Urban Slums – How the Outgrowths can grow out? Urban Liveability & Mobility LEADS House – Islamabad 2 nd June 2016

Urban SLUMS As per UN Habitat - Slums are a clear manifestation of a poorly planned and managed urban sector and, in particular, a malfunctioning housing sector. Each day a further 120,000 people are added to the populations of Asian cities, requiring the construction of at least 20,000 new dwellings and supporting infrastructure.

WHO lives in Urban Slums POOR Informal workers Migrants for better livelihood

Some Key ISSUES Rights and power, including issues of gender, are the missing links in urban resilience theory and practice – and generally missing from the urban slums. In urbanizing Asia, concepts of citizenship are being challenged in terms of access to services, participation, representation and justice, and in terms of voice in electoral governance processes. Moreover the complex administrative structures covering urban areas, and their relationship with the rural hinterland argues the need for new forms of governance that can recognize rights of diverse people, while stepping beyond territorial boundaries of specific administrations.

ISSUES Overlooking the structural drivers of vulnerability, and instead transfer primary responsibility to individuals. Rights are much more helpful in addressing transformations at this “people” level. Access to and control over these ‘urban systems’ (water, food, energy, transport, shelter, waste), and their inherent fragility and propensity

Resilience The word resilience has a long, established history in the English language. Generally resilience refers to a whole set of positive qualities – the perseverance in the face of adversity, the ability to get on despite difficulties and adversity. Oxfam defines resilience as: ‘the ability of women, men, and children to realize their rights and improve their well-being despite shocks, stresses, and uncertainty’. Oxfam’s definition of resilience is not only about coping or ‘bouncing back’ from disasters, it is about going beyond preparedness and risk reduction (although these are important) and ensuring that poor and marginalised people can realize their rights and improve their well- being despite a range of shocks, stresses, and uncertainty

Advocacy around urban resilience Resilience has taken a prominent place in policy debates at global and regional levels, and increasingly at national level. All the major international agreements around development (Sustainable Development Goals), disaster risk reduction (Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction) and climate change (UNFCCC negotiations in Paris) have adopted the language of resilience. Indeed, resilience appears prominently in the debates and papers leading to the Habitat III New Urban Agenda, which will be finalized this year. However, at the same time that this commitment to resilience has gained ground, earlier historical commitments around rights and citizenship, particularly as articulated in the Right to the City, have been sidelined.

Reference: Richand & Sarah –OXFAM Working paper- Urban resilience in Asia

Spectrum of Capacities Much of the emerging theory on resilience in the development and humanitarian context approaches resilience as having a spectrum of capacities. These capacities are complementary and all contribute to resilience at different times and scales (cf. Bene et al 2012): Absorptive capacity (or “persistence”)– ability to cope, and the degree to which shocks or stresses negatively affect peoples’ lives. Absorptive capacity may constitute the foundation of long-term resilience but mostly concerned with avoiding collapse, and associated with disaster risk reduction to make recovery as painless as possible. Adaptive capacity – ability to take anticipatory, deliberate actions based on knowledge of ongoing or forthcoming changes. Associated with longer-term livelihood investments Transformative capacity: form of adaptation that entails deep structural change in underlying intuitions, norms, power relations. Associated with improved governance and enabling conditions.

Approach to Solutions Placing rights at the heart of resilience – and concepts of empowerment and social justice – fills a gap in current discourse, theory and practice.

Solutions Active Citizenship and Governance Citizen monitoring of air, water quality Citizen research - in partnership with local universities Citizen architecture - redesigning urban spaces People's Visioning of the City Citizen information hubs Coalitions with slum dwellers associations Promote protection and/or adoption of Rights, including development of guidance materials

Solutions Social Protection - DRR actions Early Warning Systems - specifically targeting poorer and more marginalised urban people Urban agriculture - multi-functional urban space Social protection employment schemes; rehabilitation of critical urban systems; Public work programmes to build protective infrastructure Public Cooling - urban design and public space

Solutions Employment (and access to services and systems) Target empowerment and livelihood improvement opportunities for most marginalised - based on restructured urban systems and processes Target informal workers - supporting rights based approaches, skills development etc

Solutions Improve access to critical urban systems and services (eg. WASH) Continued promotion of WASH - based on system analysis of fragilities and failures, rather than an exclusive focus service delivery Public access to safe drinking water - communal purification points Support market mechanisms for distributed power systems for urban poor Support market mechanisms for production and supply of climate-resilient building materials that are appropriate for poor people's needs

Solutions Advocacy (including research, campaigning) Campaign on urban inequalities - within and between cities of Global South and North Right to the City Campaign Social and Environmental Safeguards Risk Assessment - applying thresholds concepts and methods/Criticality and Fragility Analysis Direct engagement in application of global agreements - supporting governments to fulfill their obligations Participation in global campaigns – e.g Make My City Resilient

Thank You!