International Video Conference
LARGE SCALE SLUM IMPROVEMENT PROGRAMS
Spring 2000

A series of international video-conferences took place among top staff of key development agencies on how to accelerate and expand urban poverty alleviation through slum improvement efforts. Starting in February, every-other-Thursday sessions featured interchanges from around the world focusing on the growing critical situation of deteriorated urban communities. Each session featured a presentation by a development agency on its experience and ideas on scaling-up slum upgrading programs. Agencies include USAID; UNCHS-Habitat, from Nairobi; IDB, GTZ, from Frankfurt; DFID from New Delhi; and SIGUS-MIT from Boston.

The videoconference series was the first under the “Cities Without Slums” initiative, a multi-donor effort to address the challenge of urban poverty through slum upgrading. The series was hosted by the World Bank's Thematic Group on Services to the Urban Poor with the support of the SIGUS Group at MIT, under the sponsorship of the Cities Alliance, a global partnership spearheaded by UNCHS (Habitat) and the World Bank.

In conjunction with this videoconference series, and as a way to permit participants to continue discussing and collaborating in between videoconferences, a parallel electronic conference was set up in the World Bank's electronic discussion facility, the Development Forum. These moderated discussions have been archived and may be viewed on the World Bank web site.

Conference Sessions
(Copies of the session papers are available by request, email Ask Grady.)

Session 1 - Hosted by the World Bank and Cities Alliance
WHAT IS NEEDED TO IMPROVE SLUMS AT A LARGE SCALE?

Session 2 - Hosted by USAID (United States Agency for International Development)
WHOSE CITY IS IT ANYWAY!!!

Session 3 - Hosted by UNCHS-HABITAT, Nairobi (United Nations Center for Housing Studies)
SECURITY OF TENURE

Session 4 – Hosted by the IDB (InterAmerican Development Bank)
NEIGHBORHOOD UPGRADING: LESSONS FROM THE IDB EXPERIENCE

Session 5 – Hosted by GTZ (German Agency for Technical Cooperation)
A POLITICAN’S GUIDE TO SLUM IMPROVEMENT

Session 6 - Hosted by DFID and Guests from Human Settlement Institute and UNDP, New Delhi
(British Department of International Development)
CALCUTTA SLUM IMPROVEMENT EXPERIENCE AND PARADIGM SHIFTS