nations with urban under 5 mortality rates of over 80

This is the average, not what low-income groups faceA few studies showing under 5 mortality rates 2-3 times the average in informal settlements

Under 5 mortality rates in Kenya

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

Nairobi Other urban Rural Nairobislums

(average)

Kibera Embakasi

An urban penalty?47 low- and middle-income countries:

largely vanished after controlling for wealth/socioeconomic factorsIn 30 countries, under-five mortality rates did not differ significantly between poor in rural & urban areas. In 9 nations, urban poor had higher mortality rates than rural poor (van de Poel et al 2007)

Angola, Central African Republic, Senegal: poor urban as likely to be stunted or underweight as poor rural children (Kennedy et al 2006)Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Paraguay: rates of infant & child mortality higher among urban poor than rural poor (Bitrán et al 2005) 15 sub-Saharan African nations: no urban advantage in lower rates of childhood stunting once socio-economic status of families/communities are considered (Fotso 2007)

A post 2015 agendaRecognize scale & depth of urban poverty

All poverty lines reconfigured for costs of non-food needs & adjusted for differences within nationsLikely that 40% of poverty now in urban areas & growing

Remembering that aid agencies are only as effective as the intermediary organizations they fund

Two critical intermediaries for urban: local governments & grassroots organizations formed by the urban poor

One example of a new institutional framework for urban poverty reduction that addresses most of the MDGs

The Urban Poor Fund InternationalOther examples of support for community-level and local government level actions

Huge potential for local government working with federations of the urban poor

National federations of slum/shack dwellers in 16 nationsINDIA: the National Slum Dwellers Federation & Mahila Milan, supported by SPARCTHAILAND: Community organizations & federations supported by CODISOUTH AFRICA: The Federation of the Urban Poor supported by CORC ZIMBABWE AND KENYA: Urban poor federations supported by Pamoja Trust and Dialogue on ShelterOrganizations and federations of the urban poor in Brazil, Cambodia, Malawi, Namibia, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Swaziland and Uganda, and developing in many other nations (most also supported by a local NGO)

ALL INNOVATING AROUND MEETING NEEDS AND SEEKING PARTNERSHIPS WITH LOCAL

GOVERNMENTS

Addressing MDGs from below

Since 2001, International Urban Poor Fund - on which grassroots organizations formed by slum/shack dwellers or homeless groups can drawFunding of £10,000-50,000 available to support initiatives they chooseMeet their needs AND show local

government what they are capable of Show other savings groups

what is possible within their ownnation and in other nations

So federations grow

2002-2009: International Urban Poor Fund supported

LAND FOR HOUSING: Federation groups in Cambodia, Kenya, India, Malawi, Colombia, Nepal, Philippines, South Africa and Zimbabwe UPGRADING: Cambodia, India & BrazilBRIDGE FINANCE for initiatives in India, South Africa & Philippines (where promised government support slow to come)IMPROVED WATER & SANITATION in Uganda, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe (with improved land tenure)SLUM/SHACK ENUMERATIONS: Brazil, Namibia, Ghana, Sri Lanka, South Africa & Zambia (information base for upgrading/new house initiatives)EXCHANGE VISITS by established federations to urban poor groups in East Timor, Mongolia, Angola, Zambia ......HOUSE RECONSTRUCTION after tsunami in Sri Lanka & IndiaFEDERATION PARTNERSHIPS with local governments in housing initiatives in India, Malawi, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe

International Urban Poor FundTens of thousands of low-income people with needs metImplementing projects also set precedents that changed

Show what they are capable of, what resources they can mobilize, how far they can make funding goShow what has to be changed to support larger initiatives eg building codes, land subdivision regulations

External £4.5m leveraging far more than this locallyShows feasibility of alternative model of development

supports representative organizations of the urban poor & is accountable to them

Supports meeting their needs AND changing their relationships with local governments (& hopefully international agencies)

Relevance to M D Gs; the means by which

secure tenure being achievedwater & sanitation provided or improvedlivelihoods strengthened/hunger reducedinfant & child mortality rates being reducedIndividual/household/community capacities to reduce diseases or cope with consequences being increased

BUT These also designed, implemented and managed by poor groups & their organizations

AND they are large scale and remarkably cost-effective

Conclusions

International agencies need to determine what role they can have in encouraging, supporting, & catalyzing diverse local processes that reduce urban & rural povertyIncludes supporting solutions that poor develop themselves & what they negotiate with local government & other agenciesDoes not mean only support for local action; obvious national & international constraints too

A D O N O R A G E N C Ywith its policy decisions

Internal structure: - suits large capital projects - few staff relative to no of projects -reliance on other agencies to implement

R E C IPI E N T G O V E RN M E N T A ND I TS PRI O RI T I ES

POLITICAL PROCESSES THAT OVERSEE DONOR AGENCY

Commercial interests

Non-commercial development lobbies

Non-commercial environment lobby

PUBLIC OPINION AND MEDIA

COMMERCIAL/POLITICAL INFLUENCES

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (usually weak)

LOCAL CONTRACTORS & SERVICE PROVIDERS

THOSE WITH UNMET NEEDS water, sanitation, health care, schools,

A D O N O R A G E N C Ywith its policy decisions

Internal structure: - has to spend or lend lots of money with relatively few staff - reliance on other agencies to implementR E C IPI E N T

G O V E RN M E N T A ND I TS PRI O RI T I ES

POLITICAL PROCESSES THAT OVERSEE DONOR AGENCY

Commercial interests

Non-commercial development lobbies

Non-commercial environment lobby

PUBLIC OPINION AND MEDIA

COMMERCIAL/POLITICAL INFLUENCES

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (usually weak)

LOCAL CONTRACTORS OR SERVICE PROVIDERS

SUPPO RT F O R grassroots initiatives

THOSE WITH UNMET NEEDS

SourcesInterrogating Urban Poverty Lines the Case of Zambia - Miniva Chibuye, 2011Assessing the Scale and Nature of Urban Poverty in Buenos Aires Jorgelina Hardoy with Florencia Almansi (2011)Broadening Poverty Definitions in India: Basic Needs in Urban Housing - S. Chandrasekhar and Mark R. Montgomery (2010) Poverty lines in Greater Cairo: Underestimating and Misrepresenting PovertySarah Sabry (2009) Poverty Lines and Lives of the Poor: Underestimation of Urban Poverty, the case of India Meera Bapat (2009)The under-estimation of urban poverty in low- and middle-income nations David Satterthwaite (2004)

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advantages for childhood nutritional status? Analysis of disparities in nutritional status by wealth and Public Health Nutrition Vol 9, No 2, pages

187-93

in Marianne Fay (editor), The Urban Poor in Latin America, World Bank, Washington DC, pages 179-194.Fotso, John- rural differentials in child malnutrition: Trends and socioeconomic correlates in sub- Health and Place Vol 13, No 1, March, pages 205-223.