Cities Without Slums

Responding to the strong commitment of local leaders to scale-up slum upgrading, the Cities Alliance is providing catalytic support to the ten initiatives described below. The added value of this support is that it broadens the base and strengthens the coherence of public and private sector investments in these initiatives. As such, each case involves the combined effort of a broad range of partners, including organizations of the urban poor.

Brazil is building on the experience of its cities to develop a decentralized national slum upgrading strategy. Rio, Sao Paulo, Recife, Salvador, and Santo Andre are contributing their experience to this work along with a number of Brazil’s universities and think tanks, with the objective of adopting a national strategy to facilitate access to secure land tenure by the poor and financial mechanisms to ensure nationwide replication and sustainability.

Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, is developing a citywide poverty reduction strategy. Key actors in this process are Community Development Management Committees in each district, which are working in partnership with the Municipality of Phnom Penh and the Asian Coalition of Housing Rights. The Urban Poor Development Fund has been established as a financial mechanism to ensure sustainability of this strategy.

El Salvador has a national housing policy that promotes the legalization of land tenure and the participation of private sector developers in urban upgrading. The 14 mayors of the metropolitan area of San Salvador have focused on upgrading as their most important challenge for their current term in office (2000-2003) and are pooling their capacity to implement citywide upgrading.

India's draft National Slum Upgrading Policy provides an excellent policy framework, based on secure tenure and gender equity. The National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF) and other organizations of the urban poor have forged networks of community-based organizations and partnerships with a number of local and state authorities. Bangalore intends to develop a citywide upgrading strategy; Gujarat is taking steps to develop a statewide strategy; and Andhra Pradesh has significant initiatives underway focused on urban poverty reduction.

Indonesia is building on one of the world’s first and most successful large-scale slum upgrading initiatives – the Kampung Improvement Program, which improved the living conditions of over 15 million people across 300 local government units – to design a new generation of local government-initiated upgrading programs, within the framework of poverty-focused city development strategies.

Madagascar's regional capitals are preparing city poverty reduction strategies in a collective effort with local authorities, civil society, private investors, organizations of the urban poor, supported by virtually all of the bilateral and multilateral partners active in urban development cooperation in Madagascar.

Mauritania has committed to a nationwide slum upgrading program based upon the provision of secure tenure, which is being initiated with citywide upgrading programs in Nouakchott and Nouadhibou.

Nigeria’s Nassarawa State Government and the Karu Local Government are committed to scaling-up slum upgrading through a city development strategy, as an integral part of their commitment to adopt policies that are pro-poor to mitigate widespread urban poverty and growing inequality.

South Africa’s comprehensive housing program has been designed with the active participation of the urban poor and slum upgrading programs are being pursued based upon the provision of secure tenure. In October, the South African Homeless People's Federation and the People's Dialogue were joined by slum dweller federations from Asia and Africa to help the Government of South Africa and Habitat launch the Global Campaign on Secure Tenure, in Durban. As a result, efforts are now being initiated to invest in the capacity of these organizations of the urban poor to work with national, state and local authorities sharing knowledge to help shape the legal, policy and regulatory frameworks needed to scale-up slum upgrading in Manila, Durban and Mumbai.

Vietnam is initiating the development of a national strategy to scale-up slum upgrading and provide better housing and services to the urban poor. This strategy will target the provision of basic infrastructure in low-income urban areas, improving security of tenure, extending access to affordable credit, and improving standards and norms to encourage innovation and progressive improvements.

19 December 2000


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