Welcome to Citywatch! This is a newsletter that keeps you uptodate on the activities of SPARC, NSDF and Mahila Milan. This April 2001 report has the following stories:

Alliance visit to Nairobi in Feb 2001

April 1st-10th :
Developing skills to manage a community driven policy against evictions - Visit to Karachi.
Orissa Diary and the Housing Exhibition
Demolitions in Harare
Secure Tenure in Nairobi
Visit to Mumbai from a delegation from Nairobi

April 11th- :
Launching City Life
Provisional Schedule Of SDI Linked Exchange Programmes Involving African Affiliates

April, 2001 Edition

Developing skills to manage a community driven policy against evictions.

Slums on railway land:
Dear Friends at URC and OPP, ( can you please pass this to Tasneem saab as well.)

From today you will get many emails from me, this is my way of digesting my visit to Karachi and creating a strategy by which we can work closely together. This email from Ted came today, a day after we returned from Karachi. We are in the midst of the largest relocation process related to railway slums. After discussions with URC, Arif and Tasneem saab, we realised that the work that we do here and the work that URC does on city level issues compliment each other as they both land in the same place.

We learnt from the discussions in Karachi that the Railways have three issues.

a. The strengthening of the circular railways in Karachi.
b. Linking of road and rail transport in Karachi
c. Responding to the call for clearing Railways.

Articulating some insights:
About looking at the role of Public Transport as a valuable investment that works for the poor:

The more we look at the lives of the poor, their choices of where to stay originally were location linked.
Gradually as they get integrated into cities, their ability to relocate and obtain secure housing if the original spaces they live in cannot be converted into secure tenure depends upon whether there is transportation.
A robust affordable accessible public transport in the form of buses and trains remain the most obvious choice for such a choice. Yet most cities are selecting investments in Roads and highways as major investments to inadvertently promote road transport by cars and trucks.
Take the instance of Mumbai, where the state has begun to look at MUTPII (Mumbai Urban Transport project) which is a one billion $ project to upgrade road and rail public transport. This is constantly in some crisis or the other in the issues of partnership between the state of Maharashtra and Indian Railways. yet the government of Maharashtra has already spent over 900 crores for the over 50 flyovers that it has built in parallel to this project to accelerate road transport in the city which benefits 20% of travel.
In discussions at the URC in Pakistan we heard about the last ten years debate about the choices of mass transit verses the strengthen and upgrading of the circular train route with spurs( check with URC Pakistan for more information on this). It became clear that citizen action and well documented evidence of how harmful the mass transit would be for the city, helped get that project which was to be financed through a loan from the World Bank to be cancelled. As we spoke in those two days we heard that Arif Hasan was in discussion with the Planning commission of Pakistan. This was to explore a strategy to upgrade the circular train route and get busses linked to it, so that with minimum investment and dislocation the city would have more options for public transport.
Both in the instance of the work of the URC on the Liyari Highway and the mass transport issues, we saw that citizen action helped Karachi City to make informed choices.
But more important we felt ( as those activists and professionals sitting there together, that knee jerk response to demolitions alone is not enough, we need to work at understanding the larger picture and locate the demolition of slums as a lazy knee jerk first outcome of very lazy planners who see that as the easiest route.
In today's modern world, creating win win solutions for the city and the poor. The city and the poor have a symbiotic relationship with each other and the health of one impacts the health of the other. Therefore the alliance between communities of the poor and the professional must produce a solution which can compete and overcome the logic of solutions that those who don't care about the interests of the poor generate for cities.
Dealing with issues of demolitions by Railways:
Blind eye to encroachments: It has become evident to us that railways in this whole subcontinent, and indeed in the whole region is beginning to wake up to the realisation that there are encroachments in the form of dwellings and other structures on land that is owned by the railways. By and large this process has been informally aided and abated by lower staff of these organisations, and the others more senior in the hierarchy have treated this as a causal thing because they have been secure in the belief that they can throw the people out any time.
Using evictions under the guise of clearing tracks for real estate speculation: In many instances ( as we saw in Pakistan) there is lack of clarity about whether the need for communities to relocate is for improving the speed and access of transportation by rail, or whether it is for clearing the property for real estate development. Understanding the motivation is valuable, because on that basis we learn to develop different response. There is no question that all relocation must stand the test and scrutiny of examination of the motives by civil society institutions. Lest look at two possible scenarios:
If it is to improve the efficiency of the rail transport: In this case, if the land that is needed for that purpose is marked, the people residing on that land are identified and surveyed, then those households can be asked to collaborate and co-operate by creating space for them to work out alternatives that give them secure tenure options in a location that is suitable for them.
If it to speculate on that land as real estate. Its vital that that be clear and made known to the city and country, because it changes the basis for engagement. First of all it questions the basis on which land use choices are made, and how the city plans for itself. And most important, the entire negotiations changes after that.
In all instances this entire process is a political one, in which choices for land use in cities will lead to use form some and discomfort for the poor, and heighten the debate of how choices are made and need to be made. and
Impact of knowledge base about those areas and people whose lives are at stake.
It has been the experience of SPARC that when communities who consider themselves vulnerable begin to create documentation that they own and manage about who they are where they live and whose land it is and what they want, it repositions them from such "encroachments" to "citizens". Its very hard for a city to continue to deal with "encroachments and encroachers" when they have a name and a face.
This information when it is generated has the potential of creating organisations which when federated as an interest group has huge potential for becoming centrally involved in the dialogue and negotiations and cannot be brushed aside.
In all instances that we know of, these communities come out with simple but powerful seeds for the solution that is win win?. Because no one sees the symbiosis between the city and its poor as much as the poor.

This creates a valuable agenda for SDI and ACHR: From 2001 onwards we need to look at our internal partnerships to produce strategies which work on this.

Some possibilities:
Undertake for ACHR and SDI inventory of projects and activities that members have taken on to address this issue and create exchanges to strengthen the understanding of this:
Examine ways by which this can be one of the ACHR TAP activities.
Look at ways by which we can get or government and bilateral agencies to develop a sensitivity to this, and we already have many professional managers and agencies which have worked with us who will work closely with us.
SPARC NSDF and Mahila Milan along with the OPP and URC already seek to explore this further, and together can manage this process.

Some Responses:

Original Message -----
From: Lalith Lankatilleke
To: Sheela Patel
Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2001 9:27 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: Develping skills to manage a community driven policy against evictions.

Dear Sheela,
Wonderful to hear from you. Your thougths are inspiring. I am confronted with major eviction which we want to turn into a relocation by organising the people and getting them to come up with the alternative solution.
Are you attending the Katmandu meeting? I will be wonderful to meet again.
Love
Lalith

----- Original Message -----
From: "carol judy" <carolaj@jellico.net
To: "Sheela Patel" <mithila@bom3.vsnl.net.in
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2001 10:49 AM
Subject: SPARC list

Fw: Develping skills to manage a community driven policy against evictions.
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 09:42:04 +0530
From: "Sheela Patel" <mithila@bom3.vsnl.net.in
To: <Undisclosed-Recipient:;@bom3.vsnl.net.in;


Hi Sheela, My appoligies for the delay in answering, I don't have internet at home but access it at work. Sometimes it's busy and I have to delay answering personal mail.
I am probably on a list, the heading above is what is on the e-mails you write. I know SPARC through GROOTS International. The National Congress of Neighborhood Women is a founding member of GROOTS. I have
attended several of the UN's conferences in the past few years and worked with other grassroots women to address change at that level. My agenda in getting engaged in talking internationally was not to do political advocacy (althought I did) but to have opportunities to learn from women who were living in some of the same confusions I am, but because (their) governments and cultures are different have found solutions that are different than the one's proposed by the culture/government here in the USA. I feel solutions supported by government and business interest (at least here in the US) are about "moving up & out" not fixing the problem that could let people have a choice about remaining in community. People should have a choice.
Internal migration is a result of a problem or problems. Many of the homeless are a result of displacement that was created by ...... in the name of progress, growth, privet ownership, globalization of ownership of natural resources.
Through NCNW & GROOTS exchanges have happened in a way that makes sense to women from their day to day experiences. NCNW developed a process that let women talk across diversity (class/culture/money/race) in a
friendly way instead of a challenging way. I find that money-poor women have solutions and these solutions are wholistic, sustainable, community friendly, accept diversity and if rural, long-term environmentally friendly. I know these solutions are not perfect and that money-poor people can be a pain also but non-the-less their solutions reflect
values and pricipals that address's causes of problems. The world does not seem ready to value these solutions.
I know I live in what is know as a "first world" country but the knowledge's I need are not here.
I live in Roses Creek TN, part of the Appalachian Mountains, and am a "lay forester" with little academia training in forestry but extensive hands on knowledge of forest. I read a lot on my own also. Academia trained foresters focus on forest as timber production factories. That is not what a forest is meant to be. I work for an Internet Service Provider (small local company) and set people up to get on the internet, provide tech support to people having internet connection problems and sometimes do fiscal work. I volunteer time in my community in several ways to do community development that works for us. It can be very challenging. I am sure you face some of the same challenges and hope you celebrate reaching goals/successes.
How I got involved is a story for another day.
you take care
carol judy

top

April 1, 2001

Orissa dairy

Jockin and Celine from Bombay met up with me from Delhi at Bhuvaneshwar Airport to be welcomed by Mona Lisa Mohanty. Following a quick lunch, we went to meet U.N.Behra, IAS, Secretary, General Administration Department (GAD), Government of Orissa (GOO). He is in charge of land tenure matters in Bhuvaneshwar and we briefed him about our discussions with Shri P.K.Hota, IAS, in December, 1999, when we had visited Bhuvaneshwar. At that time, we were requested to shift a slum called Mahashikal and we began the survey but ultimately the alternative site could not be made available. We also told him of our interaction with Dr.Satish Agnihotri, his predecessor, who had agreed to settle the land on those slum-dwellers. Shri Behra agreed to come to the Housing Exhibition on 2 April in Cuttack and we requested him to bring along Shri Venugopal, Vice-Chairman, Bhuvaneshwar Development Authority. As it happened, Shri Behra turned out to be a probationer of mine from Mussoorie.

Then we met Shri Jayant Kumar Dev, IAS, Secretary, Housing and Urban Development Department (HUDD). Shri P.K.Hota, now Vice-Chairman, Delhi Development Authority, was expected to inaugurate the Housing Exhibition on 2 April but was unable to make it on an account of some Parliamentary work. He had therefore requested Shri J.K.Dev to inaugurate the Housing Exhibition. We briefed Shri Dev about our work locally, nationally and internationally and he was both enthusiastic and responsive. He said that if DFID and Cities Alliance recommended that the Cuttack project as well as a project for the other cities of Puri, Paradeep and Bhuvaneshwar, be taken up with the DAWN/SPARC alliance, it would make it easier for him to take things forward. We briefed him about Mr.Simon Kenny's view of the DFID Cuttack project being able to support most of the activities going on as far as Cuttack town is considered as also of the Cities Alliance interest in supporting the project for other cities.

Shri Dev immediately went to the heart of the issue – that there was no land settlement policy for slum-dwellers. He suggested we take up a pilot project in Bhuvaneshwar in a slum with 4 or 5000 families where realignment and equalization of areas occupied could be taken up. He fixed a meeting for 3 April and invited Secretary, GAD, as well. Jockin spoke to him about community sanitation projects in Pune and Mumbai and he seemed interested. Jockin also suggested bringing in UNCHS to Orissa to mark the formulation of a land tenure policy for slums with a Chief Ministerial presence at an appropriate time and setting. Shri Dev will visit the Exhibition on 2 April and we requested him to bring along other relevant officials like Shri Vinod Kumar, IAS, Managing Director, Orissa Rural Housing Development Corporation.

When we reached Cuttack late in the evening, we first visited the site. Work was in full swing under the supervision of our Swiss architect, Aaron Wegmann: he had got built a marvellous looking structure that seemed to capture Oriya architectural styles. There were teams from Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai, the Mumbai group playing the lead role in constructing the cloth model house. The location is a school ground known as Raja ki Bageecha or the King?s Garden. A picturesque location and a regal name! One model house under construction was also to demonstrate its being cyclone-proof and is targeted at those who, like the tribals of Mundasahi (a slum in Cuttack), suffered grievous damage in the cyclone.

We learnt that 113 families of these tribals had been resettled - they were encroachers on land of the Cuttack Development Authority - and now needed to build permanent houses, cyclone-proof. They are expected to pay Rs.100 a month for 40 months towards the cost of the individual plot: a reasonable amount for secure tenure.

Later, we called upon Shri Ramesh Chandra Behra, IAS, Revenue Divisional Commissioner (RDC). He coordinates and supervises the work of the Collectors of 10 districts including all the cities we are working in Orissa excepting Bhuvaneshwar. This was an excellent meeting in which Shri Behra offered any support we needed.

He informed us that land could be settled upon the urban poor by the RDC provided a proposal was made to him by the District Collector and he urged us to get in touch with the Collectors of the areas we are working in to that end. He was instantly ready to support any sanitation programme in slums - even in Paradeep where the land belongs to the Port Trust. He said that when the Port Trust, a Central Government body, wanted to evict several hundred families of fishermen from its lands and the Collector proposed they be resettled 10 kms. away, he turned down the proposal on the grounds that their source of livelihood would be unavailable. Hence, he got them relocated on some other Port Trust land, a little distance away from the land they occupied, which was needed by the Port Trust for its expansion. Shri Behra said we could take up the sanitation programme on Central lands in Paradeep. An enthusiastic and committed officer, he was clearly pro-poor in his approach and gave us a carte blanche in terms of support from the administration.

April 2, 2001

In the morning we went to see Shri Pradeep Jena, IAS, Collector, Cuttack, in his office. He was alone as it was a holiday. He agreed to inaugurate the exhibition. He told us how he had earmarked 17 acres of land for slum-dwellers. This was in the context of a Public Interest Litigation in the High Court urging, among other things, that slums along canals and road-sides be removed. Apparently, of about a 6 lakh population, nearly 1.7 lakhs are slum-dwellers. He was receptive to the idea of having a Secure Tenure Campaign in Cuttack and advised us to meet the Secretary to the Chief Minster, Shri Jugal Mahapatra, IAS, in that connection. He was extremely enthusiastic about working on issues of urban poverty.

Later in the morning, he and Shri Vishal Deb, IAS, Chief Officer of the Municipality, inaugurated the exhibition. There must have been more than a thousand people present - mostly women - of whom about 200 had come from Bhuvaneshwar, Puri, Paradeep, Hyderabad, Madras, Bangalore and Bombay. There was a carnival atmosphere with women in their best sarees with their children traipsing around. The Vice-Chairperson of the Municipality, an elected lady, visited as well and told me in an aside that Cuttack was going through a golden period with the Collector and Chief Officer being selfless, committed officers. All the visitors found the models most interesting and found them far cheaper than government-built housing. In their speeches, both the Collector and Chief Officer committed themselves to working with National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF), Orissa Slum Dwellers Federation (OSDF), SPARC and DAWN. The Collector spoke of his policy of not demolishing the homes of the urban poor (when they needed the land for a public purpose) without resettlement. On it becoming clear to him that the people in the audience did not want anything free, he said he would assist in persuading Cuttack Development Authority to provide land and infrastructure to the urban poor on a no profit/no loss basis. The Chief Officer was equally supportive and agreed to a request that the real life model be permitted to remain in place for visitors to see over many more days. He said the ground belonged to the Corporation and so there would be no difficulty.

The Collector and Chief Officer wanted that the Urban Development Minister, who is also Chairman of Cuttack Development Authority, visit the housing exhibition the next day to learn lessons from the approach on display. They contacted his staff to arrange it for the next day.

I meet a man from Puri: he is in his sixties and a daily wage labourer. He says that he has been living in a slum for more than 20 years and now there are plans to demolish it. More than 10,000 families will be affected and they are organized into 17 Committees to resist demolition. He tells me angrily that while he and his kind have no security of tenure, people who build 3-storeyed buildings pay off the politicians and so nobody lifts a finger at them.

The morning is very hot and humid but the rain breaks and gives us relief. The timing was good - after the inauguration when people were to go into the school building for lunch.

There is a tanker from the Cuttack Municipality providing drinking water as also a tube-well. All the children play with the handle of the tube-well, as if it were one side of a see-saw and adults drink the water even as it is pumped out from the depths of the earth.

Shri J.K. Dev, Secretary, (HUDD), visits the exhibition at 5 in the evening and stays for two hours. He goes around the model houses, asks intelligent questions and makes insightful comments. For example, while we have built only the bare skeleton of a model house for tribals in the town(who carry their architecture from the village), we have retained a hay roof but Shri Dev points out this will be a fire hazard in a densely populated settlement but would be acceptable where huts are scattered and isolated from each other. He appreciates the ?cyclone-proof? design. Later, Shri Dev addresses the gathering and sits down to talk to us. Jockin discusses our approach and proposes the close involvement of DFID and Cities Alliance. Shri Dev readily agrees to a proposal to launch the Global Campaign for Secure Tenure in Orissa with NSDF and UNCHS in Cuttack; the Collector?s earmarking 17 acres of land for the urban poor with a concrete programme for its utilization could be the lynchpin of the launch.

Shri Dev asks us to consider ways in which our work could be insulated from local party political processes. He feels that corporators and MLAs will even question the selection of SPARC/NSDF and DAWN/OSDF. He wonders whether DFID or Cities Alliance or UNCHS could tie future funding with the involvement of NSDF, OSDF, SPARC & DAWN so that his hands would be strengthened. We feel this can be done. He wants us to take up in situ redevelopment in one of the largest slums in Bhuvaneshwar but is concerned about political interference in identification of slum-dwellers. Here, we recount our Bombay experience with Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP) in which family photos are taken at the time of survey and copies retained by all relevant agencies. We advise him not to use income poverty as a criterion for identifying eligible families because it is notoriously difficult to make accurate assessments of it and, at the hands of the lower bureaucracy, becomes soon a tool of corruption. Our conversation ranges over a wide variety of topics including as to whether Slum Boards are useful devices for slum development, the possibilities of taking up a massive community sanitation drive in Cuttack and the policies of different State Governments towards the urban poor. It was a most useful interaction and we request him to visit Mumbai and Pune to see our work and meet his counterparts to understand the partnerships that have developed in those cities. He leaves after the sun has set and we are to meet him the next morning again in his office at Bhuvaneshwar. It is past 7 in the evening and now Jockin does the round of the different Federation groups but Celine and I return to the hotel.

April 3, 2001

In the morning, we have a meeting with Shri J.K.Dev and Shri U.N.Behra in which Pradeep Jena and Vishal Deb also participate. It is in Bhuvaneshwar so we check out of our hotel to go straight to the airport after the meeting. As it turns out, the meeting was most productive. Shri J.K.Dev raised the issues of eligibility, of in situ and off-site redevelopment, of methods of pricing of land and differential pricing, etc. Pradeep Jena pointed out how he had given the land to the tribals of Mundasahi at Rs.12/sq.ft. and if the land had been routed through the Cuttack Development Authority, it would have cost Rs.110/sq.ft. after the loading of infrastructure and administrative costs. He felt that the Government of Orissa needed to come out with a policy of directly granting land rather than through Development Authorities.

Discussions turned to one of the largest slums on Government land in Bhuvaneshwar, Sailasahi. Though the Housing and Urban Development Secretary felt it could be developed in situ, the General Administration Department Secretary disagreed and said that since that land was needed for institutional area development, people need to be relocated.

The most exciting development was the movement towards finalizing a slum policy. The HUDD Secretary asked the Chief Officer and the Collector of Cuttack to come up with a draft policy and on our urging, agreed that a team of officials could visit Mumbai and study Maharashtra Government policies and discuss them with their counterparts. There was complete agreement about the need for a slum policy and land tenure policy. We suggested that UNCHS and NSDF could launch the campaign for secure tenure in Cuttack, where 17 acres of land have been reserved for clearing encroachers along canals and roadsides. This occasion could also be utilized for announcement of a slum policy. The Government of Orissa officials all concurred.

And then we left for Mumbai.

Sundar Burra
April 5, 2001 top

Demolitions in Harare

Dear Friends

The Zimbabwe Homeless Peoples' Federation (ZIHOPFE) has sent this urgent alert:

The Harare Municipality is wantonly destroying backyard shacks in most of Harare's high-density suburbs. The latest victims are the Jo'burg Lines of Mbare where 200 families had their homes raised to the ground in a pre-dawn raid despite an earlier agreement by the Commission running the city to halt these demolitions until some form of dialogue had been entered into.

In the words of the acting commissioner Mrs Chizema:
'' Harare is being reduced into a town of cabins and backyard shacks and the commission is not going to allow that. Our resolution to demolish illegal structures still stands and we are not going to stop at anything. Residents should know that there are by-laws they have to abide by and the commission has no sympathy for whoever violates the by-laws and is going heavy handed on such issues''

The Commission running Harare has no mandate from the people as it was appointed by the Minister of Local Gvt after he dissolved a corrupt City Council two years ago.

Over 500 000 Harare residents stand to lose their homes if the Council goes ahead and demolish all outbuildings in Harare.
ZIHOPFE asks that you please assist them by voicing your objections to this by writing to:

Commissioner Dr Elijar Chanakira
Harare Municipality
PO Box 990 Harare
Fax:(263-4) 751127 or 751124

Local Contact in Zimbabwe:

Beth Tatenda Chitekwe-Biti
Dialogue On Shelter
PO Box CH 934
Chisipite, Harare, Zimbabwe
Tel/Fax 263-4 704123/704027chitekwebiti@yahoo.com

----- Original Message -----
From: Celine D'cruz
To: Beth Tatenda Chitekwe ; Joel Bolnick ; SDI ; Anna Muller ; Somsook Boonyabancha ; Aninka Claassens ; Father Jorge Anzorena ; Jane Weru ; Gregor Meerpohl ; Sheela Patel ; Nico Keijzer ; Ruth Mcleod @u-net
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2001 6:10 PM
Subject: Re: Demolitions in Harare


Dear Beth,
Do we have a head count or some sort of survey done for these settlements from before?.If not it will good to do these list just now with the community so you have your information which will help you mobilize the community and also present facts to the outside world.
In such a situation it has always helped us to just make these name list with house numbers as it helps consolidate what you want to say and also helps build a relationship with the community.
It is just a good time to get the federation work over time on this with may be help from students and other professionals who may want to help.
This way you will get signals from the community of what they would like to do next.
We are happy to be there if the need be .Do let us know??

love

celine top

Secure Tenure in Nairobi

----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Bodewes" <cbodewes@africaonline.co.ke
To: <mithila@bom3.vsnl.net.in
Cc: <ruth@homelessint.u-net.com; <landrite@africaonline.co.ke
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2001 8:27 PM
Subject: Greetings to Sheela and Ruth from Jane Weru


Dear Sheela and Ruth: Greetings from Nairobi. I have spoken to City Hall
and we have started negotiations for secure tenure for six small
villages in an area called Huruma. We have agreed we should start the
process with a mapping and enumeration process in this area and we need
your help. We are wondering how soon you can send a team from India,
even before the PC's visit on the 9th. The land at issue is City Council
land and we can start immediately. Let me know. Looking forward to
seeing you. Jane top

Visit to Mumbai from a delegation from Nairobi
This is to announce that 4 member delegation of city officials, police and NGO are coming for a 4 day visits to Bombay 10th to 14th April. The goals for this visit from our side is to;
a. Share with the team the roles and functions that various institutions can play to facilitate communities to drive development that works for the poor.
b. Explore simple but powerful techniques of savings and credit, enumeration demonstration projects and federation building to initiate similar activities in Nairobi.
c. To plan for the first group of exchange trainers to visits Nairobi from India to undertake slum surveys ,mapping and federation capacity building in partnership with the Municipality.

This process is one which is vital given the crisis within which more that half the residents of Nairobi ( like Bombay ) who live in slums desperately needing basic amenities, and yet no working strategy which is scalable emerging to help undertake this.

There has been a series of exchanges three to Southern Africa and one to India which has already included the federation leadership The Mungano, and NGO pamoja Trust in the last year. top

Launching City Life
This week TVE is proud to launch its second "Life" series on BBC World, "City Life". With half of humanity already living in cities - and that figure forecast to rise steeply to three out of every five of us in the next 30 years " the new "City Life" programmes focus on the problems facing the world"s 21st century mega-cities, and their struggle to provide houses, jobs and services to all their citizens " not just the growing ilites. As Anna Tibaijuka, the new executive director of the UN Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) sums up the dilemma in the first programme: "It"s a trend which cannot be stopped, an economic trend, and just a matter of time All the predictions now show that people are marching onto cities - even in the developing countries. And the challenge therefore facing us in this century is how to make cities a better place."

As in TVE"s first "Life" series, globalization - and its impact on the lives of ordinary people " provides the backdrop for the new "City Life" programmes. Amid the growing clamour about how best to tackle social development, social exclusion and inequality in a rapidly globalising world, are cities really engines of progress, the series asks? Or are they, instead, breeding grounds for crime, violence and disease? Cities have always lured newcomers with dreams of prosperity and opportunity, passion and culture. But in many of the cities of the developing world today, up to half the urban population live in slums or squatter settlements - with no access to clean water or basic sanitation, and with the ever-present threat of eviction. "The difficulty with any mega-city, says Ed Glaeser, Professor of Economics at Harvard University, "is the twin dilemmas of attempting to deal with providing basic services and attempting to deal with the massive amount of poverty that plagues so many of the mega-cities of the world."

In "City Life", analysis of these problems, and their possible solutions, is provided by Glaeser alongside (among others) Anna Tibaijuka from Habitat; Peter Marcuse, Professor of Urban Planning at Columbia University; Saskia Sassens, Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago; Sheela Patel, from the Mumbai-based SPARC network (the Society for the Preservation of Area Resource Centres); Halfdan Mahler, former executive director of the World Health Organisation; Miloon Kothari, Special UN Rapporteur on Housing Rights; Pasquale Maragall, former mayor of Barcelona; Medha Patkar, from the Indian National Alliance of People"s Movements, and Gary Lawrence, former chief planner of the city of Seattle and advisor to the US government " as well as by ordinary people who tell their own stories from the towns, cities, villages and squatter settlements in countries around the world.

'City Life' also takes its theme from Istanbul +5, the five-year review of the United Nations City Summit held in Istanbul five years ago. This summer, politicians from across the world will meet in New York to review progress on the "Habitat Agenda", the blueprint for urban action drawn up in Istanbul in 1996. They"ll debate how the cities of the 21st century should be run, what can be done to make them better places to
live in " and how cities can share their prosperity with all their citizens. "City Life" will track the arguments as they unfold. Working in close collaboration with the Panos Network, Interworld Radio, UNED Forum, the One World Foundation and the Women"s Feature Service in Delhi - a partnership made possible by a grant from the UK National Lotteries Board - the "City Life" output will include not just TVE"s television output on BBC World, but also complementary radio and print features, webcasts, background briefings, links to other sites and an on-line debate, all available on the new "City Life" website "
www.lifeonline.org We do hope you"ll visit the site " and add your
voice to the debate on how best to organise urban communities to combat urban poverty and social exclusion.

'Life' is broadcast every week on BBC World at the following times (GMT):
Thursdays @ 21:30; Fridays @ 08:30, 11:30, 14:30; Saturdays @ 01:30.
Further broadcasts in other countries - particularly developing countries - are in discussion. We are grateful for any further promotion
that you can give to the broadcast of the series.

April 12- 14 City Life.
She"s fifty-five, a mother of three, a professional psychoanalyst " and used to give advice about sex problems on Brazilian TV. But in her most recent incarnation, Marta Suplicy is the new mayor of Sao Paulo - the world"s fourth largest city, with a population of 10 million and growing. On her agenda now: how to rid the city of the sleaze and neglect that became its hallmark in the 1980s and "90s, and bring hope and help to the millions excluded from the wealth it generates from the global economy. "My city has lived ten years of abandon, corruption," Marta explains. "and I thought I could help - I could be a fresh new thing there, that could help mainly the people excluded from everything we have in the city."

Globalisation is making the 21st century the century of cities, according to Anna Tibaijuka, Habitat"s new Executive Director (the UN Centre for Human Settlements). "The challenge now," she says, "is how to make cities a better place for the majority of the people." Marta agrees. The challenge she faces is how to bring change fast enough to the over 400,000 Paulista families who lack what the city authorities call "even minimally decent housing." The first programme in the City Life series follows Marta as she visits schools and hospitals, favelas and a shelter for battered women, in her quest to turn the city around. With comment from Sheela Patel, Saskia Sassens, Peter Marcuse and Ed Glaeser, the programme looks at the uphill struggle facing a 21st century mayor today.

April 19-21 The Long March
More people are on the move in China than ever before in human history. With China already home to a quarter of the world"s population, the Chinese government today is building 400 new cities in the next 20 years, and actively encouraging people to move to the city to relieve pressure on scarce agricultural land. New towns and settlements are springing up from nowhere. Others are witnessing an explosion in their populations, stretching their capacity to deliver essential services to breaking point. This second City Life programme tells the story of one such town - Chengdu, in South West China. Chengdu was once the southern staging post for the silk trade and capital of Shu Kingdom. In 256 BC, Shu leader Li Bing built the Dujiangyan Irrigation System, channelling the Min river through Chengu in what is still recognised seen as a triumph hydraulic engineering. But the irrigation system was neglected and abused during the rapid industrial development of the 1970s, resulting in massive pollution and floods. Today, prompted by a campaign started in 1985 by Chengdu schoolchildren, the municipal government has succeeded in reversing the damage, turning what had become an urban nightmare into a model of modern day planning.

April 26-28 The Health Protestors.

Twenty five years ago, the World Health Organization"s Alma Ata conference promised to deliver basic health care for all the world"s population, under the clarion cry of "Health for All". Today, that promise remains unmet in too many countries and cities of the developing world where health is still the prerogative of wealthy elites " and the poor remain trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty and ill-health.
Frustrated by the failure of the international community to deliver on its promises of health care, doctors, health professionals and civil rights activists from around the world convened in Dhaka in December 2000 at the People"s Health Assembly. Their mission - to draw up a charter of their own demands for health care, framed in a new and radical People"s Health Charter. This third episode in City Life follows the process - from a 50,000 rally in Calcutta, through heated debates with World Bank spokespeople in Dhaka and argumentative late-night drafting sessions - to the final triumphant publication of the Charter on the final day of the Assembly.

May 3-5 Together Against Violence.
Bennetlands is a ghetto suburb in the heart of Kingston, Jamaica " home to five thousand inhabitants. Half of them are under 25 and over 2000 of them unemployed. Once, despite the poverty, Bennetlands was a peaceful place, with daily life revolving around the four main pillars of the community " its primary school, two churches and the S-Corner Clinic which provided health care, support and education for school drop-outs.
But in the 1980s war broke out in the region " with rival "corner" gangs fighting a vicious turf battle over Bennetlands" one high street, terrorising the neighbourhood and preventing children from going to school. Then one of the gang leaders " the "dons" in the local parlance " was shot outside the S-Corner clinic, and the community decided it had had enough. Together Against Violence recreates the story of how the local leaders joined forces to challenge the local gangs to heal their difference and work together to restore a sense of community in one poor Jamaican neighbourhood.

'Life' is produced by TVE with support from the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat); the Department for International Development UK (DFID); the Rockefeller Foundation; Unicef; the Micronutrient Initiative; Health and Sustainable Development, the World Health Organization; and the United Nations Department for Public Information. top


PROVISIONAL SCHEDULE OF SDI LINKED EXCHANGE PROGRAMMES INVOLVING AFRICAN AFFILIATES.

APRIL

9 April to 14 April: Kenya group to India

A group of professionals working for Pamoja Trust will accompany some of their Govt officials on a exposure programme to Sparc/NSDF/Mahila Milan.

30 April to 4 May: Zimbabwe Federation to Western Cape.

This exchange programmes has been requested by the Zimbabweans. They are keen to learn from the problems the South Africans have been having with centralised funds (Inqolobane) and centralised leadership. While they are in Cape Town they will also join the Western Cape Federation in opening savings schemes in the refugee community in Muizenberg.

MAY

11 May to 13 May: SdI Meeting in Johannesburg.

SdI affiliates will gather in South Africa to discuss a range of issues. These include decision-making processes within the alliance, the relationship between professionals and community leaders and several ongoing activities. Some of the affiliates will remain in South Africa after the meeting to work with the South African alliance?s restructuring team.

May 15th or later: Enumeration exercise in Nairobi.

Zimbabwe, South Africa and India Federation members will go to Kenya to start shack counting and mapping process in some of the Nairobi slums.

May 21st to May 25th: Water and Sanitation Programme in Windhoek.

Madagascar and South Africa groups will visit Namibia to learn how the Namibia Federation works with the Windhoek local authorities to provide water and sanitation to settlements in which the Federation plays a leading role. This is part of the WaterAid project on Water and Sanitation.

May 26th onwards: South African Team to Madagascar.

The South Africans will go to Tana to help organised groups of recently evicted families to set up savings schemes, gather information and open negotiations around resettlement with local EU and World Bank representatives.

JUNE

June 6th onwards: SDI team goes to New York for the Istanbul +5 Jamboree.

The South Africans, Namibians and Zimbabweans will send teams to New York, along with their Asian counterparts to participate in an alternative event at the Istanbul + 5 conference.

June 15th or later: South Africa and Zimbabwe team to Tanzania.

The Southern Africans will go to Tanzania to visit Women in Development, an organisation linked to the Catholic Church and start savings collectives in several Tanzanian towns.

Other events will be organised in these dates. The dates indicated above may change. top

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