1. The Urban Governance Conundrum: Meeting the Challenge of Poverty Reduction in Urban Areas
Nicola Banks
Research and Evaluation Unit, BRAC Uganda
40 years of Bangladesh: Retrospective and Future Prospects
27th-28th November 2011

2. Overview 1. Urban poverty in Bangladesh
2. Exploring the neglect of urban poverty:
National image and identity
Governance structures and processes
Political economy of urban poverty
3. Towards improved urban governance for poverty reduction
4. Concluding remarks

3. 1. Urban Poverty in Bangladesh
An increasingly urban future includes the urbanisation of poverty.
Six city corporations; 271 pourashavas

4. 1b. Urban Poverty in Bangladesh (ctd)
The urban poor suffer most violently from poor urban planning and governance:
Lack of access to land, vulnerable to eviction
Inadequate and unsafe housing
Limited access to services
Underrepresentation in political issues
Urban poverty continues to be neglected in policy and action.
Limited emphasis in PRSP
No funds earmarked for the urban poor

5. 2i. The neglect of urban poverty: National image and identity
Government continues to envision Bangladesh as ‘rural’.
Rural areas are seen as the ‘legitimate’ place for the poor:
Urban poor associated with crime and squalor
Unwillingness to invest in urban areas for fear of greater migration.

6. 2ii. The neglect of urban poverty: Governance structures and processes
Two-tier system of urban governance:
Municipal government best-placed
to address urban poverty, but...
Central government unwilling to
hand over power and resources to
democratically-elected municipal
government:
Prevents representation of
local electorate to national
level and reduces effectiveness of municipal governments.
Ward commissioners have limited resources and responsibilities.
MAYOR
ZONES (10)
WARDS (90)
(65,000 to 100,000 population)

7. 2iii) The neglect of urban poverty: Political economy of urban poverty
Limited political participation of the urban poor
Voting rights extended to urban poor in 1994; limited decentralisation limits interaction between municipal governments and urban poor.
Informal modes of urban governance through politically-affiliated mastaans’:
Provide illegal services and mediate with external officials at financial and social cost.
Mobilise support for re-elections and ensure ‘stability’/social order.
Exclusionary and self-interested.

8. 3. Towards improved governance for urban poverty reduction
Concentration of urban poor households is a strength in urban governance for poverty reduction:
Greater scope for community mobilisation and negotiation with government agencies
Bastee Basheer Odhikar Surakha (BOSC), a network of slum committees across City Corporations:
Creates accountability mechanisms to include urban poor in municipal governance.
Improvements in legal water and electricity connections, re-negotiating traditional forms of service delivery.
BUT, impact limited to municipal level given high degree of centralisation.

9. 3ii. Towards improved governance for urban poverty reduction
Strengthening municipal governments is politically complex:
Less power for State; handing over power to a political ‘threat’
Recent signs of greater recognition of urban poverty:
Urban Sector Local Consultative Group moved towards social development and poverty (2008).
Renewed efforts to ratify Urban Sector National Policy (2011).
Greater number of programmes for urban governance and poverty reduction (UPPR; UGIIP)
Although partly ‘frozen’ by lack of national commitment, these progresses critical to keeping dialogue on urban poverty alive.

10. 4. Concluding remarks
Improvements in urban governance for urban poverty reduction must be three-fold:
Strengthening municipal governments to be responsive and accountable to poor residents.
Accompanied by mobilisation of urban poor communities to transform the relationship between them and the state, and ensure they can benefit from urban development.
Recognition of urban poverty as a legitimate group for support, and its incorporation into national policy and programmes for poverty reduction.