Creating the participatory city
SOMSOOK BOONYABANCHA
calls for development of the people, by the people
One bright shiny day in January hundreds of women from
most of the communities in the northwestern Indian city of Kanpur met in
an 'illegal' settlement, eager-eyed and full of hope, to celebrate a very
special occasion - the official inauguration of eight lavatories.
These small community lavatories may mean nothing to middle class people
who take their own facilities in their homes for granted, and may look
insignificant indeed to the planners, policy makers and professionals who
have learnt to plan and decide things for others. But for these people
they represented an achievement in the development of their community
previously beyond their conception.
The lavatories were the first built in their community and, perhaps, the
first public facility of any kind constructed in the settlement. Built by
a women's organization called Mahila Milan, with support from the
Municipality and People's Federations from other cities, they resulted
from the community's own effort to organize, save money, share ideas,
learn from others and gain confidence.
This practical concrete achievement gave the poor of the settlement the
belief that they can be key actors for change. It showed that they can
make things better, more cheaply and more efficiently, and maintain them
better than they thought possible - and that they have the power to
develop and lead the impetus to change their lives, their communities and
their cities.
It was part of a city-wide process. The first community lavatories in
Kanpur were similarly constructed and inaugurated two years before. They
gave inspiration to many more communities to start organizing themselves,
to start saving and to start planning to build on their own. In the short
period since, more than 60 organizations have emerged and developed
similar processes and extended them to many other activities. This has
brought dynamism and change to the city, spreading from community to
community through the people themselves. Each concrete achievement can be
easily learned and replicated and the process is gradually broadened and
deepened.
Environmental Impacts
Given the right kind of understanding and support from other development
actors and concerned authorities, this powerful process could change the
living conditions of the poor in any city. Based on the combined strength
of the people themselves and spreading from one small activity to others,
it can become a gradual learning and strengthening process for people, by
people, on a large scale throughout the city. The need is to get all the
affected people to be the key actors in their development process, to
improve their conditions and develop a city together, sharing
decision-making and implementation.
The social and economic situations of countries and cities have changed
considerably since HABITAT I, two decades ago. Then, government was the
dominant actor in most developing countries: it provided policy and
guidelines, and developed and built houses and city facilities. Various
kinds of central government organizations were set up to implement a
diversity of centrally-planned developments and projects. Experience over
the past two decades, however, reveals very limited success.
The settled urban poor live in a situation where there are no options and
no assistance. Life is tough. Their settlements are illegal and they face
regular evictions. They learn how to survive, how to earn their living,
how to deal with evictions, how to organize and how to help each other.
Gradually they can also learn how to develop activities together. Some
settlements develop with good support from non-governmental organizations
(NGOs), especially if these work correctly in accordance with the
communities' own strengths. But some community organizations stagnate
because of misguided interventions from outside actors who do not
understand the communities' real strengths and may want to lead the
development for their own cause or ego.
The poor, who face the problems and the pressure, must gradually learn and
develop processes to deal with them themselves. Learning how to solve them
properly can become a development strength. As a result there have been
many considerable and continuous development experiences with numerous
projects carried out by people and quality community organizations. Often,
mere confrontation has been replaced by much more diverse and
sophisticated development processes. Women, it has also been learned,
become key development actors in the more mature or advanced community
organizations, especially in the saving activities which often develop as
their backbone.
Mythical solutions
In the past two decades, the private sector - with its emphasis on
competition and efficiency for economic growth - has forged another
direction for city development. Some believe that it will be able to solve
poor people's housing on a large scale. But this is a myth: in reality,
experience has shown very limited success, especially in developing
countries.
It is extremely important to support people's organizations and broaden
their processes of self-development at community and city levels. They
need diverse inputs on a wide scale and extensive experimentation,
followed by innovative implementation. It is impractical and outdated
simply to expect governments to do things for them or to open small,
symbolic spaces for community participation in their top-down (and
unworkable) policy and planning implementation processes. There are plenty
of successful experiences from which to learn. In particular, community
finance and credit activities, information dissemination and training have
all proved to have significant potential for more serious, large-scale
development.
Flexibility required
Government can no longer function as the sole decision maker as it did 20
years ago. Development has become so complex, and subject to such rapid
change, that a more flexible institutional set-up is needed to cope and
keep pace. More para-organizations or new kinds of institutions should be
created to work in a more participatory manner. We must create more
participatory cities. These would include district committees from various
existing organizations in finding common solutions. Innovative
participatory development mechanisms should be formulated to bring
together all affected actors, at different levels, to share in
decision-making and development.
The behaviour and working culture of existing development agencies must
also change. This goes for United Nations agencies, governments, NGOs and
academics alike. If HABITAT II is to have any effect, it should start with
the United Nations agencies playing a crucial role in promoting such
changes. Centralized, top-down, expensive activities and programmes,
planned by the organization, need to be reviewed and changed. There is a
great need for techniques that tactfully support the processes for real
change, with less expensive activities but broader impacts. No change is
possible if those who are supposed to help change others are not changing
accordingly themselves.
Somsook Boonyabancha has worked as an architect in the field of Urban
Housing in Thailand since 1977. She is now Deputy Managing Director of the
Urban Community Development Office in Thailand and Secretary-General of
Asian Coalition for Housing Rights, Habitat International Coalition,
Asia.
