Conference on Housing and Urban Development on Social Inclusion and
Cohesion
20 June 2006
World Urban Forum III
Vancouver, Canada
Master of ceremonies
My fellow panellists
The Executive Director of UN-HABITAT, Dr Anna Tibaijuka
Invited delegates, friends
Ladies and gentlemen
I am aware that we have moved on now in our discourse and use more
acceptable terminology such as social exclusion. In this context for which we
are gathered here to analyse the challenge that confronts us and find
actionable solutions, may I be allowed to revert to the term poor, which
represents exactly what I want to bring to all our attention. Poverty is what
needs to be understood and specifically the urban poor, we need to see as a
clear and present danger that we all have to address.
In bringing the term poverty firmly back into the centre of the debate, we
are able to understand that exclusion has worsened the plight of the poor. A
discussion paper of the recently established High Level Commission on the Legal
Empowerment of the Poor (HLCLEP) emphasises a principle we need to
consider:
âA majority of the worldâs population is largely excluded from the services
that directly affect their economic well-being. This aspect of the
poverty challenge may be as important as provision of education and health
care, infrastructure, or improved social equity, but it has not been given
sufficient attention by governments or by the international development
community.â
This, I believe, is a central challenge facing us here how we ensure that
the issue of the urban poor, in particular, is given as much attention by the
international community, beyond speaking about it. Poverty is the condition of
88% of people in the cities of the developing world. Historians define the
modern era as that period where, by and large, the world was free of major
wars, a period that at our most optimistic we would want to refer to as the
period of the free world.
When the United Nations was formed, it heralded the creation of a world
where we could all divert our energies to uplifting as opposed to destroying
the world. For us in the developing world, it offered boundless, but boundless
possibilities. I am sure that the story I am about to tell is fabricated, but
it has become legendary. The story is set in some African country in the war
years. Basil Davidson, the African Historian tells of the efforts of the
British to enlist African soldiers for support services in the war. âSoâ, says
the white man, âyou must understand it is your responsibility to support the
fight against Hitlerâ. The black man of course does not quite follow the logic
of this responsibility. So, the white man, in a painstaking effort to explain
in a way that would convey the weighty matter to the simple mind of the
African: âYou seeâ, he says with great deliberateness, âit is wrong for one
nation to govern anotherâ.
He is of course explaining these lofty notions to a man in the cruel grip of
colonialism. So, the legend goes, was born the idea, in the simple mind of the
African, that it was indeed wrong for one nation to govern another. The point I
want to draw from the story, however, is different. In the fight against
Nazism, the world was mobilised against this scourge and the world responded to
it as a common threat. We face a similar threat now against humanity, and that
is the scourge of poverty. The important question we might ask: Are we properly
structured to mobilise the world against this new common threat against
humanity, in the same way as we did against other threats. I ask this question,
because somehow the poor find themselves alone in the struggle against poverty.
The rich, on the other hand, have by and large become free and indifferent. To
this indifference I will later return.
Last year, with the help of UN-Habitat, the African Ministers voluntary came
together to form a forum where we could jointly address the common problems we
face. In the year that I have represented African Ministers of Urban
Development at international for a as their Chairperson, I have been made to
feel guilty about our situation, something to be curiously accommodating of, an
unpleasant moment whose absolute brevity is paramount. For all the commitment
from an enlightened world, we are almost apologetic when we raise these painful
truths and any return to these discussions is so politically incorrect.
With the beginning of this millennium, the world took a stand against
poverty; committed itself to the Millennium Declaration. We were convinced then
that the necessary steps had been taken to mobilise the world to collectively
fight social exclusion. The Millennium Declaration was taken a step further
when two years later, through the Johannesburg Declaration of the World Summit
on Sustainable Development, we all declared: âWe will spare no effort to free
our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanising conditions
of extreme poverty, to which more than a billion of them are currently
subjected. We are committed to making the right to development a reality for
everyone and to freeing the entire human race from wantâ.
We affirm the premise that cities are indeed engines of growth and when
policies are correctly structured, will provide an opportunity to build social
cohesion in areas in which , by historical design the poor had no place. It is
now a generally accepted truth of our time that urbanisation will throw up one
of the biggest challenges. When coupled with poverty it creates the complexity
of problems that we seek to unravel today. Within the context of developing
continents, the two are inextricably linked. And this is why urban shelter has
become such a pressing issue. For nothing defines the reality of the developing
world more starkly than through this prism.
This is the picture of a city in the developing world. The rich in
residential areas with the entire infrastructure and services and the poor in
shacks perched precariously along the infrastructure routes: where
poverty, disease and deprivation prevail. It has now become acknowledged as
given, that for some time to come, we will live with this, where among the
marginalised, there will be high levels of unemployment, coupled with high
levels of illiteracy, poor health and compounded by high levels of crime,
places where the gods will intermittently visit all manner of calamity from
floods to fires. Unemployment rates run at 88%. These will often always be the
later arrivals in the city, with the highest percentage of female headed
households.
It is estimated that by 2030 approximately 60% of the worldâs population
will be living in cities. Nearly all of this global population growth will be
absorbed into urban areas of the worldâs least developed regions, the least
able to absorb such growth. Approximately two billion people worldwide will be
living in informal housing/ slums by 2020. We know that already by 2001, 31.6%
of the global urban population lived in slums.
When this stark picture is thrown up, then you understand why, when we met
in Barcelona in 2004, there was a radical mood about ourselves that wanted the
plight of the poor to change and to change soon. I sensed impatience from the
poor. I understand the impatience today caused by, what is perceived to be, the
lack of achievement of substantial progress in effecting the change necessary
to improve the quality of life for all.
The position of the poor remains the same as we continue to meet. Between
1990 and 2001, regardless of us establishing the Habitat Agenda in 1995 and the
adoption of the Millennium Declaration in 2000, more than 200 million new slum
dwellers were added to our cities. Worse, close to 3 billion people,
representing about 40% of the worldâs population, are said to be in vulnerable
positions that would make them to be in urgent need of housing and shelter by
2030. The urbanisation of poverty that is what is increasing at a faster rate
than we are able to deal with.
For Africa to make a difference to this situation, a couple of interventions
are required. There is the need to ensure that all socio-economic programmes
and activities on the continent are focused on ensuring that the basic survival
needs of the most deprived are met. Only then can the focus fall on longer-term
security.
Second, how do we structure our resources to meet the challenge? It is
generally accepted that in the sub-Saharan African region continues the
existence of weak local government in which the necessary municipal funding is
not being raised locally because of a lack, among other things, of formalised
asset registration.
Urban governance in Africa
Clearly, it requires far more will need to be done: if greater collaboration
between national and local governments, and the inclusion of civil society in
local decision-making, is desired.
A more concerted focus on the poor, and far more attention on the governance
dimensions of such an approach, is also required to eradicate all forms of
exclusion. Areas for intervention to improve local governance include
participatory decision-making, building bridges and partnerships between
officials and citizens, transparency, participatory budgeting, fostering and
nurturing grassroots womenâs movements, paying attention to what needs to
change in governance to improve the lives of women and the development and
utilisation of assessment tools to measure urban governance performance and
make the necessary corrections.
Our experience has shown that inclusion of affected communities is
absolutely essential. For through this there is complete ownership of the
process. The process gains legitimacy and has âsocial protectionâ of the
community. None are better placed, with better knowledge of local issues than
the affected people. No stronger driver of the process can be found anyway, as
ultimately these are beneficiaries. And, importantly, the efforts of the poor
to get themselves out of their situation are critical. Shack Dwellers
International and other organisations need government support. They have to
answer to their problem: saving schemes all they need is support. Their efforts
only bode well for governments.
I learned a valuable lesson then, as I am sure we will all learn lessons
today. I had come to represent my country, where the urban poor constitute 30%
of the population. I had never met their representatives. I met them in
Barcelona and they challenged my right to speak on their behalf. I learnt a
valuable lesson. Today I speak on their behalf with full authority.
Governmentsâ partnership with the poor is essential if we are to succeed.
Conclusion
In February last year, at our inaugural meeting as African Ministers, we
made a historic decision to come together, commit ourselves to a framework for
development. At the core of this would be how we meet our Millennium
Development Goals (MDG) targets. But importantly, we took a decision that we
needed to pay more attention to the issue of housing, because this is at the
core of urban poverty. That, unless we draw the attention of the international
community and form partnerships, we will continue along the same trajectory of
exclusion that has dogged us. Unless we create better access to housing
finance for affordable housing, and influence donor communities to prioritise
housing, any talk of social inclusion will come to nought.
It should be noted that, despite the increasing urban concentration of
poverty, bilateral and multilateral donors continue to prioritise rural support
(only 2-12% of donor funding in Africa going to urban areas). Donors justify
this on grounds of poor governance and lack of political support for donor
funded capital investments in urban areas. I am convinced that if we get all
these fundamentals correct, we will get our development right. Once we have
realised this, will we be able to ensure that the lives of slum dwellers are
substantially improved by 2020 and that our world ceases to be an arena where
social exclusion continues and indifference is pervasive. Above all, we have to
find a way out of the worldâs indifference to the poor.
At the opening of the Holocaust Museum in Washington in 1999, a holocaust
survivor, Elie Wiesel, in an impassioned speech, had this poignant message
about indifference: âIt is much easier to look away from victims. It is all
awkward to be involved in another personâs pain and despair. Indifference
reduces the other to an abstraction. Indifference, in fact, is a crimeâ, he
concludes. I would take the liberty now to go on to add that in this specific
matter, indifference denies the rich, the rich experience of humanity. On a
global level this indifference leads to exclusion â the other is an
abstraction, an awkward space in our lives.
We have achieved much in the modern era, let us not allow indifference to
dehumanise us.
I thank you
Issued by: Department of Housing
20 June 2006
Source: Department of Housing (http://www.housing.gov.za)
