“We Must Find a Political Solution! to this situation and make a Global Development: Solutions to Poverty

’Afrique subsaharienne abrite près des deux tiers de la population des bidonvilles du monde, avec 200 millions de personnes. Le nouveau rapport souligne que l’urbanisation bénéficie aux dirigeants politiques, aux fonctionnaires et aux personnes riches en Afrique, en Asie, en Amérique latine et dans les Caraïbes, laissant derrière eux des millions de personnes.

its not good to mak this for another person

If we dont denoucne actions like these, then governements of other European countries will probably do the same.

As we celebrate the UN World Habitat Day on October 4, 2010, we need to reflect on where we have come from and where we are going. Especially on where we are going, we most importantly must choose the right road for “We the Peoples”. Understandably, these “better cities” are meant for us “Peoples,” including slum dwellers. This therefore means that “better life” will not be forthcoming if we still have slums within these “better cities.”

Among the crucial issues we need to reflect on is our own perception of slum dwellers in this context, because this will potentially determine the kind of plan we are bound to put in place toward ensuring that we don’t have slums in those “better cities.” Or, are we not outraged when we see these dehumanizing conditions in which slum dwellers live? If yes, what are we, both collectively and individually, doing about it?

The UN Habitat reports that “a total of 227 million people in the world have moved out of slums since 2000. This means that governments have collectively surpassed the Millennium Development Goal on slums more than two times over.” While this might sound extremely encouraging, we need to remind ourselves that the number is increasing: “…if no collective action is taken, UN-HABITAT projections show that this figure will increase to 1.5 billion” from the current figure of 1 billion. Does this tell us something about MDGs’ Target 7d: Achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020? We made a mistake by failing to properly include slum dwellers into the MDGs. If we are supposed “to halve, by 2015, the proportion of the world’s people whose income is less than one dollar a day,” then it means that slum dwellers have been excluded from this important framework as neither the 2020 target date nor the numerical target of 100 million are consistent with this overall goal of the Millennium Development Goal. Clearly, this shows some of the problems resulting from strident voices that, conservatively, tend to equate rural development and poverty reduction. And this explains why the slum dwellers’ goal was moved from ‘poverty eradication’ and placed under ‘environmental sustainability,’ which, by the way, is the last one under this category.

If we are serious about having “better cities” and consequently “better life,” we must accept the fact that slum dwellers constitute poverty. Again, we need to agree that both rural development and rural poverty reduction tend to benefit from urbanization. Within this understanding, we are empowered to aim at the right target, thereby invoking the right tools toward eradicating poverty.

At this point we are able to:
· Plan for future urban growth as one of the means of preventing slums from increasing
· Undertake nationwide slum upgrading programs
· Develop policy and institutional capability for sustainability
· Locally involve slum communities in the design and implementation of measures aimed at improving their lives

Why do people leave their ancestral homes and adopt the inhumane and deplorable slum lifestyle in the cities? Each year thousands of people migrate from rural areas to big cities in search of a better life. Bigger cities with their bright lights always project the illusion of better jobs and opportunities.  Do they really find dream life? Majority finds themselves ending up in the slums of the cities living a life worse than what they had back at villages.  Then why don’t they go back? Many factors force them to become slum dwellers like lack of employment opportunities in the villages or they are victims of natural causes like river erosion and there is no place to go back.

In the recent years in the number of slums has risen dramatically as urban populations in the Third World. According to a recent UN-Habitat report, 327 million people live in slums in Commonwealth countries and almost one in six Commonwealth citizens is a slum dweller. In fact in cities like Mumbai and Dhaka, 60% of the total population lives in the slum. In case of Dhaka city, a media report says that every one in four citizens live in the slums.

What kind of lives these desolate people are forced to have under the bright neon lights of the cities? “Slums are usually characterized by urban decay, high rates of poverty, illiteracy, and unemployment. They are commonly seen as "breeding grounds" for social problems such as crime, drug addiction, alcoholism, high rates of mental illness, and suicide.”(Wikipedia)

All the slums grow up on vacant government or private plots.  Usually the people live in scanty one room bamboo shafts, in most cases without access to water and electricity and common toilets. Rents are collected by local thugs and the dwellers can be evicted anytime without notice as they are illegally living on government and private lands. They live a life of continuous insecurity where their humble accommodations can get demolished at any moment.   

The slum children lose their childhood struggling besides the adults just to survive. They have very limited access to education. From a very early stage, children are forced to enter the job market with hard work and low pay. On average the children work for 14 to 18 hours everyday.  Lack of proper guidance and entertainment get them associated with drugs and various crimes. Due to lack of nutritious food, proper immunization and unhealthy polluted environment the children suffer from various diseases from a early stage. In a report it was mentioned that one in every 35 slum dwelling families lost one or more children in Bangladesh.

Most of the slum dwellers engaged in the informal economy such as street vending, drug dealing, domestic work, unskilled worker at various industries and prostitution. Some also ‘even recycle trash of different kinds (from household garbage to electronics) for a living - selling either the odd usable goods or stripping broken goods for parts or raw materials.’ There are very few opportunities to build their capacity or to have a good start taking micro loans for the urban poor.

Due to lack of access to proper medical facilities the both maternal and child mortality as well as birth rates are really high. The rate of malnutrition among children under 5 is alarming. In many countries the urban poor children die early because of severe malnutrition.

The rate of violence against women is shocking. Domestic violence is endemic.  Female children face discrimination from the moment they are born. They are forced to get engage in hard work from a very early stage and have very limited access to education and employment opportunities compared to their male counterparts. Girls are constant under the threat of sexual harassment and violence. Early marriages in the slum areas contribute largely to high birth rate and rapid population growth. The social status of the women is very low. Women hardly have an opportunity to make their voice heard either in the family or in social circles.

How to improve the lives of slum dwellers?

There are many projects around the world which were are initiated to improve particular sections of slums in different cities. Sometimes the projects’ results are not sustainable as they were not formulated with long term plans rather were donor driven initiatives.

The slum dwellers form a large portion of the urban population, the problem must be dealt wisely by the governments. The governments must understand that the poor people are natural citizens of the country and they are entitled to the rights as their rich and educated counterparts. They are part of the urban population and contribute largely to the national economy. The wealthy and educated sections of the cities may treat them as living burden of the city life but they tend to forget that these people do all kinds of manual and back braking jobs for them. Therefore for the betterment of the city life, the policymakers need to draw a long term strategy to rehabilitate the dwellers with proper facilities.

New scopes of employment and opportunities should be created in the rural areas to prevent the frequent migration and creation of further slums.

For the existing dwellers, the governments around the world need to develop the required infrastructures including schooling, proper sanitation, potable water, health facilities and common electricity with minimal charges.

The inconsistencies of the slum life provide us a big challenge to rebuild the society which is more equitable and where all individuals can live with dignity. The misery of the poor must be replaced by hope and fear with security.  With proper opportunities they can become resource for the countries instead of burden. 

 

France is forcefully deporting the members of Roma Community ( commonly known as the Gypsies). It has the capacity to rehabilitate these people and create employment opportunities for them.

It is sad indeed, especially in a developed country which does not have high population density problem

What events in France? Can you elaborate?