Appendix: Government response
The Government acknowledges the International Development
Committee's report and commends its analysis of the complex and
inter-related issues surrounding urbanisation and poverty. We
appreciate the report's support for the UK's urban work in India
and for previous headquarters-led policy guidance. The report's
conclusions and recommendations propose various ways that DFID
might increase its efforts and effectiveness in addressing urban
poverty. We are pleased to respond to these suggestions.
The responses of developing country governments
to urban poverty
[Paragraph 17] We were concerned to hear that
few governments in sub-Saharan Africa have effective urban poverty
reduction programmes, despite Africa's status as the world's fastest-urbanising
region and the fact that it has the highest proportion of slum
dwellers. We encourage DFID and other donors to advocate for increased
attention to urban poverty by all partner governments, especially
those in Africa. This will necessitate greater prioritisation
of urban development within national poverty reduction strategies.
Where African countries identify urban issues as
a development priority for themselves, we would always consider
this in discussion with other donors and development partners.
In our response in particular cases, we would need to consider
what added value the UK can bring on urban issues and the outcomes
that might be achieved, compared to following up other opportunities.
Measuring urban poverty
[Paragraph 20] Ensuring that policies and programmes
are based on accurate measurements of urban poverty is vital.
We recommend that DFID encourage the World Bank and other key
international institutions to explore new forms of measuring urban
poverty that move beyond the use of crude poverty lines to take
proper account of the high costs for housing and basic services
paid by many of the urban poor.
A universal poverty definition based on a monetary
income threshold may take insufficient account of the cost of
essential services. We will explore this suggestion with the World
Bank and other development partners.
The decline of donor urban programming
[Paragraph 27] We were concerned to hear that
overall donor financing for achieving the Millennium Development
Goal 7 slum upgrading target is very low. We are also concerned
about the level of staffing capacity within donor agencies to
meet the target. DFID is one of a number of bilateral donors that
have withdrawn their dedicated urban poverty teams or units. It
seems counter-intuitive to us that, as the process of urbanisation
and levels of urban poverty have increased, staff capacity to
work on these issues has been reduced.
Rural and urban areas are both affected by rapid
urbanisation. There is no clear-cut definition of rural and urban,
although there are extremes of remote rural and crowded cities.
Most people live in conditions somewhere between these extremes.
Those in relatively rural areas are linked to those in more urban
conditions by markets, migration and common services. The distinction
between urban and rural is blurred.
With this in mind, we do not see rural and urban
development as separate agendas and have no immediate plans to
re-establish a dedicated urban team. The Department continues
to have an international engagement on urbanisation, through a
small group of well informed staff. They maintain knowledge and
influence with the international community.
DFID recognises that effective development involves
progress in different aspects of peoples' lives and opportunities
and that most of the challenges we face require solutions across
several disciplines.
Unemployment and crime
[Paragraph 32]
We welcome the pledge made in DFID's White Paper to address a
key driver of conflict and crime—unemployment amongst young
men. We also welcome DFID's recognition of the importance of developing
women's skills. However, we were disappointed that neither point
was linked to urban contexts specifically. In slum settlements,
where large numbers of young, poor and unemployed people may be
concentrated, the risks of internal conflict, crime and extremism
are heightened. Women and children are at particular risk to exploitative
and dangerous work. We recommend that DFID ensure that urban settings
are given a specific focus for its crime reduction, employment
generation and skills development schemes.
Work of this kind is being funded by DFID both centrally
and through our country programmes, although this may not be identified
as specifically urban. They cover a range of issues such as:
- The potential for employment
and economic growth in urban settings
- Urban unemployment including the impacts of the
global economic downturn and differential impacts on women and
youth
- Labour standards and specific risks to women
and girls
- The implications of the 'youth bulge' (which
include unemployment and exclusion as well as the benefits of
a youthful population)
- Urban crime and violence, including gang cultures
and ungovernable areas.
High unemployment, particularly amongst the male
population, can pose serious threats to peace and security. Different
DFID policy teams are involved in equity and rights issues and
in work creation.
DFID is currently supporting skill development programmes
in several countries, including Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iraq
and Afghanistan. The objective is to equip men and women with
relevant skills that lead to jobs. Whilst these programmes
do not explicitly target urban populations, a number benefit people
living in urban settings. Target groups include women, the poor,
and other marginalised groups.
[Paragraph 34] Local and community responses to
urban crime have been proven to be highly effective. We credit
DFID's support to community security and policing initiatives
in Jamaica and Nigeria and urge the Department to look at other
contexts where these approaches can be applied.
We are developing these approaches in other contexts.
As well as in Nigeria and Jamaica, we have developed relevant
programmes in Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of Congo,
Yemen and Malawi. These programmes are aiming to reach large percentages
of country populations so will cover those living in small and
larger towns.
Social exclusion
[Paragraph 37] Street children have different
needs from other children living in urban contexts. We urge DFID
to ensure that both the Department and its key partners include
tailored policies and programmes for street children within their
approach to urban development. We are concerned that indicators
based on reaching vulnerable children more generally may not ensure
that street children receive the discrete and targeted assistance
they require. We recommend that DFID adopt indicators specific
to street children within its new Institutional Strategy with
UNICEF.
We agree that the needs of
street children are significant but these
are not the main urban social exclusion challenge. DFID does support
work of this kind, not exclusively in an urban context.
We are working with UNICEF on a new institutional
strategy and performance framework. While not specifically mentioning
street children, it targets the need for UNICEF to show sustained
progress against its Medium Term Strategic Plan. Two of the thematic
areas within the plan are "Child protection from violence,
exploitation and abuse" and "Policy advocacy and partnerships
for children's rights".
[Paragraph 42] A lack of secure
property rights is a major barrier to poor urban dwellers' inclusion
in city-wide service provision. It also exposes poor residents
to the risk of forced eviction. During our visit to Nigeria we
witnessed the benefits emerging from a DFID supported project
to establish secure land tenure and property rights in Lagos.
Establishing tenure can help residents improve their living conditions,
access basic services and raise capital. We recommend that DFID
disseminate lessons from and build on their support to the Lagos
State Land Registry, and actively support other programmes supporting
secure tenure. However, we would caution that land and property
titling may not always be the most appropriate form of providing
secure tenure for poor urban dwellers and we would encourage DFID
to use the approach judiciously.
Security of tenure is important as an incentive to
improve living conditions. This is a complex and sensitive issue,
especially where illegal settlements take root on high value land.
The allocation of land for settlements is the best
basis for security of tenure, linked to proper urban planning
processes. These are the kind of messages consistently promoted
through the international programmes that we support, such as
UN-Habitat.
[Paragraph 46] Slum dwellers
face multiple levels of social exclusion, and their marginalisation
may be exacerbated by other forms of discrimination based on,
for example, gender, ethnicity, age and migrant status. We believe
that DFID should allocate resources towards urban programmes that
strengthen inclusive governance, transparency and accountability.
This should include support to community groups working for urban
development, including women's organisations.
In addressing the underlying causes of urban poverty,
especially the growth of slums, the capacity of local government
and the ability of central government to support local government
is crucial. Much of DFID's urban poverty programme in India includes
support for community groups and builds the capacity of state
and municipal governments.
[Paragraph 48] Social protection schemes provide
an important safety net for households at risk from poverty and
economic shocks. We urge DFID to ensure that its expansion of
social protection schemes over the next three years is focused
as much on urban as rural contexts. We encourage DFID to look
beyond cash transfers alone to broader measures of protection
that will ensure all vulnerable groups are reached.
We are looking beyond cash transfers towards broader
social protection measures to ensure vulnerable groups are reached.
For example, we have commented in the Ethiopia Productive Safety
Net Programme review that the next phase should include an urban
social protection component. This is being discussed between the
World Bank and Government of Ethiopia.
We have contributed £200 million towards the
World Bank Rapid Social Response Programme, which is responding
to a Government of Kenya proposal for a "Youth Empowerment
Programme" on youth unemployment in poor urban areas.
Such urban components would be part of national policies for social
protection systems.
In Zimbabwe, our £55 million contribution to
the Protracted Relief Programme has provided a combination of
food and cash. Savings and loans groups have been established
for urban poor populations across Zimbabwe.
Population growth
[Paragraph 52] We were struck by the paucity of
evidence received in this inquiry addressing the links between
urbanisation and population growth. Natural population increase
accounts for some 60% of urban growth. We understand that population
control is a sensitive issue but it seems surprising to us that
neither UN-Habitat nor DFID provided us with information on linking
their support to urban development with a population strategy
or with co-operation with the UN Population Fund. We suggest that
both agencies look more closely at how such linkages could be
achieved.
We will raise this question with UN-Habitat and propose
closer cooperation with the UN Population Division on population
trends. Urban birth rates tend to be lower than rural ones for
various social and economic reasons. This needs to be factored
into any analysis.
As noted in our reply to the recommendation in paragraph
32 above, there are economic benefits with a youthful population,
provided there are formal or informal employment opportunities.
Climate change and the environment
[Paragraph 58] We were pleased to hear that DFID
is seeking to bring the climate change and urbanisation agendas
closer together. However, we urge DFID and other international
agencies to ensure that attempts to address the impacts of climate
change in cities do not divert resources from targeted programmes
for urban poverty reduction, including basic service provision
and slum upgrading. We recommend that, as well as ensuring its
own programmes avoid this outcome, DFID advocate for UN-Habitat,
in conjunction with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change,
to lead efforts to boost the capacity of cities to address climate
change impacts without neglecting vital urban poverty reduction
strategies. Building capacity at local government and community
level is central to managing this tension.
The possible impacts of climate change will vary
from place to place. These are difficult to predict with certainty
although some urban centres may be particularly vulnerable
to extreme weather, possible flooding and longer-term sea level
rises.
In India, we are considering providing support
to help implement the city-focused Sustainable Habitats
Mission of the National Action Plan on Climate Change. This includes
developing a climate risk analysis assessment tool. We are looking
into ways of integrating climate change across the India programme,
prioritising the urban projects.
In Bangladesh, DFID's £60 million Urban Poverty
Reduction Programme includes work on solid waste disposal and
hygiene, to help lessen the impacts of extreme weather on slum
dwellers. A Disaster Management Programme will address some urban
climate related risks, particularly the risks of external floods
and inadequate or blocked drains.
DFID's response to urban poverty
[Paragraph 66] We were surprised
at what appears to be a sharp imbalance in the level and profile
of DFID engagement in programmes addressing urban development
in Asia compared to Africa. We understand that programmes that
benefit urban contexts may not always be labelled as such. But
given the impressive range of programmes explicitly labelled as
"urban" in India, we fail to understand why DFID does
not support similar initiatives in Africa—especially given
its status as the world's fastest urbanising region and the fact
that it has the highest proportion of slum dwellers. We are concerned
that, without a new and comprehensive approach to urban development
in Africa, a number of cities could face a humanitarian crisis
in as little as five years' time, given the huge expansion of
their urban populations.
We will be taking a fresh look at the increasing
challenges of urbanisation in Africa. Some work is already being
funded through our Africa programme although not all of this is
labelled as urban, so may be less visible than our work in Asia.
For example, we are supporting slum upgrading work and a social
protection programme in Kenya. In Nigeria, there are substantial
urban components to several programmes covering basic education,
community policing and malaria control.
Direct work on slums is difficult without local partners
and the involvement of local government. We have been able to
do this in India and Bangladesh, with their longer established
community organisations and the interest of municipal authorities.
We are planning to look at cities again early in
2010. Our work will include consideration of up to three African
and two Indian cities. This work will draw upon our previous experience
in India and will make use of UK and international urban development
expertise to produce an issues paper and develop new guidance
and best practice material to help us look at these issues in
the future, particularly in Africa.
[Paragraph 70] We were impressed
with the Community-Led Infrastructure Finance Facility (CLIFF),
which is forging new relationships between urban poor organisations,
governments, donors and banks—and leveraging considerable
financial resources in the process. We commend DFID's decision
to provide a second phase of funding to CLIFF and recommend that
DFID encourage other donors to support this highly worthwhile
initiative. We were pleased to hear that the second phase of funding
will facilitate the expansion of the Facility into two further
countries beyond the initial three (India, Kenya and the Philippines).
We recommend that at least one of these countries, and if possible
both, are located in sub-Saharan Africa, where improved urban
housing and infrastructure is urgently needed.
We confirm that our support to CLIFF is being expanded
to two new countries; at least one of these will be in sub-Saharan
Africa. For programmes of these kinds, success depends upon effective
local partners and community organisations, as well as good cooperation
with city and municipal authorities.
[Paragraph 74] Slum dwellers and other low income
urban groups need targeted support to improve their living conditions.
Housing microfinance offers an effective and sustainable route
towards funding these improvements. We recommend that DFID explore
options for strengthening funding of housing microfinance schemes,
as a way to boost the current relatively low level of financing
it allocates to the housing sector.
The international finance institutions (IFIs) such
as the World Bank IFC [International Finance Corporation} and
CDC Group have the most capacity to play a key role. We will explore
opportunities to strengthen the links between CLIFF and the IFIs.
[Paragraph 79] DFID's approach to strengthening
healthcare by supporting discrete projects, channelling funds
through multilateral frameworks and providing social protection
'safety nets' is well-established. However, there are a number
of specific challenges associated with health care provision in
urban areas, especially regarding communicable diseases such as
HIV/AIDS, mental health and inequalities in access to services.
DFID should differentiate specific urban components of its health
programmes so that steps being taken to address these particular
challenges are made clear. We recommend that DFID help ensure
that international efforts are based on a solid knowledge base
by funding research into the current gaps in detailed understanding
of the nature of disease and health problems in poor urban settlements
as part of its 2008-13 Research Strategy.
We will consider whether new evidence and information
is needed to help governments improve the delivery of healthcare
services in urban settings.
[Paragraph 82] We believe that, as with healthcare,
there are a number of specific challenges associated with education
provision in urban areas, including cramped and unhygienic classroom
conditions, the problem of absenteeism due to child labour (especially
for girls) and a lack of government schools due to non-recognition
of informal settlements. Similar steps to differentiate specific
urban components of DFID's education programmes are needed to
identify the measures being taken to address these challenges
and enhance interventions where necessary. We recommend that DFID
work with partner country governments to tackle the issue of official
recognition of slums so that more local schools can be provided
for children in slum areas.
Education is essential to equipping young people
with the skills and competencies they need to enter the world
of work. In the context of a global economic downturn, a skilled
workforce can support economic recovery and the generation
of long term growth.
DFID provides long-term predictable support, helping
partner countries to develop and implement long-term, country-led
education sector plans tailored to local needs. These are aimed
at enabling all children, both those in rural and urban settings,
to access a good quality basic education. Sector plans include
improvements to education facilities, such as the standard of
classrooms, water and sanitation and adequate learning materials,
as well as more and better trained teachers, higher teacher/pupil
class ratios and reductions in drop-out rates.
We acknowledge that to achieve the education MDGs,
"Education for All" must become a reality, which means
effective strategies are in place to enable excluded and hardest
to reach children gain access to education. These include working-children,
girls and the disabled, recognising that such groups comprise
the largest numbers of out-of-school children. While the dramatic
pace of urbanisation presents significant challenges, the 2009
Global Monitoring Report states that, "in many countries,
rural children are less likely than urban children to attend school
and more likely to drop out". Rural areas face particular
challenges in attracting trained teachers. In India the majority
of untrained teachers are in rural locations.
While DFID works with partner governments to develop
the most appropriate local solutions, we also work creatively
with non-state education providers. We support these organisations
where they have specific programmes targeted at hard-to-reach
children, for example in Bangladesh.
[Paragraph 89] We welcome the support to water
and sanitation that DFID is providing through its India programme.
However, we are aware once again that there are few examples of
DFID support to these essential services in African countries.
We assume that DFID provides some support through country programme
work but we were not given details of this. It is also clear that
DFID provides support through international initiatives such as
the Community-Led Infrastructure and Finance Facility and the
Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor partnership. These are
both highly commendable ventures, and we urge DFID to extend its
funding of these and other projects with strong community participation.
We recommend that DFID carefully consider whether it is doing
enough to help meet the MDG 7 target to halve the proportion of
people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic
sanitation, especially within urban contexts in Africa, the region
which is most off-track on this target.
As advised in our response to the recommendation
in paragraph 70 above, we are extending our support to CLIFF,
which is active in urban areas in India and Africa. The Water
and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP) programme is currently
undergoing an independent evaluation. Further support for this
programme will be considered in the light of the results of the
evaluation.
Our policy commitments for MDG 7 and water and sanitation
in Africa and South Asia are expressed in service delivery outcomes,
which are monitored twice yearly. We are helping off-track countries
develop specific plans to improve water and sanitation services
and to identify sources of funding, both national and from donors,
to expand services in both urban and rural areas. This is being
done through the Global Framework for Action launched in New York
by the UK and Netherlands in September 2008, aimed at increasing
international action and accountability in water and sanitation.
[Paragraph 91] We recommend that DFID keep under
careful review the commitment in its new Water and Sanitation
Policy to continue to direct much of its support to sanitation
and water in rural areas. Undoubtedly, provision in many rural
and remote areas is very low. But the balance of need may be shifting
in line with the trend of urbanisation; services in urban areas,
particularly within the sanitation sector in Africa, are often
very poor. In order for DFID to make informed choices about where
to commit its resources, it will need to ensure it is working
from accurate measures of urban poverty. We reiterate our earlier
recommendation that DFID encourage the World Bank and other key
international institutions to explore new systems for measuring
urban poverty.
Water and sanitation coverage in rural areas is almost
always lower than in urban areas. Rural coverage continues to
be a focus as we help countries work towards achievement of the
MDGs, although the need to consider both urban and rural areas
is included in our recent Water and Sanitation Policy Paper. DFID
supports the Joint Monitoring Programme of WHO/UNICEF which provides
reliable data on water and sanitation coverage in both urban and
rural areas of developing countries. This gives us a good evidence
base on which to develop and review policy positions.
[Paragraph 98] The challenges associated with
providing adequate power and transport services within poor urban
areas were self-evident during our visit to Nigeria. Lack of electricity
and constraints upon movement around cities makes life even more
difficult for poor people and limits their ability to escape poverty
by running their own businesses or going out to work. We were
pleased to see that DFID is supporting the Nigerian Government
to strengthen both sectors through the Nigeria Infrastructure
Advisory Facility. We urge DFID and the World Bank to continue
to boost investment in these sectors in Nigeria and in other African
and Asian countries to ensure that power and transport services
assist, rather than hold back, the process of poverty reduction.
As reported in our response to the Committee's report
on DFID's Programme in Nigeria,
a woefully inadequate power supply is identified
as a key constraint to growth in the analysis underpinning the
Country Partnership Strategy. The World Bank currently has three
power sector reform programmes in Nigeria.
Through the Nigerian Infrastructure Advisory Facility
(NIAF), DFID works closely with the World Bank in Nigeria. Close
collaboration between NIAF and the World Bank helps to maximise
the effectiveness of support provided by both partners. Regular
communication eliminates the risk of duplicating efforts and helps
focus support in areas of greatest priority. A second phase of
support to extend NIAF's work is planned.
As part of our contribution to the North-South Corridor
transport conference held in Zambia in April 2009, DFID provided
technical assistance which focussed on road and trade flow improvements,
and pledged to enhance our investment in the power sector, working
with the Development Bank of South Africa. Closer regional working
was endorsed by the presidents of Zambia, South Africa, Uganda
and Kenya.
DFID has a close and productive working relationship
with the World Bank in many of our country programmes. We seek
to promote public and private investments in essential infrastructure
such as power and transport, including for urban development.
For example, through our support for the Private Infrastructure
Development Group, we work closely with the World Bank Group and
other official donors to promote increased investments in infrastructure.
The response by other stakeholders
[Paragraph 100] We believe that all development
actors, including DFID, should do all they can to unlock private
sector investment in urban development. These flows have the potential
to substantially reduce urban poverty. Our recommendations to
DFID, multilateral donors and other global stakeholders are thus
based on the premise that the greatest impacts will be achieved
when donor funds are used to stimulate private, alongside public,
investment in urban development.
In addition to those mentioned in our response to
the recommendation in paragraph 98 above, DFID supports a suite
of multi-donor funded international programmes promoting private
investments in infrastructure and services. These include the
Public Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF), the Community
Led Infrastructure Finance Facility (CLIFF), Water and Sanitation
for the Urban Poor (WSUP) and the Water and Sanitation Programme
(WSP), which all aim to leverage private funds into infrastructure
investment and urban development.
[Paragraph 105] We commend the work of UN-Habitat
on human settlements and urban development across a wide range
of contexts. We were disappointed to learn that the UK's contribution
to the agency's core funding has fallen from 12% in 2002 to 7%.
We recommend that DFID's £1 million annual contribution to
core funding (or 7% of the total from all donors) is boosted to
bring it closer to that of Norway and Sweden, who provide 15%
and 11% of the core budget respectively. Non-earmarked funding
of this kind is vital for the agency to pursue its identified
priorities which cover an important range of urban development
outcomes.
We recognise the work of UN-Habitat, especially in
drawing international attention to some of the adverse impacts
of urbanisation in developing countries and the growth of slums.
For this reason, we are maintaining our current commitment of
£1 million per year in core funding. Important outcomes would
be more countries integrating urban poverty into their national
development planning and UN-Habitat stimulating increased public
and private funds for low-income housing. We will remain in close
touch with UN-Habitat and continue to keep our level of support
under review.
[Paragraph 106] We agree with DFID that co-ordination
across UN agencies on urban poverty is highly important and that
the work carried out by different UN agencies on urban issues
needs to be fully integrated at country level. In particular,
UN Development Programme and UN-Habitat, with their close on-the-ground
operational partnership, should ensure that they work coherently
so that impact can be boosted and urban poverty moved higher up
the agenda in the countries in which they work.
We aim to see the UN system and various UN agencies
working better together, in a coordinated, logical and consistent
way. This is the basis of our objectives for UN institutional
reform, through country-specific United Nations Development Assistance
Frameworks. These frameworks identify key objectives such as greater
literacy, reduction of maternal and child mortality and an increase
in drinking water and sanitation provision. Urbanisation issues
should be tackled in a similar way with agencies working together
and coordinating their efforts. We would wish to ensure that funding
for a discrete UN global programme such as Habitat promotes these
objectives.
[Paragraph 110] We commend DFID's decision to
provide half of the initial funding for the Slum Upgrading Facility
and to contribute to enabling this important project to get off
the ground. We support DFID's planned evaluation of the initiative
as a basis for future funding decisions, but encourage it to find
extra funding to facilitate a two-year extension of the project.
Local Finance Facilities have provided a unique forum for bringing
together all the major players across a city involved in the slum
upgrading process. Results may have been slow in emerging, but
once momentum has been gained we believe that the Facilities offer
considerable potential for upgrading slum settlements on a large
scale.
[Paragraph 112] The Cities Alliance's attempt
to highlight the opportunities of urbanisation is a worthy one
and we commend DFID's continued collaboration with the coalition.
However, we encourage the Alliance to consider dropping its "Cities
without Slums" slogan, which promotes an unworkable outcome
that may encourage slum clearance or forced evictions. We see
the long-term strategic focus of the Slum Upgrading Facility as
equally, if not more, worthy of DFID support as the somewhat problematic
Cities Alliance.
DFID has been closely engaged with the Slum Upgrading
Facility (SUF), which has achieved slower progress and lower performance
than we had expected. Our view is that continued funding would
provide lower value for money, in terms of development outcomes,
than other opportunities.
An independent evaluation in early 2009 showed that
while there are some promising aspects to the funding model,
little has so far been achieved at community level. Together with
other donors, DFID has invested significant funds (about
$18.5 million) but the results are not yet sufficiently persuasive
to justify additional resources. SUF has enough funding to continue
its work until the end of 2010 when a further evaluation is planned
to assess the results.
On the question of the Cities Alliance slogan, we
will communicate the Committee's concerns to them.
[Paragraph 114] We were concerned to hear that
the African Development Bank (AfDB) currently focuses so little
attention on urban poverty. Whilst Africa is still predominantly
rural, it is the fastest urbanising region in the world and has
the highest proportion of slum dwellers amongst its urban population.
This represents a huge and growing problem for the African continent
and it is imperative that its regional development bank does more
to address the growing crisis of urban poverty. The UK should
use its leverage as the largest bilateral donor to the Bank to
ensure that the new AfDB urban strategy, currently under development,
makes strong commitments to addressing urban poverty. This should
include a particular focus on infrastructure, one of the Bank's
priority areas and a crucial component of future progress. We
recommend that DFID press for a dedicated department on urban
development to be set up within the Bank.
DFID provides support to the New Partnership for
Africa's Development (NEPAD) Infrastructure Project Preparation
Facility (IPPF) of the African Development Bank, to help enhance
the quality and quantity of "bankable" investment projects
that are prepared and proposed to potential financing institutions,
including from the private sector.
African regional economic institutions help determine
priority sectors and propose key projects for feasibility and
detailed design work. At present, the priority areas being presented
to the IPPF are focused on regional infrastructure programmes
(e.g. roads, rail, energy, water resource management and capacity
building of regional institutions.)
The African Development Bank faces considerable challenges
and we are committed to helping it and other institutions increase
investments in infrastructure and public services, including in
the urban context.
[Paragraph 118] We commend the increased focus
on urban development by the World Bank and the Asian Development
Bank. We welcome the World Bank's development of a new urban strategy.
Given its substantial funding of the World Bank, we urge DFID
to engage fully with the development of the Bank's new strategy
and to ensure that it is sufficiently comprehensive, with strong
focus on African, as well as Asian, countries. We welcome the
Asian Development Bank's Cities Development Initiative for Asia,
and its planned increase in specialised urban staff. We encourage
the African Development Bank to emulate this enhanced focus and
capacity to take forward urban development work.
DFID works closely with the World Bank on many of
its key infrastructure strategies, including urban development,
enhanced investment in infrastructure in response to the global
economic slowdown and enhanced investment in electricity provision.
DFID also contributes to the Infrastructure Consortium
for Africa (ICA) through a multi-donor trust fund whose purpose
is to help improve the lives and economic wellbeing of Africa's
people through encouraging, supporting and promoting increased
investment in infrastructure in Africa. ICA member commitments
to infrastructure in Africa increased from $7 billion in
2005 to $13.7 billion in 2008. A new ICA Strategic Business Plan
for 2010-12 envisages a focus on regional infrastructure and more
collaboration and dialogue with others who are investing in Africa's
infrastructure, for example China, India, Korea and Arab partners.
The output from the first phase of the ICA-supported
Africa Infrastructure Diagnostic Study, covering 24 sub-Saharan
countries was launched in 2009. This work looks at all key infrastructure
constraints to growth and sustainable development in each country
in detail, identifies areas for increased investment, improved
maintenance and management and, if its recommendations are taken
into account by national governments, will have a significant
impact on future planning for infrastructure development in Africa.
Additionally, DFID contributes to the EU-Africa Infrastructure
Trust Fund. This was launched in 2007 and is expanding operations
and strengthening coordination with other infrastructure financiers.
[Paragraph 125]
We were impressed to hear that federations
of poor urban dwellers are facilitating slum upgrading and urban
improvement schemes in more than 20 countries, with large-scale
partnerships being developed between these groups and governments
in several instances. We believe that supporting community-led
initiatives not only strengthens citizenship and boosts democracy,
but is also an incredibly cost-efficient way of promoting urban
development. Evidence shows that small amounts of external financing
can help deliver substantial development gains.
[Paragraph 126] We believe that DFID should boost
its funding for urban community-led initiatives. We recommend
that DFID begin funding the Urban Poor Fund International, an
existing financing mechanism that has brought about improvements
to housing and basic services for 30,000 households for less than
£1.8 million over the past six years. If this success can
be replicated, as little as £5-10 million of additional DFID
funding could potentially reach another 150,000 households.
Community-led initiatives can provide good value
for money and deliver significant development gains. They need
to be well organised and have the support of credible local partners.
DFID's approach is to build upon the success of those initiatives
that are demonstrating worthwhile impacts, such as CLIFF.
We are aware of Urban Poor Fund International and
that this has recently received substantial new funding from the
Gates Foundation.
The role of local government
[Paragraph 131] We believe that a key opportunity
exists for UK local government expertise to be shared on a more
systematic basis with municipal authorities in developing countries
and we welcome DFID's acknowledgement of this in its response
to our earlier report. DFID's ability to expand its human resources
is currently constrained but expertise on urban issues exists
within many UK local authorities. This seems to us to create the
perfect opportunity to tap into an available but currently under-exploited
source of knowledge. We recommend that DFID look at partnership
models used by Canada and Norway whereby small amounts of international
development funds are used to support the logistical arrangements
for sending local government staff overseas. It is important that
the objective of such projects should be to facilitate capacity-building
and should involve robust on-the-ground collaboration and strategic
follow-up. This will require strong commitment from DFID, the
Department for Communities and Local Government and local government
if it is to be effective. But we believe that a relatively modest
amount of funding could have great impact in strengthening local
government capacity in areas such as financial management, governance
and accountability, the 'greening' of urban economies and regeneration.
This would be a two-way learning process and would bring mutual
benefit.
Some work of this kind is already being done, such
as our support for the Commonwealth Local Government Forum's Good
Practice Scheme. Our funding to the end of March 2011 amounts
to £2.137 million, alongside £4.2 million being provided
by UK local authorities. This commits to the delivery of 34 capacity
building projects over the three years in six countries; India,
South Africa, Ghana, Jamaica, Sierra Leone and Pakistan. This
summer, we met with Glasgow City Council representatives to provide
advice on strengthening their outreach programmes to Malawi and
South Africa.
Our support for Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO),
a UK charity, is another way of applying UK experience and knowledge
to the challenges in developing countries, including in urban
settings. We currently provide £28 million of VSO's annual
income of about £60 million through a Programme Partnership
Arrangement, in support of its work in 44 countries. This supports
a wide range of skilled volunteer professionals from different
backgrounds. They work overseas for up to two years in placements
that help developing country people become more effective in their
work.
Improved collaboration across Whitehall
[Paragraph 135] Co-operation between DFID and
the Department for Communities and Local Government on urban development
currently appears to be weak. For example, DFID sent just one
staff member as part of the joint delegation to the last World
Urban Forum held in 2008. Closer joint working will be necessary
if DFID is to provide support for UK local government to contribute
to international development and it will only become more important
as the world continues to urbanise. We recommend that, in response
to this Report, DFID provide us with information on how it intends
to improve joint working. We also encourage DFID to use the forthcoming
Fifth World Urban Forum in Rio de Janeiro in March 2010 as an
opportunity to move towards new, closer working practices.
We work across Whitehall on urban and related issues,
including with the Department for Communities and Local Government
(DCLG), with whom we have a good working arrangement. The DCLG
led on the UK contribution to the November 2008 Nanjing World
Urban Forum, at which DFID was represented.
We have subsequently met, under the chair of DCLG,
with a wide range of local government authorities and institutions
(eg. London, Liverpool, Glasgow) and other government departments
(Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), Foreign
and Commonwealth Office (FCO), UK Trade and Investment (UKTI),
British Council) to plan for UK representation over the six month
period of the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, where the focus will be
on City Development.
The UK-China Sustainable Development Dialogue, managed
by DEFRA and co-sponsored by the FCO and DFID, is strongly cross-governmental,
with over 20 UK and Chinese Ministries collaborating on sharing
experience and good practice in sustainable development.
DFID also works closely with, for example, FCO and
MoD on joint working in conflict and fragile state environments,
with the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) on climate
change and with the Department for Transport (DfT) on road safety.
We plan to work with other government departments
and UK and international experts on new thinking on cities in
the New Year, as described in our response to the recommendations
in paragraphs 66 and 172.
Poverty reduction strategy papers
[Paragraph 139] We believe that urban issues require
far more emphasis within developing countries' national Poverty
Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). We disagree with DFID that
implicit references to urban issues within PRSP texts are sufficient.
Urban poverty will only be prioritised when it is made visible
as an issue on national agendas with the necessary political will
underpinning firm targets. We believe that achieving higher prioritisation
within PRSPs will require concerted efforts from key players in
the process, including the World Bank, civil society and major
donors. We recommend that DFID make much more vigorous efforts
to encourage development partners to ensure that urban poverty
reduction is given specific and detailed coverage in their strategy
papers.
The content and priority sectors to be addressed
in partnership with any developing country DFID works with are
determined through mutual assessment of need and priority. The
PRSP process is predicated on developing countries themselves
articulating their own development priorities, in dialogue with
the international community. The same approach is encouraged from
our bilateral and multilateral development partners. Urban development
issues are considered within this broader approach.
Implications for DFID's organisational response
[Paragraph 149] We believe that DFID's reluctance
to label programmes as "urban" has contributed to a
decline in the visibility of urban development within the Department.
This decline is linked to a recent period of fragmentation of
urban expertise within DFID, with specialised staff now scattered
confusingly across the UK Headquarters and international programmes.
Without a coherent grouping, the Department's capacity to carry
out effective policy analysis and programming for this complex
issue risks being compromised. Furthermore, the lack of a designated
urban team or unit makes it difficult for external organisations
to engage with DFID on urban poverty issues. Although it is for
DFID to decide on the precise configuration of its urban expertise,
we recommend that it put structures in place that clearly convey
how and where its core staff for urban development are located.
[Paragraph 150] We recommend that this urban poverty
team or unit, in whatever form it takes, reflect the multi-sectoral
nature of urban development. We believe that DFID's current reliance
on its infrastructure cadre for urban expertise is misplaced.
Issues such as slum upgrading require inputs from a range of DFID
advisory cadres, including governance, infrastructure, social
development and climate change. We believe that all of DFID's
more substantial country programmes should include urban advisers.
This is essential if DFID is to capitalise on opportunities to
push urban poverty higher up national agendas.
DFID has always recognised that urban development
requires a multi-disciplinary skill-set approach, with, for example,
town planning, infrastructure, economics, municipal finance, governance
(including political science), health, education and social development.
Nearly all DFID's urban development programmes have been designed
with a wide range of inputs from such knowledge sectors.
DFID organograms reflect staff allocations according
to the objectives of the business unit. It would be impractical
and misleading to list the many skill sets of each officer.
[Paragraph 154]
We believe that another way of strengthening
DFID's "community of practice" on urban development
would be to make better use of the research and practitioner base
both within the UK and internationally. The UK has world-reputed
university departments, research institutions, NGOs and professional
organisations working on the urban sector. We recommend that DFID
develop an approach to reach out to these groups and make effective
use of the skills and expertise that they have to offer.
[Paragraph 155] We recommend that DFID use its
new Research Strategy to fund research into the most effective
policies and interventions for addressing urban poverty. There
are many potential topics for such research, but we believe that
managing and understanding slum growth should be at the top of
the agenda given the urgency of reaching the MDGs. We also reiterate
our recommendation that the Strategy should help fill the current
gaps in detailed understanding of the nature of disease and health
problems in slums and informal settlements. The intersections
between urbanisation, urban poverty and climate change is another
crucial topic, and we suggest that the Department's new Climate
and Development Knowledge Network look at funding such research
work.
[Paragraph 165] We recommend that DFID assess
with urgency how it can replicate within African countries successful
strategies from its well-established urban development programme
in India. Africa is the world's fastest-urbanising region and
has the highest proportion of slum dwellers. It therefore needs
immediate assistance with urban development. DFID has successful
examples of urban interventions from its India programme. It also
has a handful of successful urban programmes within Africa, such
as the Luanda Urban Poverty Programme in Angola. We recommend
that the Department look carefully at which of these strategies
could be replicated across DFID's African programmes. Of course,
some approaches will be context-specific. Their replication will
also depend on the presence of high-level political will to address
urban poverty within national governments. However, we do not
believe that the fact that there is currently greater community
participation in some Asian countries than African ones is a reason
not to focus on urban development programmes in Africa.
[Paragraph 166]
We believe that DFID's ability to replicate
approaches from Asia in African countries will depend on its ability
to re-configure expertise—so that major African programmes
have access to at least one urban poverty specialist—and
make better use of research that documents successful strategies
for urban development from around the world.
Over the past 15 years, DFID has funded a substantial
research effort on urbanisation and development, through organisations
such as the Water, Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC),
the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED),
the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and the Development
Planning Unit (DPU, University College London). We also provided
a grant contribution to the production of the 2009 World Development
Report, which included consideration of the growth of cities in
economic development.
The Secretary of State for International Development
announced in April 2008 a doubling of research funding to up to
£1 billon over a five year period to support key development
policies. This work will include issues of urban development looked
at through the lenses of economic growth, climate change, health,
governance in challenging environments and looking at future challenges
and opportunities.
The International Growth Centre supported by DFID
includes infrastructure and urbanisation as a research area for
consideration.
[Paragraph 160] We believe that, given the pace
and scale of urbanisation, DFID should produce a new strategy
paper on how it intends to address urban poverty. Such a paper
would help to raise the profile of urban development both within
and outside DFID, and enable urban specialists within DFID to
bring their knowledge to bear. A new strategy would also help
communicate more clearly DFID's work on urban poverty, which is
currently subject to some confusion in terms of where the Department
works and what its priorities are. We are not satisfied that the
development of a new infrastructure paper will go far enough towards
meeting these objectives and believe that what is needed is a
comprehensive document along the lines of DFID's well-received
2001 urban strategy paper.
[Paragraph 171] We reiterate our recommendation
that DFID and other donors advocate for increased attention to
urban poverty by all partner governments, especially those in
Africa. We also recommend that DFID take a leading role in helping
to build political support for this approach within the international
community. None of the changes that we have suggested in this
report will be possible unless urban poverty is given higher priority
at the global level. Unless the full range of development actors,
including other donors, the UN and international civil society,
is convinced of the need to act, enhanced DFID efforts will not
be able to achieve additional funding and resources to address
urban poverty.
[Paragraph 172] The ability to generate political
will amongst developing country governments will require donor
agencies to demonstrate that they themselves attach sufficient
priority to urban, as opposed to rural, contexts. We believe that
seeking to overcome the challenges associated with the complexity
of the urban sector is not only the right thing to do but is potentially
a cost-efficient development strategy, offering sustainable solutions
to large numbers of people. It is difficult for us to comment
on DFID's own prioritisation because the Department categorises
assistance by sector but not by type of beneficiary. However,
we recommend that DFID carefully assess the overall balance of
its support to urban and rural poverty and keep this under review
as the world continues to urbanise.
We are undertaking scoping work to consider what
more could be done to develop an initiative which will include
a new focus on up to three large African cities and two South
Asian cities. Core policy work will commence with DFID hosting
a meeting of UK and international experts in early 2010 who will
advise on key urban development priorities, new approaches and
help identify current knowledge gaps. We will draft a paper setting
out our findings and conclusions and will provide a synthesis
of lessons learned. We will showcase existing achievements, cite
existing knowledge and best practice, identify gaps and agree
how we can best support new work within developing countries.
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