Resources

This book includes a wide ranging collection of papers which have been divided into sections dealing with communicating with children, gender empowerment, community interactive processes, approaches and insights, ethics and values of community participation and organizational capacity building.

This document describes the proceedings of a community development and regeneration workshop conducted by the HULL Community Development Company. The workshop aimed to review and explore the connections between community development and sustainable community regeneration. It includes topics such as sustainable regeneration, community development and participation, where the gaps are, who needs to be involved, and action planning.

This edition of 'Dialogue', the magazine of Homeless International, focuses on community exchanges as a learning process. These have been transformed into practices that have begun to change the way that development in informal settlements takes place. South-South exchanges have been important in this respect, and knowledge is now being shared in the UK through North-South exchange. The magazine looks at some of the exchanges that have taken place in more depth, as well giving some govenments perspectives on working in partnership.

The paper starts with the observation that it is increasingly accepted that improving the quality of life in impoverished urban areas depends on the capacity of local residents to form social networks and civic organisations. While much of the literature calls for a retreat of the state to accomplish this, some recent studies have shown that state actors can actually promote empowerment of civic organisations. The article looks at an example of state-fostered civic organising: Porto Alegre's "participatory budget", which involves handing over municipal funding decisions on basic capital improvements to neighbourhood-based forums. The analysis looks closely at the Extremo Sul district in terms of mobilising neighbourhood residents, opening closed neighbourhood associations, building co-operative alliances, and transforming participants' perspectives. It is argued that in response to this policy innovation, innumerable neighbourhood organisations have formed, whilst at the same time clientelist forms of neighbourhood action have been discouraged and participation and inter-group collaboration promoted. It is concluded that the first step to state-sponsored civic organising is that the state must be genuinely open to participation and responsive, and that potential participants must become aware of that responsiveness. In Porto Alegre, this did not happen straight away, but there was a demonstration effect that helped mobilise groups, and the targeted issues were found to be meaningful to poor neighbourhood residents. Community organisers also acted as external agents helping unorganised neighbourhoods organise. Networks of reciprocity and trust were built and clientelism discouraged, as alliances built up from year to year and people changed the way they perceived their interests. Against the trend for promoting self-financing and cost recovery in infrastructure investments, top priority went to raising revenue through taxation and administrative streamlining. Further, government spending set off, rather than discouraged, a boom in civic action. It is argued that the policy prioritised a different kind of investment: building new relationships between government personnel and citizens. This new type of governing privileges accessibility, flexibility, and negotiation. It is argued that, overall, there has been a fundamental transformation of political life in Porto Alegre as neighbourhood residents have shifted from powerless cogs in clientelist machines to being active participants in public life.

Increasingly, governments and donors are advocating the participation of poor communities in the delivery of urban services and infrastructure. Yet local authorities responsible for implementing participatory policies often do not have the skills, organisations or resources needed, or an adequate idea of the capacity required. This sourcebook provides invaluable practical guidance for municipal officials, and others working in urban development and poverty reduction, on the range of issues to be addressed in planning and managing cities with community participation. It explains the key elements of participation, identifies common constraints and opportunities, describes the vehicles for moving participation forward and outlines the capacity building needed for a municipality to achieve participatory goals. Jannelle Plummer is an Urban Poverty Consultant based in South Africa and formerly a development officer with DFID. Contents: Introduction; A Strategic Framework for Municipal Capacity Building; The External Operating Context; The Elements of Participation; The Vehicles of Participation; Internal Capacity of the Municipality; Management Capacity of the Municipality; Framework for Action; Appendix and References

With the rapid growth in urban poverty in Africa, Asia and Latin America, most cities now have 30 to 60 per cent of their population living in shanty towns. The civil and political rights of these people are often ignored or constantly contravened and they face multiple deprivations that arise from dangerous living conditions and inadequate services. None of these problems can be addressed without local changes, and this book contends that urban poverty is underpinned by the failure of national governments and aid agencies to support local processes. It makes the case for redirecting support to local organizations, whether governmental, non-governmental or grassroots. After an introduction from the authors, eight case studies portraying innovative initiatives from government and civil society: the shift from the Urban Community Development Office to the Community Organisation Development Institute in Thailand, by Boonyabancha; the Community Mortgage programme in the Philippines, by Porio et al.; the Mexican National Popular Housing Fund, by Connolly; the Local development Programme (PRODEL) in Nicaragua, by Stein; the work of the Anjuman Samanji Behood in Faisalabad, Pakistan, by Alimuddin et al.; the Municipal Programme for the Reform and Extension of Homes, Casa Melhor/PAAC Cearah Periferia, Brazil, by Cavalcanti et al.; the work of the South African Homeless PeopleÆs Federation, by Baumann et al.; and the Alliance of SPARC, the National Slum Dwellers Federation and Mahila Milani, by Patel and Mitlin. The book is concluded with two chapters by the editors on addressing deprivations in urban areas and the role of local and extra-local organisations.

This article, as part of the special 50th edition of PLA Notes, looks at specific tools and methods used by an alliance of three organisations in India that are engaged in initiatives to reduce urban poverty. The organisations are the National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF), Mahila Milan (savings cooperatives formed by women slum and pavement dwellers) and the Indian NGO SPARC. The article provides a background of the development of the tools and methods used by these organisations over the last 20 years, which are then linked to empowerment, learning and transformation: Poor people know what their problems are and generally have good ideas regarding what solutions they want. But they lack the resources or capacities to demonstrate that they can produce a solution. So the federations support their members to try out solutions in what can be termed a learning cycle. Some of the tools and methods covered in the article include savings and credit, mapping, surveys, community exchanges and house modelling. The author also describes how the Alliance (the grouping of the 3 organisations) works differently from other NGOs whose strategies tend to be about lobbying and advocating directly for change. Instead, the Alliance focuses on setting precedents and using these precedents to negotiate for changes in policies and practices. As a case study of this approach, the article describes the use of community toilet initiatives. Some of the outcomes include bringing communities together, expanding livelihood options for the participants (who gain useful skills and experiences from building the toilets), strengthening relations with municipal authorities, changing national policies, and enabling spaces for communities to learn. The article concludes with three overarching implication for change processes initiated in the community by the toilet projects, arguing that the poor make ideal partners in the projects and that the projects themselves need to be community managed and controlled. These are: organisation for empowerment; community-based problem solving; and learning to negotiate with city and state governments and other groups.