Welcome to Citywatch. This is our newsletter that keeps you updated on the activities of SPARC, NSDF and Mahila Milan. In this j June 2000 report, we have the following stories:
June 16th:
June 23rd:
News from Boston
Signing a historic pavement dwellers" land security agreement:
Inauguration of the Chikalwadi toilets
June 28th:
Public Interest Litigation in the Bombay High Court
Press Article
Work in Various cities on sanitation:
Chikhalwadi Toilet was Finally Inaugurated on 16th June 2000
This Toilet block represnts breakthroughs of several kinds all of which have been shared with many of the friends and supporters of SPARC. For those who have not read or heard about it in the past, SPARC Mahila Milan and National Slum Dwellers Federation have been working on issues of sanitation for the last several years.
In 1996-97 we walked away from World Bank project which sought to provide sanitation to a million people because we believed its design was not community driven and did not bring in any innovatin to work on this urgent issue.
In late 1998 The Mumbai Municipla Corporation and the Team leader of the World Bank team Mr. Shymal Sarkar brought us back into that process by exploring with us a strategy which we had suggested.
As a result of that three NGOs were given three toilts to construct. SPARC National Slum Dwellers Federation and Mahila Milan were given Chikhlawadi toilet. The toilet has turned everything - design strucutres strategies proceses and systems on its head, and in a longer detailed case study we will be writing more about that. But here it is suffice to say that all of us who participated in the process actually succeeded to survive this project.
The BMC actually continued to deal with us even though everything that was done was not "business as ususal" .
SPARC Mahila Milan and National Slum Dwellers Federation which does not take on projects which are in communities in which we work took this job which was in a very hotsile enviornment.
The World Bank team also walked through this process through all the trials and tribulations and actually usd this dialogue to deiagn procurment to ensure communities can participate in such projects.
Something that was started in November 1998, is now completed in June 2000. Hundreds of people in India and from other countries have visited ths toilet and it generates controversial reposnes from almost everyone who goes there. But the fact it sthat it is one of the most powerful learning experience that the alliance has worked on in sanitation.
The toilet has separate seats for men women and children, it has a community hall on the top for the whole community to have meetings, to hire out for functions and for the money to go to the toilet management fund. There is a room fo rthe Mahila Milan groups to use for savings activity and there is a space for those who come to the toilet to meet and cat. This might affect the sensibilities of several people, but the design emerges from the needs and uses that communities have.
On 16th June, the toilet was inaugurated by the Municipal Commissioner during a vist of the World Bank team along with coporators, additional commisisoners and the whole Mumbay sanitatin project team who attened this process along with alomost 2000 community leaders and residents.
This project seeks more than anything to reconsile the urgent need to provide sanitation to the slums population, with creating developmental interventions that helps community and city move into a process of partnership and working to move up the spiral of making vital development investments in the city.
In Bombay, the Chikhalwadi toilet will be inaugurated on 13th June on request by the BMC, and we have taken on the tender for constructing toilets in three wards ( 20 toilet blocks each).
b. In Pune 33 toilets will be constructed by July in a very interesting and unique scheme, which is essential to be documented in it's various aspects. Many NGOs were invited to participate in the scheme and each has used different strategies. It showcases many issues in this arena of provision of sanitation and who gets strengthened by which strategy.
c. In Bangalore, the federations have done a very interesting strategy. Through a dialogue with the city they found that they could actually produce a toilet block at one-fourth the cash cost of a contracted toilet. So they offered the city a strategy in which it (the Municipal Corporation) the cost was calculated at 50% of the commercial contract, and the BMC would give 50% of that reduced costs to the community and the people paid for the rest in kind. Over 21 blocks have been completed like that.
Rehabilitation work in Bombay, Calcutta and Pune
a. In Bombay we will be involved in the MUTPII relocation of 15000 households over 5 years, but this year will relocate about 5000 households who live within 30 feet of the track
b. In Bombay by the 13th June we will have agreed upon the re-location of 3000 pavement dwellers in the island city of Bombay in a unique four party agreement between BMC, SRA, Conwood developers and SPARC. SPARC will work with communities to raise Rs. 21,000 per household for the transit accommodation.
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c. In Pune as a pilot project 74 households along the river will be relocated slightly away from the river in an SRA type scheme which we will do in collaboration with the PMC |
d. In Calcutta we have been invited by ADB to assist in the relocation of slums. Two representatives of ADB came to Bombay to look at the work being done in MUTPII and Sundar, Jockin, Madan (MMRDA) and Gautam Chatterjee ( SRA) have been invited to make a presentation in Manila on the 22nd of july.
SRA type implementation in Bangalore and Pune:
Both Pune and Bangalore municipalities are ready to experiment the cross subsidisation of the slums with SRA type of schemes, after having come to Bombay and seen what is going on.
SPARC DPU Research in Orissa. Phase two of the CLICCs project will begin in July 2000, and it will look at the issue in India (Orissa-Cuttack), Brazil and Kenya. The focus is to look at how stakeholders explore new leanings in their own constituencies to make change happen which impacts the issues of urban poverty and then explore ways by which this can be further disseminated between three countries. Visit the Clicc website: http://www.clicc.org
Sheela's visit to the usa between 12th April and 3rd June 2000.
a. Washington: made three presentations: one to the Broad and president and VPs of the World Bank. Second to the Staff of World Bank and NGOs they had invited to the meeting. Third, to senior staff associated with various projects we are involved in with a view to changing procurement procedures. My general observations are that the face of the Bank that the NGOs see is a very sidelined part of the World Bank itself marginalised presently within the lending operations. So while the NGO sector needs to focus on Macro policies and sectoral strategies of the World Bank, it is vital that this be complimented by a pincer like second set of dialogues which confront the actual practices of the World Bank which contradict the participation and empowerment agendas which the World Bank has now sought to "own" . There also needs to be a demand to dialogue with sectoral leadership and team leaders whose present functioning is not in any way accountable to the process.
b. Boston:
Meeting with MIT and Bish Sanyal, Attending the video conferencing on slum infrastructures. DFID, GTZ, World Bank and UNCHS and MIT are having a series of 6 videoconferences. We need to get these tapes and do a critique of them ?.. see if we can co-ordinate such learning to include a wider spectrum of participants which reflect communities and NGOs.
Jane Covey in IDR, Attended a brown bag at IDR and made a presentation about SPARC and the alliance and the SDI network.
c. Chicago ( see Reflections)
d. New York: 25th May to 31st may
Meeting with UNDP: Made a presentation to the governance and urban management wallas at the UNDP. Found that they were battling new pressure from the RES REP Mark Mallek Brown to work on "UPSTREAM" policy and not work with NGOS and grassroots to explore any innovation or equalise issues on the city level between communities and city. It almost seemed as though the World Bank and UNDP were exchanging positions, and the World Bank was now able to attract more resources and obtain high moral ground about addressing issues of poverty in cities.
Pratibha Mehta was keen to explore more about LIFE project in India ( which Meera Bapat has worked on extensively. She said that UNDP Delhi was going to raise the funds for that project and New York was going to just help in designing it! I suggested to her that the SPARC 's suggestion was that the projects should be designed in such a way that the anchor of those projects should be NGOs which are "constituency driven" (SPARC SEWA etc.). That they should demonstrate that they can actually get the municipality to collaborate on a strongly proper project that is also very good for the city. She said that she somehow did not get such a strong suggestion from Meera's recommendation, and I said that I would go back and speak to both UNDP and to Meera and we would work on that!
Meeting with the Ford Foundation: This meeting served two goals, one to talk about SDI and the other was to explore their interest in supporting an initiative Arjun has been exploring. Arjun is keen to set up a organisation in Bombay (MUKTI) in which research and exploration of consensus building across stakeholders in the city was done, and wanted to know whether SPARC would be a key promoter of such a process. These discussions were done in Chicago. Given the conflicts which are emerging in city development processes and the need for reflection and opinion building on that, I felt it would be useful to explore this. Since he will be staying in Bombay after August, I will invite him to a meeting of the GB which I propose to have in September 00.
Meeting with Sriltha and Arjun: on the Joint project which SPARC and Arjun plan to do about globalisation from below. This was a one day detailed discussion of what we proposed to do, some reflections on issues that are emerging and here again I am keen that these get presented by Arjun at the next GB for reflection by the Board.
Work in Cambodia: Ceine Jockin are leading this initiate and last month, planned and executed a huge public meeting of the urban poor which are attend by Hun Sen who promised t support the URBAN POOR DEVELOPMENT FUND. More information about Cambodia is available for anyone who is interested.
Land Tenure Campaign: In January 2000 in London, SPARC National Slum Dwellers Federation and ACHR and SDI agreed to participate in the Global Secure land tenure campaign of UNCHS which is presently co-ordinated by UNCHS. This will be launched around mid July dates have still to be finalised, but will get firmed up by the time of the GB meeting.
Working in Nepal: The federations in Nepal are growing steadily and we are seeking resources from various donors to support this process. Action Aid, Citynet and so on both with a view of obtaining more money for the project but also to sensitise the donors and international aid about this process.
Possible training for municipal officials in Indian cities. Given the strong demand to undertake training for governance, SPARC now plans to undertake such activities through the exchange strategy for the next three years. The idea is to try and work out a range of three to four type of strategies, experiment with a module of each and them scale them. There is a possibility to some of this work with PRIA, some through citynet, and some through the various training institutions run by the state. Sundar Burra and Sheela Patel will work on this in the next six months.
Working with Action Aid: the new Director of Action Aid is very keen to build a relationship with SPARC to build its own urban sector work. Some possibilities explored so far are: to have them finance a few of the municipal grassroots exchanges mentioned above, others to explore various possibilities at a pace which falls within what we are doing.
June in Holland with Cord Aid. The Cities Alliance ( UNCHS and World Bank ) program to create basic infrastructure in cities, is a program based within the World Bank. SPARC was approach by both Cordaid and the Cities Alliance program to attend this workshop which Cordaid was hosting along with the World Bank for the Dutch development community and its southern partners.
The Cities Alliance representatives who met me in Washington were very appreciative of the fact that the Dutch development Minister had been "forced" to contribute a 20 million guilders per year to the CA program as part of what was being given by Dutch Bilateral aid to the World Bank. Having met with me they anted to have greater participation of the SDI and ACHR networks in this strategy and were looking for ways to get that agreement from the donors, as well.
CordAid, having made a strong commitment to issues of urban poverty and to the SDI partners they finance, wanted to show case this approach of the alliance to its development community to help explore new ways to work on this concern.
Apart from its other invitees from NGO and Cbo networks, Sheela and Ratnakar Giakwad ( as part of Indian team Ceine Jokcin and Sundar were invited but could not go), Joel, Rose and Beth from South Africa and Zimbabwe, Somsook, as ACHR) in many ways provided the main contribution in the form of the experiences in their work, which in turn formed the basis for the dialogue. Clearly issues of organising the poor at city level and forming a critical mass was essential to equalise the negotiating base between the city and its poor communities. It also became evident that the bilateral donors, the training organisations and northern NGOs needed to re-examine their organisational paradigm to allow these processes to enter into their institutional arrangement. So while this was being explored, it became evident that a learning strategy to deepen this understanding was necessary and how this can be done has to be further explored. Arjun attended this meeting as part of his year long involvement in studying the SDI network.
Celine in Montreal for Cities Alliances (9th to 14th June): Cities alliance now has a 11 donor meeting in Montreal where Patrick Celine and Ruth will attend on behalf of the SDI network and supporters. (And we should have a report from her when she gets back)
Cities alliance and SDI activities especially in India: Cities alliance plans to have a special office in India, and have hired Alison Barret for this. We will begin to look at what we can do through this process.
1. The MUTP II related activities: transit housing proposals for rap and BSES and working with state and bank, evaluation and educational activities. The World Bank mission comes to Bombay between 8th and 20th June and all these issues will be discussed. Along with huge breakthroughs, which are occurring in this project, SPARC's institutional capacity is being challenged in every possible way. This will require ongoing reflection and experimentation.
2. Relationship between SSNS and SPARC - This year onwards SSNS needs to be brought out as a vital aspect of our strategy.
3. Working in Orissa: Building centre, sanitation, DFID and UNDP. Celine will report this soon.
4. Events in the next three months:
UN Land Tenure Campaign
Invitation of peer review of infrastructure strategy for informal settlements in India
Invitation to Sheela Patel to join Cities Alliance board of Advisors
1. Travel plans for the next few months:
Sheela and Celine go to Urban 21 in July in Berlin and then to Hanover 2000-06-09n USA (4th to 14th July)
Sundar and Jockin go to Manila for an ADB Meeting June22nd to 27th.
Germany in July 4th to 14th, and September 11 to 20th for Expo 2000 and university. Sheela and Kalpana go to Germany for expo and Gender and city course in Kessel (United Nations University) on behalf of AWAS.
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