Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-76)
BARONESS ANDREWS
AND MRS
ANNA TIBAIJUKA
21 NOVEMBER 2006
Q60 John Battle: If I could just
add, I spent some time some years ago before I was in Parliament
working in a favella in Latin America for some months, and I am
worried that things have not changed, they have got worse, in
the years that have intervened. We are as a Committee on International
Development monitoring the targets for MGDs and we are falling
well behind; so I think our questions and our drive is to see
practical action to change circumstances on the ground. I think
that is what we are pressing for, evidence of changes on the ground,
and if you could help us with good examples and case studies of
where the changes have taken place that we can follow up, I think
we could be grateful for that.
Mrs Tibaijuka: I will submit a
very practical example of the location and degree and perhaps
you could have the opportunity to visit them yourselves.
Q61 John Battle: We are starting
to panic that we are so far behind with the MDGs we are never
going to get there and we need help quickly to push the whole
system a bit quicker.
Mrs Tibaijuka: Yes, I will definitely
give you very clear examples.
Q62 Emily Thornberry: You talked
to us earlier, Baroness Andrews, about the ministerial session
at the World Urban Forum. I wonder whether you could tell us what
was the main outcome of that session?
Baroness Andrews: It was an exchange
of information about the way in which the countries who were present
were actually confronting urban challenges. We learned, for example,
from countries as diverse as Turkey, India, about some of the
challenges that they were facing and the way that in fact they
were organising local government, building capacity in terms of
local government, prioritising what they had to do; and the thrust
of what I said was essentially that by working through the eight
essential characteristics of Sustainable Communities we
had identified what it was actually made for—successful
communities—everything from what does it mean to be well
run, for example, what does it mean to be inclusive, what does
it mean to develop competitiveness in cities? So I was actually
sharing those sorts of ideas with them which in themselves had
been the product of quite a lot of work leading up to Bristol.
Q63 Emily Thornberry: I understand
what you say. Something which strikes me about it is that there
is almost an implication that we have got it right and we can
share our best practice with the south, when, as I say, representing
one of the most overcrowded constituencies in Britain, we have
not got it right.
Baroness Andrews: No. I have some
sympathy with that, and I think if one were to go to international
conferences with that attitude, it would be inappropriate. There
were two things that we had to share and to listen to other people's
experiences on. One was how do you manage growth of cities? That
is clearly something which we in the south-east are managing.
How do you deal with density in cities? How do you ensure that
you have quality as well as density? How do you manage affordable
housing? Who is eligible for affordable housing? How do you open
up new opportunities for borrowing and lending? For example, our
home-buying project, which may not be entirely applicable to the
situations of slum dwellers in terms of the slum upgrading facilities,
but they offer a model to countries in slightly more advantaged
positions, so we have the question of growth and choice. The other
thing that I have found most interesting was to listen to countries
such as the Netherlands talking about how they were dealing with
social cohesion in terms of the regeneration of their communities.
In the dialogue session I held, what I thought was most useful
was to share the experience of handing power over to local communities
in the New Deal for Communities and the Neighbourhood Pathfinders,
for example, because here there was an example of a developed
country which had to find new ways of reaching into very disadvantaged
communities by putting a lot of trust in the communities themselves
to choose their priorities and develop their own ability to decide
whether what came first was a learning centre, a new school, or
a hospital, or a health centre, or upgrading their houses in the
local area or putting the park right. We had some very useful
exchanges, for example, with the Netherlands on that sort of experience,
and I found there was a lot of communication between us and some
of the Asian countries. For example, I talked at some length to
people from Mumbai about the relative priority that they would
give community engagement in those sorts of situations. What did
you empower people on and, particularly interestingly, how do
you empower young people and women to take a leading role in the
community in making those sorts of changes? That was extremely
helpful, I thought, to look at the way we are thinking about how
we go forward.
Q64 Emily Thornberry: Did you bring
back any lessons in relation to planning? I think there was a
joint memorandum on planning, was there not, with 10 principles
for new urban planning, I have got written here?
Baroness Andrews: It was interesting
to see the contribution that our Royal Town Planning Institute
made in the document that it put forward, Making Planning Work.
That and Reinventing Planning, which is the world urban
planners document, was essentially about trying to recast planning
in a proactive way so that it does not become simply an elaborate
system of saying "no" to everything, a regulated system
rather than a creative system. I took that away in terms of how
we approach planning in a very powerful sense. I think what has
happened since then is very constructive, because, speaking to
the RTPI recently, it is clear that they are taking this global
perspective very powerfully indeed. They are going forward with
that agenda in different ways and I think the Committee might
be interested if they were to submit a note about how they see
that role expanding now following from Vancouver, which is actually
extremely interesting.
Q65 Emily Thornberry: How is your
department promoting its expertise to DFID and to other organisations
that assist with development?
Baroness Andrews: In terms of
both housing and planning?
Q66 Emily Thornberry: Yes.
Baroness Andrews: As I said, what
has been interesting in this process is to discover just how far
back the close working relationship between DFID and DCLG goes
in terms, for example, of the Urban Policy Directorate which was
part of the former ODPM. DFID participated, for example, in our
advisory group which oversaw the State of the English Cities Report.
We have also worked together, indeed, on Making Planning Work;
and DCLG has been part of the Urban Poverty Group which is hosted
by DFID and to which we have actively contributed. So there has
been quite an exchange about the nature of urban poverty. How
we promote ourselves? I think we have a new opportunity coming
out of the Vancouver agenda itself. It has energised, I think,
both departments in looking at how we can identify some of the
challenges, for example, of our city regions. We are going into
an agenda now in terms of the development of cities and city regions
in the Local Government White Paper, which is very relevant, I
think, to some of the ways in which other countries have always
had a very strong regional sense. We can learn from that collectively
working with DFID. So, I see in the development of our White Paper
a very interesting role for more dialogue there, and, of course,
the White Paper itself has promoted a lot of these ideas.
Q67 John Battle: Could I ask you
in parenthesis, because we have discussed the housing crisis in
a sense in cities north and south, water and "planning"
is the word being used and we have used the word "sustainability",
but what about transportation? I am slightly worried that we do
not join in the question of transportation. If over 100 cities
in the next 20 years have more than a million people in them,
how will people get to work even moving about within cities, without
spending four hours on a bus in a traffic jam. Are the transport
questions being networked both within Habitat and within Government?
Baroness Andrews: Certainly, Chairman,
in terms of sustainability we are bringing forward a new Planning
policy Statement 26 on, for example, climate change while we look
at aspects of sustainability, which must embrace the notion of
how far people should be travelling to work.
Q68 John Battle: And how long.
Baroness Andrews: Absolutely.
I think, when we look at all our planning policy statements, it
is absolutely implicit that by sustainability we do include that
as a factor in whether or not we judge something to be appropriate
development. When we look at our regeneration work and trying
to grow the competitiveness of our cities, trying to join up the
skills and jobs which may be on the periphery of these estates
to what is actually happening in the centre, we are talking about
new transport systems, whether they are guided buses or whether
they are trams or overland railways. Again, in the White Paper
we have got stuff about Passenger Transport Executives and making
them responsive to local authorities. We are addressing that in
a very specific way. We have got Rod Eddington's report coming
up quite shortly on transport, of course, so that is going to
be explored in that context.
Q69 John Battle: And Habitat, is
the agenda joined up?
Mrs Tibaijuka: Yes, Chairman,
at Habitat of course we deal with all facets and aspects of urban
infrastructure and transport and energy is one of them, and in
many cities it is a challenge. Actually for the poor one of the
biggest expenses in the household budget is transport, and one
of the reasons you have, for example, batches of pavement dwellings,
sometimes it is not for lack of housing as such but it is for
the need for proximity to the workplace. You find that these are
issues also where we have very clear recommendations. It also
depends on how cities are planned. In fact, in this session which
the Baroness was attending reinventing planning means that we
have to plan the cities, which will minimise transportation costs,
for example. Gone are the days of zoning where you have the industrial
area and the living area. It is obvious that is not working very
well because it has been associated with very high transportation
costs, but also energy and energy policies are very important.
Now there is also the culture. For example the culture of using
a motorway, as you know has proved not to be working. If you expand
the number of roads, people also buy more cars and even cities
in your part of the world are also facing big problems. We are
also working very much in this area and we have a full brand which
is devoted to this particular activity.
Q70 Martin Horwood: Habitat has been
a strong advocate of decentralisation and empowerment and I am
pleased we are moving on to the lessons that we can learn from
that in this country. Often you are talking about empowerment
and decentralisation at a very local level, at a community level,
and you think that is often critical to the success of development
projects. Baroness Andrews, do you think that in the changes that
are being proposed and the creation of large city regions and
the changes in the planning laws in this country we are actually
following Habitat's example, or are we going in the opposite direction
now?
Baroness Andrews: No, I think
in relation to planning the emphasis that we are putting on Statements
of Community Involvement and the voice of local people is extremely
important, and I think there is a new seriousness about that agenda
which is also reflected in the White Paper and the emphasis we
have given there on the community having a bigger voice. In terms
of cities and city regions, I think the synergy between a city
and a city region has been recognised for the first time. I think
it is very much work in progress how we define that relationship
and the powers that cities might need to make more success of
themselves, and obviously we are working on the business plan,
shall we say, of the cities at the moment in that respect.
Q71 Martin Horwood: But you are talking
in many respects here about consultation, not about empowerment,
are you not? You are not talking about decentralising power down
to community level?
Baroness Andrews: Let me address
that then. I think there is absolutely no doubt that in the White
Paper we have tried very hard to make devolution a reality. If
I may talk about the White Paper in this context, for example,
if you look at what we are proposing for a greater role for the
ward councillor to respond to Community Calls for Action in the
way in which the Overview and Scrutiny Committees, we would be
bound to take note of that and to respond to that. So, we are
building in power at that level, we are building in more ability
to create parish councils, for example, a power that has been
constrained before. If I may take the debate to what DFID have
been doing as well in terms of encouraging local capacity, it
has got some quite interesting projects in fact in several countries
where they are specifically working with local government—Zambia,
India, Pakistan and Indonesia—and these are about building
in capacity with local government. One of the things that I was
struck by in Vancouver, particularly from African delegates, was
how very serious the whole business of having local government
which was effective was and the need to build capacity. The Local
Government International Bureau, for example, and the Commonwealth
Local Government Forum are actually in a position where they can
support a lot more capacity building in terms of local government
at that level. CLGF has got something called a Good Practice Scheme
which DFID has been supporting and we are looking to see how that
will really be effective on the ground in building capacity. Going
back to our own domestic agenda, we need to build capacity in
our communities themselves, and one of the ways in which things
like Neighbourhood Pathfinders or Building for Communities gives
us models, is the way in which people who have never had status
in the community or positions of responsibility have been extremely
effective in renewing and transforming their communities through
those programmes, so there are genuine skills and capacities in
the community which I think we can build on.
Q72 Martin Horwood: I think you are
closer to the mark when you are talking about the parish and community
councils than you are when you are talking about consultation
rights of ward councillors, but we need to make sure we are not
building capacity in one part of the world and reducing it ourselves.
Can I ask about another example—perhaps, Mrs Tibaijuka,
you might offer some opinions here—which is about the use
of microfinance. As Emily pointed out, we have very poor communities
ourselves. Do you think there is a role for doing more to encourage
microfinance in poor communities within richer countries like
our own?
Mrs Tibaijuka: Yes. Of course,
microfinance is clearly now a system which has been tested and
validated to work and to help poor communities, particularly gaining
access to livelihood, solving immediate problems, but I am afraid
microfinance has not really succeeded in the more difficult sector
of housing. One sector which has not rendered itself to microfinance
is actual housing, where as housing improvement in the slum neighbourhood
could be used for microfinance, if you are talking about slum
upgrading and long-term affordable housing solutions, microfinance
is not working; where we are also getting some support from DFID,
we are now seeing the testing and designing mechanism where a
pro-poor mortgage system can be put in place, but I have seen
it and I can give you a concrete example of how microfinance is
assisting in the provision of water and sanitation. For example
in the Kibera slum in Nairobi, which is the largest contiguous
slum settlement in Africa, microfinance has played a key role
in assisting women, water vendors, for example, to open up kiosks
where they are selling water that is affordable. It is a very
good example which when I submit some detailed examples I can
tell you exactly. Our work in the Kibera slum on water and sanitation,
for example, has been to empower some women to work as vendors
by putting up water kiosks. So, microfinance can play a role,
but housing is proving much more difficult.
Q73 Martin Horwood: Can I ask about
one other aspect. A lot of the microfinance initiatives centre
around households or around community services like water and
sanitation, but one of the most dynamic small activities that
can carry on is small business. Is microfinance for small businesses
part of the programme for UN-Habitat?
Mrs Tibaijuka: I must say that,
as members of the UN family, we work according to our mandates
and our mandate is not really into small businesses, but microfinance
has actually worked for small businesses, what we call livelihoods,
what we have observed from others, like some of our sister agencies
working in the livelihood area, like the ILO, like UNEDO, the
LETS organisation and others, is that microfinance for people
to establish a small business has proved very effective, but at
Habitat we are grappling with the challenge of pro-poor mortgage
systems for people with irregular and often uncertifiable income.
That is where we are co-operating, for example, with the Housing
and Trading Foundation trying to understand how it was done here
in the UK and in many other places when you were at a similar
level of economic development, because obviously the challenges
we are faced with now are not new challenges. They have been there
but you have managed to overcome them, and so pro-poor finance
systems are something that we have to work for. Microfinance is
proving not very much use because it covers a short period, but
we are looking for microgeneration of mortgage systems. If the
family does not finish the payments, then the children can continue,
hopefully, and we have to bring in the banking sector, the main
banking sector.
John Battle: I am looking forward, as
well as the main banking sector, to perhaps references in UN-Habitat
future reports to credit unions, which are very strong in Canada,
are getting increasingly strong in urban areas in Britain as a
way of tackling loan sharks, were actually exported from the south
to the north and can be very effective in helping both income
generation in small businesses in urban areas in the south as
well. They do not crack the housing challenge, but that is a bigger
one, I think.
Q74 Mr Betts: We have had the World
Urban Forum III. I think the government minister is committed
to attending the fourth session in due course and to using the
time in between to prepare for that session. As I understand it,
on the cycle that currently exists, before we get to the fourth
session of the World Urban Forum we are going to have the next
city summit in the UK. Do you see that summit as providing a launch
pad to the involvement of our government in the World Urban Forum
IV? Do you see it helping set the agenda of items that we want
to carry forward into the fourth session?
Baroness Andrews: Yes, I think
it is a very useful opportunity for us to have a higher profile
in Nanjing, because I think there is an argument actually for
us doing so. We are two years down the line before Nanjing; we
will have a lot more evidence, for example, and hopefully policy
and activity in relation to climate change. This is the sort of
thing which we would want to develop and frame in the city summit[1]
that we are having. We would want to bring together DCLG and DFID
in a very coherent and specific set of proposals which we would
want to engage with other countries in Nanjing. We have proper
preparation time. For example, I would like the skills agenda
and sustainability to be very much on the agenda in the city summit.
Now we have got the resources of the Academy for Sustainable Communities
we have an opportunity. We will have gone beyond our present state
in relation to our own city development, the city regions. We
will have a lot more to offer, I think, in terms of our own policy
development based on the experience of the third Forum. Things
are moving extremely fast in this agenda and I think we will need
to prepare properly and I think the city summit gives us an opportunity
to do that.
Q75 Mr Betts: That almost answers my
next question. Without making a serious spending commitment, of
course, we would expect a greater government presence and a greater
involvement at the next forum?
Baroness Andrews: I do not know
whether a greater presence is the essential requirement. I think
proper preparation is. For example, we had no stand at Vancouver.
We were one of the few countries which did not have a permanent
presence, and I thought we really missed out, because in that
exhibition forum there was, frankly, every country, together with
organisations like IRDC (Canadian International Development Research
Centre), so there was a huge amount of interchange of intelligence.
As you know, in conferences the best sort of exchanges happen
outside the conference arena usually, and so there were missed
opportunities, I think, because we did not have a permanent presence.
We can do things like that, but I also think we ought to go to
Nanjing with a very specific agenda on what it is we have to offer
and we have to learn. As I say, working with UN-Habitat over the
next few years and with the Bristol Accord in place, with that
agenda running across Europe, Leipzig next year, I think we will
have a sharper focus and a greater sense of what we can expect
as outcomes as well.
Q76 John Battle: We talk the language
of joined up government and rarely do we bring committees together
to try to get some traction on that. Can I thank you both this
afternoon. We are trying, and I say this as someone who lives
in the inner city in Leeds, to bring the north and south agendas
together. We might find that there are a lot of common challenges;
we might find things we can share and do better and learn from
each other. May I say in thanking you for answering our questions
so well for over an hour and a half, thank you for your patience
and full answers. It may be that you have set a precedent in that
we might suggest a session like this in the not too distant future
to keep a focus on this joined up agenda of north and south and
the urban future. Thank you to you both this afternoon.
Baroness Andrews: Thank you very
much indeed.
Mrs Tibaijuka: Thank you.
1 In her response, Baroness Andrews was under the impression
that Mr Betts was referring to the `City Summits' held by Ministers
over the last year to hear about the challenges faced by and future
plans of our towns and cities, and not the Sustainable Communities
Summit which we believe Mr Betts had in mind. The Department for
Communities and Local Government announced the decision to cancel
the Sustainable Communities Summit in Manchester in 2007 on 23
June. The Department, as part of its wider communities strategy,
is exploring ways of engaging even more closely with key stakeholders'
and remains committed to working with DFID and other partners
to develop a policy narrative for WUF4, and organising a programme
of work in the build up to it. Back
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