Urban planning challenges in Mexico City
Enrique Betancourt Gaona is an urban expert from Mexico City who shared with URB.im his expertise on urban planning. He has worked in the public sector as an advisor for the Subsecretaría de Desarrollo Urbano del D.F. (Ministry of Urban Development of Mexico City) and as the General Adjunct Director of Social Policy for the presidential administration. Read more or join the discussion.
Una agenda del futuro en materia de salud (2da parte)
El Sistema de Salud presenta diversos problemas en el corto y mediano plazo: los recursos económicos son insuficientes, la pirámide poblacional ha comenzado a invertirse y la transición epidemiológica impone un alto costo a la atención médica. No obstante, dentro de la sociedad mexicana persisten creencias y mitos que impiden las reformas necesarias para encarar los problemas que se avecinan. Leer más.
El derecho de libertad de decisión en la planificación familiar
De acuerdo a la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Alimentación y la Agricultura, conocida por sus siglas en inglés como, FAO, la población mundial está creciendo a una tasa alarmante, que de no reducirse, el mundo enfrentará problemas serios. En este sentido, la rápida urbanización y el crecimiento poblacional representan un reto para las políticas públicas que deben hacer frente a las necesidades sociales. Leer más o discutir.
Family planning: The right to choose
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the world population is growing at an alarming rate, and if not tempered, the world will face serious problems. Rapid urbanization and population growth therefore pose a challenge that social policies must address. Read more or join the discussion.
Una agenda del futuro en materia de salud (1era Parte)
Tal como se ha comentado anteriormente (leer La urgencia de cimentar los ejes rectores hacia una sociedad saludable y La necesaria vinculación de la farmacovigilancia y la farmacoeconomía en México), México ha avanzado en materia de salud. Las enfermedades de hoy no son las de hace algunas décadas atrás, de hecho, las enfermedades que aquejan hoy en día a la sociedad mexicana son las denominadas crónico-degenerativas, dejando así en el pasado las enfermedades gastrointestinales, sarampión, entre otras. Leer más.
Vaccines and information: the best allies in prevention
Mexico City is ravaged every year by the seasonal flu. But in 2009, a new strain of swine flu emerged in the city, alarming enough for the World Health Organization to deem the pandemic a level 5 alert. Read more or join the discussion.
Vacunas e información: los mejores aliados en la prevención
El Distrito Federal cada año sufre los estragos de la influenza estacional. No obstante, las medidas de prevención de este virus tuvieron mayor énfasis a partir del surgimiento de una nueva cepa de gripe porcina en el Distrito Federal que en el año 2009 dio origen a una pandemia inminente, clasificada por la Organización Mundial de la Salud como nivel de alerta 5. Leer más o discutir.
Child labor in Mexico City
Statistics from the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (the National Institute of Statistics and Geography) show that the child labor rate in Mexico City is 6.1 percent. According to Thais Desarrollo Social (Thais Social Development), child labor is a phenomenon that stems from many causes, including access to a proper education. However, poverty is the main factor that leads to child labor in Mexico City. Read more or join the discussion.
Trabajo infantil doméstico en el DF
Estadísticas del Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía indican que la tasa de trabajo infantil en el Distrito Federal es del 6.1 por ciento. De acuerdo a Thais Desarrollo Social, el trabajo infantil es un fenómeno originado por diversas causas como la falta de acceso a educación de calidad. Sin embargo, la pobreza es el principal factor que explica la incidencia de trabajo infantil en el Distrito Federal. Leer más o discutir.
La importancia de darle un nuevo enfoque al turismo en el Distrito Federal
La Ciudad de México es el centro principal financiero y de actividad económica en el país por excelencia. Sin embargo, los datos reportados por la Secretaría de Turismo del DF indican focos rojos. Leer más.
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São Paulo's gastronomic innovator and top advocate for greater culture and play in cities
Alex Atala is one of Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2013. He is not only Brazil's most important chef and a pioneer of using Brazilian ingredients in haute cuisine, he also directly influences his native São Paulo with a call for innovation and greater attention to the relationship between urban residents and food. He is an advocate for cities where culture and play are an option available to all citizens, bringing inclusion and integration to divided societies. Read more or join the discussion.
O inovador gastronômico de São Paulo e promotor de maiores espaços para cultura e lazer
Alex Atala é uma das 100 pessoas mais influentes do mundo em 2013 segundo a revista Time. Ele é o chef mais influente do Brasil e um pionero na utilização de ingredientes nativos brasileiros na alta gastronomia. Ele também é dos nomes mais influentes na sua natal São Paulo, especialemente pelo seu foco na inovação e seu chamado de atenção a nossa alimentação. Atala também enfatiza que a cultura e o lazer não deveriam ser privilégios de alguns poucos, mais deveriam ser um ativo de todos os cidadãos gerando integração e inclusão para as sociedades. Leia mais o discutir.
Access to contraception in São Paulo
Brazil is an important case study for learning about reproductive health and family planning policies in the developing world. It is especially worth highlighting the efforts of the government in the past two decades, starting with the approval of 1996 Law 9.263 which established family planning as a right for all women, ensuring that reproductive decisions were made with adequate information and direct access to contraceptive methods. In 1998, the government started distributing some forms of contraceptive methods for free. The National Family Planning Policy was created in 2007 to promote the distribution of free condoms, and to strengthen educational campaigns that target vulnerable adolescents in health units and schools. Read more or join the discussion.
Revolucionando o planejamento familiar por meio de informação oportuna e acesso a métodos contraceptivos
Brasil tem recorrido um importante trecho no referente ao melhoramento das politicas e programas de saúde reprodutiva e planejamento familiar no país. Neste sentido vale destacar os esforços do governo Brasileiro das últimas duas décadas, especialmente a partir da aprovação da Lei 9.263 de 1996 que regulamenta o planejamento familiar como direito à livre escolha através da informação e do acesso aos métodos anticoncepcionais. Em 1998, o governo adotou medidas como a distribuição gratuita dos métodos anticoncepcionais e desde 2007, criou a Política Nacional de Planejamento Familiar, que incluiu a distribuição gratuita de preservativos e o fortalecimento de ações educativas relacionadas a saúde reprodutiva em unidades de saúde e escolas, voltadas para adolescentes de baixa renda de ambos sexos. Leia mais o discutir.
Local government and communities working together against dengue fever
Dengue fever is an infectious disease caused by a virus and transmitted by the mosquito Aedes aegypti. It is currently one of the most common public health problems around the world, especially in tropical and subtropical areas. Dengue fever has four main types, in Brazil the most common ones are the classic dengue fever and the dengue hemorrhagic fever. The former is a light virus that with cold-like symptoms. The latter is a much more complex disease that can lead to nasal, urinary, and intestinal hemorrhages, compromised organs, and even death. Read more or join the discussion.
Protests are just the beginning — change will come to Brazil
Anyone comparing countries can quickly conclude there isn’t a direct fixed relationship between economic growth and quality public services. Per capita income can be terrible while total national income is high. Economic growth can be high yet maintain widespread inequality. This is not a sustainable way to run a country, yet this is how things are and have always been done in Brazil, the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery and today the world’s 7th largest economy where 21% of the population is still under the poverty line. Brazil today is 106th in GDP per capita. We also rank among the worst in inequality, at number 17, although this is a significant improvement over the 1st place position we occupied two decades ago. Read more.
PETI: The Child Labor Eradication Program
For over two decades, Brazil has been actively working to eradicate child labor, especially through legislation and by implementing effective interventions. A key step forward was the approval of the Child and Adolescent Statute in 1990, which sets out the rights of children and adolescents, and the Constitutional Amendment from 1998, which explicitly prohibits work by anyone who is 16 years or younger. Work conducted by a teenager aged 14 to 16 can only be training-related and should ensure the individual's education, health, and overall wellbeing. Read more or join the discussion.
PETI: O Programa de Erradicação do Trabalho Infantil
O Brasil vem trabalhando ativamente na erradicação do trabalho infantil, especialmente na formulação da legislação requerida e da execução de programas eficientes. Os primeiros avanços incluem a aprovação do Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente de 1990 que resume os principais direitos desta população e da Emenda Constitucional de 1998 que aumenta a idade mínima para a entrada no mercado de trabalho. Com ela passou a ser proibido qualquer tipo de trabalho até os 16 anos. Entre 14 e 16 anos os jovens só podem exercer trabalhos remunerados na condição de aprendiz e sempre garantindo a proteção integral desta população, especialmente a frequência à escola. Leia mais ou discutir.
New Cities Summit in São Paulo: The Human City (Part 2)
The second day of the New Cities Summit hosted several interesting and thought-provoking discussions. The day started with a panel on participation; highlights included Porto Alegre’s Mayor José Fortunati talking about the city’s renowned participative budgeting exercise which has been in place for 23 years. He attributed the city’s excellent scores on the Human Development Index to the great levels of active and sustained citizen participation in key development issues. Read more.
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Os protestos pacíficos de Meu Rio e suas ações proativas
Brasil tem se juntado ao grupo dos países que estão experimentando protestos massivos sobre diferentes temas públicos, tais como o aumento das taxas de transporte público e os elevados custos da infraestrutura esportiva da Copa do Mondo. Nas passadas semanas Rio e São Paulo, tem se tornado epicentros de protestos e encontros entre cidadãos e polícia, muitos deles violentos, preocupando o surgimento de maior violência no país. Leia mais o discutir.
Local government and communities working together against dengue fever
Dengue fever is an infectious disease caused by a virus and transmitted by the mosquito Aedes aegypti. It is currently one of the most common public health problems around the world, especially in tropical and subtropical areas. Dengue fever has four main types, in Brazil the most common ones are the classic dengue fever and the dengue hemorrhagic fever. The former is a light virus that with cold-like symptoms. The latter is a much more complex disease that can lead to nasal, urinary, and intestinal hemorrhages, compromised organs, and even death. Read more or join the discussion.
Protests are just the beginning — change will come to Brazil
Anyone comparing countries can quickly conclude there isn’t a direct fixed relationship between economic growth and quality public services. Per capita income can be terrible while total national income is high. Economic growth can be high yet maintain widespread inequality. This is not a sustainable way to run a country, yet this is how things are and have always been done in Brazil, the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery and today the world’s 7th largest economy where 21% of the population is still under the poverty line. Brazil today is 106th in GDP per capita. We also rank among the worst in inequality, at number 17, although this is a significant improvement over the 1st place position we occupied two decades ago. Read more.
Building and maintaining public infrastructure in Rio
A city as dynamic as Rio de Janeiro requires a similarly dynamic and effective set of institutions to plan, build, supervise, and maintain local public infrastructure. From roads and viaducts to schools and health centers, the Municipal Secretariat of Public Works (Secretaria Municipal de Obras) is the institution in charge of overseeing construction, reform, and maintenance of all of Rio's public infrastructure. For example, it is responsible for the functioning of 380,000 street lights, as well as prevention work against floods. Read more or join the discussion.
Construção e manutenção da infraestrutura pública no Rio
Uma cidade com o dinamismo do Rio de Janeiro precisa uma instituição igualmente dinâmica e eficiente responsável pelo planejamento, construção, supervisão e manutenção das obras públicas. A Secretaria Municipal de Obras é o órgão da Prefeitura encarregada de gerenciar novas construções, reformas e a manutenção da infraestrutura pública na cidade. Também é responsável pela adequada operação de 380 mil pontos de luz instalados e de gerenciar ações preventivas e corretivas contra as enchentes. Read more or join the discussion.
PETI: The Child Labor Eradication Program
For over two decades, Brazil has been actively working to eradicate child labor, especially through legislation and by implementing effective interventions. A key step forward was the approval of the Child and Adolescent Statute in 1990, which sets out the rights of children and adolescents, and the Constitutional Amendment from 1998, which explicitly prohibits work by anyone who is 16 years or younger. Work conducted by a teenager aged 14 to 16 can only be training-related and should ensure the individual's education, health, and overall wellbeing. Read more or join the discussion.
PETI: O Programa de Erradicação do Trabalho Infantil
O Brasil vem trabalhando ativamente na erradicação do trabalho infantil, especialmente na formulação da legislação requerida e da execução de programas eficientes. Os primeiros avanços incluem a aprovação do Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente de 1990 que resume os principais direitos desta população e da Emenda Constitucional de 1998 que aumenta a idade mínima para a entrada no mercado de trabalho. Com ela passou a ser proibido qualquer tipo de trabalho até os 16 anos. Entre 14 e 16 anos os jovens só podem exercer trabalhos remunerados na condição de aprendiz e sempre garantindo a proteção integral desta população, especialmente a frequência à escola. Leia mais ou discutir.
New Cities Summit in São Paulo: The Human City (Part 2)
The second day of the New Cities Summit hosted several interesting and thought-provoking discussions. The day started with a panel on participation; highlights included Porto Alegre’s Mayor José Fortunati talking about the city’s renowned participative budgeting exercise which has been in place for 23 years. He attributed the city’s excellent scores on the Human Development Index to the great levels of active and sustained citizen participation in key development issues. Read more.
New Cities Summit in São Paulo: The Human City (Part 1)
Influential policy makers, academics, innovators, entrepreneurs, and social and urban development practitioners are currently gathered in São Paulo for a two-day summit organized by the New Cities Foundation. The event focuses on the current challenges that cities face becoming more just and inclusive. Read more.
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Lagos' child street workers
According to UNICEF, roughly 15 million children under the age of 14 were employed in Nigeria's semi-formal and informal sectors in 2006. The most common forms of employment include street vendors, beggars, shoe shiners, mechanics, bus conductors, and domestic servants. This high incidence of child labor follows Nigeria's high poverty rate: these children's labour sometimes serves as the only source of income not only for themselves, but also for their families. Child labour has become an avenue for impoverished families in Lagos to provide basic needs for themselves, at the expense of the child. Read more or join the discussion.
Women empowering women through vocational skills
The importance of empowering women goes beyond giving them a means to sustenance and income. It is fundamental to building the fabric of society. A successful woman who is a productive member of society is more likely to create a strong community both in her home and her society. According to CARE, women and girls suffer disproportionately from the burden of extreme poverty, and make up 70 percent of the 1 billion people living on less than a dollar a day. Read more or join the discussion.
Makoko's floating school project — an uncertain future
Makoko is a slum settlement on the Lagos Lagoon. There are no reliable population figures, but estimates for the number of inhabitants range from 100,000 to 300,000. According to the NGO Social and Economic Rights Action Center (SERAC), Makoko supplies forty percent of the dried fish sold in Lagos. The settlement is not a face of Lagos that the state government is proud of, and there have been attempts to pull it down and evict the inhabitants, as has been done elsewhere. The first time I visited Makoko, in November 2011, residents showed me (I was visiting with two foreign journalists) evidence of what the demolitioners had accomplished on a previous mission. Read more.
Bridging the health care information gap and creating free treatment in Lagos
The lack of access to health care information, such as treatment options and preventative measures, as well as the dearth of affordable treatment relevant to the urban poor have been the focal points of the Lagos State Government's awareness programs. It has been ascertained that some of the health information issues arise due to insufficient communication channels, or the use of inappropriate channels for target audiences. For example, television commercials tend to be ineffective, as most urban poor do not have access to such devices, and general illiteracy levels are high. With information materials usually in English, the message is lost on the majority of the populace that need it. Read more or join the discussion.
Inclusiveness is all about smashing barriers, not selling statistics
It just doesn't add up. Nigeria is one of the world's fastest growing economies (we've been in that exclusive club for years); Foreign Direct Investment ($8.9bn in 2011, a four-fold increase from a decade before) and Diaspora remittances ($21 billion in 2012) are growing impressively; crude oil prices are at record-high levels — but none of these is managing to make an impact on poverty rates. Read more.
Event: African Perspectives 2013
14–17 November 2013 
Lagos, Nigeria
African Perspectives is a series of conferences on Urbanism and Architecture in Africa, initiated by the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (Kumasi, Ghana), University of Pretoria (South Africa), Ecole Supérieure d'Architecture de Casablanca (Morocco), Ecole Africaine des Métiers de l'Architecture et de l’Urbanisme (Lomé, Togo), ARDHI University (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania), Delft University of Technology (Netherlands) and ArchiAfrika.
The objectives of the African Perspectives conferences are:
- to bring together major stakeholders to map out a common agenda for African Architecture and create a forum for its sustainable development
- to provide the opportunity for African experts in Architecture to share locally developed knowledge and expertise with each other and the broader international community
- to establish a network of African experts on sustainable building and built environments for future cooperation on research and development initiatives on the continent.
Learn more.
What's the vision for the poor, in this mini-planet of slums?
It made international news headlines. An estimated forty thousand persons, rendered homeless in no time, when a demolition squad rolled into Ijora Badia community. It's the way of Lagos, it seems. The poor — who make up the 'informal economy' that reportedly constitutes about 70 percent of the city's population — are perpetually on the run, hounded by government policies that seem to exist for the purpose of making more land available for the minority well-off to play with. (Apparently the bulldozers' metal fist has been dangling above Ijora Badia since 1996/97.) Read more.
Linking gender concerns to urban sanitation improvements
In the area of sanitation, access to improved facilities, expanding women's management and planning opportunities, and improving women's safety and security are inextricably linked. For example, for women working in the market, commuting between destinations, or even for young girls in school, gender concerns limit their access to finding and accessing private spaces to go to the toilet. An October 2012 poll of 500 female residents on their sanitation and safety concerns in the slum communities of Ajegunle, Ijora Badia, Oko Agbon and Otto-Oyingbo sets the scene: two out of every five women said they lack access to sanitation facilities. They develop their own, informal solutions, relieving themselves outside, and in the open, such as behind buildings, in open drains, or off roadways. Read more or join the discussion.
Social Media Week spotlights Lagos media and tech innovations
"How can we use technology to help share information?" asks Peter Ihesie, who developed iPolice Nigeria, a mobile app that crowdsources information on neighborhood-level crime. With the app, users can search and locate the nearest police station, report a crime in the area, and obtain local security and crime news, as well as emergency phone numbers. With this app, Peter is hopeful that people will not only share information, but share it strategically, using his app as a central depot. Read more.
Keke, a progressive transport mode with potential
In March 1998, 500 three-wheeled keke vehicles first appeared on the streets of Lagos. Bright yellow in color, powered by a motorcycle engine, balanced on three thick wheels and covered by a metal half-shell replete with plastic windows, the city's most innovative transport mode was introduced by then Governor Mohammed Buba Marwa. The vehicle came to be known colloquially as keke marwa: Keke being the Hausa word for "tricycle," (Marwa's native tongue); and Marwa being the surname of the governor himself. Read more or join the discussion.
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Toolkit to protect housing rights
On July 13, 2010, approximately 15 buildings in the areas of Establ Antar and Ezbet Khairallah were demolished. As written in the 2011 Amnesty International report, families in these buildings were forced to remove their personal possessions and pay 200 LE (approximately $36 USD) for truck to take their belongings to alternative housing units in 6th of October City. Once the demolition began, security forces at the scene began to offload the belongings of 21 families, claiming that they were trying to cheat the enumeration process for free housing and they weren't residents of the area. These families were then told that by paying 5000 LE ($890 USD) to a middle-man, they could be placed on the enumeration list. Read more or join the discussion.
Event: Sustainable Building Conference
5–7 November 2013 Cairo, Egypt
Democratic Transition and Sustainable Communities: Overcoming Challenges through Innovative Practical Solutions
The goal is to redefine urban challenges in light of the democratic transition of the society and to capture knowledge and best practice with the target of prioritising and mapping innovative solutions to local, regional, and international challenges. This is achieved through four main subthemes to investigate integrated planning and implementation policies, to explore potentials for incorporating new/alternative energy technologies on the urban and architectural scale, to govern the successful implementation through local governance and capacity building; and finally to demonstrate state-of-the-art knowledge through real life innovative practical solutions for disseminating and sharing lessons learnt. Learn more.
Participatory planning for Cairo's informal areas
The growth of informal areas in Cairo began under Nasser's socialist reform policies that changed land ownership titles and rent control laws to provide agricultural land to small farmers. These reforms were designed as a means to protect the interests of the poor in urban areas, and were structured in a way for ownership to pass through three generations, making it virtually impossible for legal changes in land function. However, with almost no new affordable housing units for the poor, it became more profitable for landowners to build informally on these agricultural lands, leading to the growth of informal communities around the city. The government turned a blind eye to these informal communities, as they could not supply enough units to meet the growing demand for affordable housing in Cairo. These illegal settlements built on the agricultural lands were therefore not connected to the city grid, meaning that they lacked access to water, sewage, electricity, gas, and even postal services. Read more or join the discussion.
التخطيط التشاركي لعشوائيات القاهرة
بدأ نمو المناطق العشوائية في القاهرة في عهد جمال عبد الناصر في ظل اصلاحاته الاشتراكية التي غيرت عناوين ملكية الأراضي وقوانين مراقبة الإيجار لتوفير الأراضي الزراعية للفلاحين. وقد صممت هذه الإصلاحات كوسيلة لحماية مصالح الفقراء في المناطق الحضرية، وسمحت للملاك بتوريث هذه الأراضي لمدة ثلاثة أجيال، مما جعل تغيير قوانين ملكية هذه الأراضي مهمة عسيرة. ومع ذلك، بسبب عدم وجود ما يكفي من الوحدات السكنية الجديدة بأسعار معقولة للفقراء، بدأ ملاك الأراضي ببناء المستوطنات غير الرسمية على هذه الأراضي الزراعية، مما أدى إلى نمو العشوائيات في جميع أنحاء المدينة. ثم قررت الحكومة أن تتجاهل هزه المجتمعات غير الرسمية بسبب عدم تمكنها على تلبية الطلب المتزايد للمساكن في القاهرة ذات سعر معقول . وبالتالي, لم يتم ربط هذه المستوطنات غير القانونية إلى شبكة المدينة الرسمية، مما يعني أن سكان هذه المناطق لا يستطيعون الحصول على المياه والصرف الصحي، أو الكهرباء والغاز، أو حتى الخدمات البريدية.
Living together in Cairo
Cairo is a key node for African and Middle Eastern refugees looking to flee hardships at home and to start a new life elsewhere. The largest groups come as a result of the ongoing crises in Sudan, Mali, and now Syria. These refugees live in the poorer Egyptian neighborhoods, so both refugees and Egyptians face the same issues of lack of housing space, sanitation, electricity, clean water, schools, medical facilities, and employment. However, because of differences in appearances and of cultural norms, refugees are marginalized, and have become viewed as a threat to Egyptians as they compete for the same scarce resources. Many non-profit and community-based organizations target exclusively either the Egyptian or the refugee community, exacerbating the problem even further. Tensions have even resulted in violence; the most notable example being the 2005 brutal police clashes in front of the UNHCR regional office. Read more or join the discussion.
المعيشة في القاهرة سويا
القاهرة من إحدى المدن الرئيسية للاجئين من أفريقيا و بلاد الشرق الأوسط الذين يريدون الفرار من المصاعب التي يواجهونها في وطنهم، و بداية حياة جديدة في مكان آخر. تأتي أكبر مجموعات اللاجئين نتيجة عن الأزمات الجارية في السودان، و مالي، و سوريا في الآونة الأخيرة . تعيش هذه المجموعات في الأحياء المصرية الفقيرة ،و لذلك يتعرض اللاجئين إلى نفس المشاكل التي يتعرض لها كثير من المصريين مثل عدم وجود مساحات كافية للسكن، وعدم توفر المياه النظيفة، والكهرباء، والمدارس، و المنشآت الطبية، و فرص العمل. ومع ذلك، نظرا للاختلافات في المظاهر والمعايير الثقافية، يتم تهميش اللاجئين، حيث أنهم يتنافسون مع السكان المحليين للحصول على نفس الموارد الشحيحة. و معظم المنظمات غير الربحية و المجتمعية لا تساعد كلا الطرفين، بل تستهدف إما المصريين فقط، أو مجتمع اللاجئين، مما يؤدي إلى تفاقم هذه المشكلة. وقد أدى إزدياد التوتر بين الجانبين إلى اشتباكات عنيفة في بعض الأحوال مثل اشتباكات الشرطة الوحشية أمام مكتب مفوضية الأمم المتحدة لشئون اللاجئين في عام ٢٠٠٥.
Microfinance for inclusive growth
Microfinance has proven to be one of the most effective, targeted tools to promote pro-poor economic growth. Inclusive growth is one of post-revolutionary Egypt's goals, and microfinance is indeed effective in creating growth that focuses on increasing social justice, closing the income gap, and creating new job opportunities. There are over 400 micro-finance institutions (MFIs) currently operate in Egypt, positioning microfinance services as key tools for impacting the poor. Read more or join the discussion.
تشجيع الإجراءات الجماعية لإدارة المياه والمحافظة عليها
أثبت التمويل الأصغر المعروف ب'microfinance' أنه من الأدوات الأكثر فعالية لتشجيع الفقراء على النمو الاقتصادي. من إحدى أهداف ما بعد الثورة في مصر هو النمو الذي يشمل جميع فقات الشعب، و قد يخلق التمويل الأصغر النمو الشامل الذي يؤدي إلى زيادة فرص العمل وإنتشار العدالة الإجتماعية. هناك حاليا أكثر من ٤٠٠ مؤسسة للتمويل الصغير في مصر، مما يجعل التمويل الأصغر من الخدمات الرئيسية التي تساعد الفقراء.
Visually challenging stigmas against poverty
Before the revolution, the urban poor in Cairo were largely ignored. They were looked at as a part of life that others knew existed, yet could easily overlook. However, the recent political and social upheaval has changed this: the revolution was built on three main goals of "bread, freedom, social justice," and now includes "human dignity" as a fourth pillar. In these protests everyone is equal, everyone is Egyptian, and everyone is part of the collective voice. Read more or join the discussion.
تحدي مفاهيم الفقر عبر فن الجرافيتي
كانت الحكومة و الناس يتجاهلون الفقراء إلى حد كبير قبل الثورة. كان الجميع يعرف أنهم موجودون في كل أنحاء المدينة، و لكنهم لم يهتمون بهم. لكن الاضطرابات السياسية والاجتماعية الأخيرة غيرت الأحوال: تم بناء الثورة على ثلاثة أهداف رئيسية وهم الخبز, الحرية، والعدالة الاجتماعية, وتم إضافة الكرامة الانسانية كركيزة رابعة. كان الجميع على قدم المساواة في هذه الثورة ، و توحد كل المصريين لتحقيق هدف مشترك. وقد أدت هذه التغييرات السياسية إلى إنتشار فن الجرافيتي في الأماكن العامة. تعبر الكتابات والرسومات على الجدران عن العديد من القضايا الاجتماعية والسياسية التي يتعرض لها سكان القاهرة يوميا, و تعرض أساليب فن الجرافيتي زاوية جديدة وثاقبة في قضايا الفقر بالمناطق الحضرية.
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A new dawn for Nairobi
Dr Evans Kidero, winner of the newly created Gubernatorial seat of Nairobi County, has promised to tackle head-on the majority of the city's planning, infrastructure, and security problems. Speaking during his inaugural address on the 27th of March this year, Dr Kidero unveiled a seven-point plan with which he intends to bring Nairobi to the status of a World Class African metropolis. The speech highlighted a desire to address the desperate solid waste management situation the city is currently faced with; following that, Dr Kidero promised to focus on infrastructure development, public transport, and replacing informal settlements with low-cost housing. Read more or join the discussion.
Linking those on the informal outskirts to the formal centre
Slums are mostly viewed from the outside as alienated environments in which people languish in abject poverty, barely managing to scrape by. Although there has been some progress toward debunking the stereotype of slum dwellers as lazy, criminal, and somewhat ignorant, there is still an overall perception that people who live in informal settlements are different, not like the rest of society and hence not quite able to get ahead in life. Read more or join the discussion.
Providing for the children of recent rural migrants
Every year thousands of rural migrants stream to Nairobi slums in search of economic opportunities from which they are excluded back home. Recent studies have shown that the majority of slum dwellers are not born in Nairobi, but have come from rural areas to explore the city's livelihood opportunities during their early adult years. When it comes to services for these new arrivals, it seems safe to say that there is no such thing. New arrivals are at the lowest rung of the economic chain and must rely on their own ingenuity, entrepreneurial spirit, and (importantly) family networks in order to get ahead. Read more or join the discussion.
Kibera's own news network
On the 4th of March this year, the day Kenyans went to the polls to elect their fourth president, a large part of the mainstream media covering the elections was stationed in Kibera slum, ready to capture any violence that might erupt. At the end of the day, the general impression was that reporters had been disappointed that Kiberans had patiently spent hours on end in long winding queues as they waited for their turn to vote. "I had so many calls just before the election," Josh Owino, a coordinator for Kibera News Network (KNN), tells us. "International journalists contacted me because they wanted to do stories on how Kiberans were migrating out of the slums to avoid violence; they also wanted me to track down perpetrators from the 2008 post-election violence so they could get direct testimonies from them." Read more or join the discussion.
Reaching out to MSM in slums
On the 27th of May 2012, the Kenyan LGBT news agency Identity reported that two men were caught having sex in the night in Kayole, a north Nairobi slum. According to the article, the men were attacked and stoned. One of them got away, but the other succumbed to his injuries; his body was later found at a dumpsite near where he had been caught. The incident highlights a difficult reality for Men who have Sex with Men (MSM) living in Nairobi slums. Sleeping in cramped quarters, with privacy a luxury that few can afford, and forced to conceal their sexual identity for fear of repercussions, MSM hide in the shadows and often lack access to the medical services the rest of the population enjoys. Read more or join the discussion.
Adopt-A-Light
In a country in which government planning is glaringly absent from its sprawling shantytowns, it takes external actors to tackle some of the infrastructure needs of these underserved locations. Private companies on their own do not generally enter into a slum-upgrading program unless given a concrete incentive to do so. That said, private investment in slums is not uncommon: it is a recognised fact that the small-scale purchasing power of individual slum dwellers really adds up when it is multiplied by the hundreds of thousands of souls that can inhabit an informal settlement. Enter Esther Passaris, part Greek, part Kenyan, brought up in the coastal city of Mombasa, who has spent the better part of a decade harnessing the power of Kenya's businesses to create projects with a positive social impact. Read more or join the discussion.
Cheap solutions to water sterilization find few takers in Nairobi slums
Lack of access to clean water is one of the greatest causes of ill-health and disease in over-populated informal settlements. More often than not, people find themselves paying over the odds prices for water that has been contaminated by waste and raw sewage that run perilously close to the pipelines for domestic-use. In Nairobi, some people take time to boil water in order to sanitize it, but many just drink it as it is, believing that it is not their problem and that they have more important things to worry about. A project that has been test-run over the last couple of years in Kibera, spearheaded by a Swiss aquatic research company called Eawag, tries to address this situation by providing an affordable solution for water sanitization. Read more or join the discussion.
Interview with a homeless youth
Homelessness in Nairobi is not always apparent to the passer-by. By night the streets of central town are not full of people sleeping rough as is often the case in affluent "developed" cities. Even in slums, homelessness is quite contained, with people cramming into tiny huts but not on the beaten paths outside. There is, however, one part of the population that makes a living in the shadows of Nairobi's streets. These are youth, constantly on the run from the police, many of whom make a bed for themselves when night falls wherever they can. Read more or join the discussion.
Training women from Nairobi's slums to fight sexual predators
The story of the Kung Fu Grannies self-defense group in Korogocho — an impoverished neighborhood to the northeast of Nairobi in which more than 100,000 people live crammed into 1.5 square kilometers of land — first hit the news in 2009 and was an instant favorite. The news item pressed all the right buttons: a positive story from a marginalized African slum in which elderly women, so often destined to be helpless victims, were heroes training to fight against would-be rapists. Three years on, the story has lost none of its gloss: the evolution of the No Means No Worldwide (NMNW) program represents an ongoing success story in the fight to prevent violence against women from disadvantaged areas across Nairobi. Read more or join the discussion.
Mathare's Tina Turner
Typically, children in slums are depicted as having few opportunities to break free from the cycle of poverty into which they are born. It's a common assumption that slum kids spend their time working menial jobs, don't go to school, engage in petty crime, and depend largely on charity. Little attention is directed to the real game-changers: those born and brought up in the slum who have made it their lifelong mission to support children who cannot afford to go to school and have no way to pass their days productively. This week we're describing a day in the life of Tina Turner Warimu — a child who, with the help of one such mentor and her own determination, has begun to pave the road toward a bright future. Read more or join the discussion.
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PK Das on collaboratively remaking Mumbai
One of Mumbai's best-known architects, PK Das, has used his profession as an instrument for social change. Arriving in the city in 1972 to study architecture, he soon thereafter got involved in movements for slum dwellers and against corruption. Forty years later, Das continues to experiment with the intersection of his craft and his conscience. Mumbai, he says, is his workshop for it all. "It's where I shape and reshape ideas. This city allows that kind of exchange," says Das. "What I argue is that planning and architecture are fabulous democratic instruments for social change." Read more or join the discussion.
Upgrading Mumbai's slums from within
Mumbai's quest to become a world-class city shines with rhetoric of "clean" and "green." The efforts have spawned policies of making the city slum-free; demolitions, relocations and high-rise government slum redevelopment buildings define much of the existing plan and actions. Standing in between the government's Shanghai dream and the existing state is 62 percent of the city's population who lives in slums. The "eyesores" are taking up precious city land that has grown in value exponentially over the decades. Plans to deal with the impediments ignore the vibrant upgrading and development that has been taking place inside these settlements all over the city. Read more or join the discussion.
Rainy season brings public health risks to Mumbai
Monsoon clouds moved over Mumbai last week, opening up into a deluge. It's the start of the rainy season in India — a welcome relief from the summer heat and a time to recharge water levels that had dropped to drought levels. While most people celebrate the wet months ahead, the season also brings with it a number of public health and safety hazards. Malaria is among the deadly diseases that raise alarms for public health officials, and it is slum dwellers who are most widely affected. Read more or join the discussion.
What Taksim Square tells us about Bangalore's future
Last week, protestors in Istanbul's Taksim Square took to the streets to stop their time-honored public meeting space from becoming a shopping mall. The city, they say, has been increasingly swallowed up by privatization and commercialization; parks and open spaces have essentially disappeared. The redevelopment story is one that Indian cities know too well. Read more or join the discussion.
Take-aways from the building collapses in Savar and Thane
This year we have been witness to two deadly building collapses. Or at least two have been widely covered by the media. The first one reported was in Thane (Mumbai), with a toll of 74 lives of mostly low-income renter families. The second one happened in Savar, Bangladesh. Over 700 people lost their lives. Read more.
Freeing Mumbai's Child Laborers
In a small workshop down one of the thousands of twisty, narrow Dharavi lanes, six young men hunch over old-fashioned sewing machines. They are dressed minimally to ward off the May heat. No windows punctuate the cement walls, but a fan swirls noisily above. Their master embroidery skills are mesmerizing to watch. One sewer, now 22, tells us that he started the trade at age 10 when he came to Mumbai on his own. Still a child, he joined thousands of other children across the city in foregoing school for a meager income. Read more or join the discussion.
Street courts help women in Bangalore slums
Concerns for women's safety in India have dominated headlines this year. Since the horrific gang rape in Delhi last year, stories about mothers, teenagers, and even young girls being subjected to violent attacks, rapes, and other physically and sexually gruesome incidents have been reported on nearly every week, if not every day. While the Delhi rape case was committed by men who were strangers to the victim, all too often women know the perpetrators of such crimes. A 2012 Indian Journal of Public Health article paints a grim picture of domestic violence statistics. The violence, in its many forms, cuts across social and economic strata; however, poor women face violence at significantly higher rates, and their position in society leaves them with few avenues for redress. Read more or join the discussion.
How ordinary citizens brought peace to Mumbai
Mumbai's largest slum, Dharavi, draws attention for many reasons, and not just its size. The half-million residents of this one-kilometer-squared area come from all over the country, bringing not just a diversity of language and customs but also religious beliefs. A microcosm of Mumbai, Dharavi's Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians live respectfully among each other — but the current harmony has not always existed. After the 1992-1993 riots depicted in the movie Slumdog Millionaire, when tensions between minority Muslims and majority Hindus resulted in hundreds dead and thousands more who fled the city, a grassroots solution called Mohalla committees helped to heal the afflicted areas. Read more or join the discussion.
The reality of urban malnutrition
Urban malnutrition is pervasive among children in India's slums. The issue lacks attention in the urban context; instead, discussions of under-nourished children in remote villages capture headlines and government attention. "Official urban health statistics hide the appalling health and nutrition conditions of urban slum dwellers, most of whom are not 'official' residents of the cities, and therefore, do not get included in urban statistics," says a 2004 article, "Nutrition Problems in Urban Slum Children." The study found that only 13 percent of slum children have normal weight. Read more or join the discussion.
Small loans in the big city
Shaila Satpute and her husband have been running a footwear shop in Mumbai for the last 15 years. Their $130 monthly profit goes to taking care of household expenses and the family's future — educating their three children, providing them with opportunities Shaila and her husband were unable to access. The Satputes' always had aspirations to grow their small business, but were unable to save enough to invest in more stock. That all changed when Shaila took a small loan from Mumbai-based microfinance organization, Swadhaar FinServe. Now on her third loan cycle, Shaila's monthly profit has doubled. Read more or join the discussion.
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Healthcare for the homeless in Dhaka
On the streets of Dhaka you'll find many like Sriti, crouched by her precious shanty, packing up the single blanket she and her mother use to make a tent at night. They cannot leave this behind as they set out to beg for the day because of the government's law against informal settlements on sidewalks. There are 3.5 million slum-dwellers in Dhaka, and thousands more who are undocumented and homeless, lacking the resources even to live in slums. This extreme poverty leaves them without assets or services to call their own. While the government tries to confine slum dwellers within certain areas of the city, these travelling homeless, living hand to mouth, find themselves unwanted, without support, and in crisis. The most acute crisis is that of access to basic healthcare. Read more or join the discussion.
Sexual harassment in public transportation
In crowded urban areas such as Dhaka, public transportation is essential for everyday life. Unfortunately, this public transportation has also become one of the main sites for sexual harassment, referred to as eve teasing in Bangladesh. Shanta, a university student, comments that as sexual harassment is increasing on public buses, most school and college aged girls prefer to travel in school buses instead of public buses. Some of the colleges and schools do not have their own transportation, however, forcing many girls to use taxis instead of buses; these taxis are far more costly and not affordable for everyone. Those who cannot afford taxis are forced to travel in public buses facing the threat of sexual harassment daily. Read more or join the discussion.
$22 making a difference in child labor
Five-year-old Shima is on the bottom rung in the human ecosystem of the sprawling slum habitat clinging to the banks of Buriganga. She squats outside the door of a bhangari shop, a shop which sorts out waste for recycling, sifting through the thick black riverside muck for miniscule bits of copper fiber. Her elder brother, Noyon, the proud holder of a "proper job," spends twelve hours a day as a bhangari, snapping off needles from used syringes. For these children, it is only $15 that makes a difference between a secure future, and the perils of their occupation. This is why Selim, a child laborer working as a ragpicker, happily said yes to UNICEF's cash-transfer program, which allocates $22 worth of grants to him every month. Read more or join the discussion.
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Memugar dam, memindahkan penduduk dan meningkatnya popularitas Jokowi
Menyelesaikan masalah banjir rutin (dan kemacetan jalan) bisa merupakan tes akhir bagi setiap gubernur Jakarta. Sejak hari pertama di kantornya Jokowi dan Ahok telah menjadikan penanganan banjir sebagai prioritas utama. Mereka sangat menyadari dampak banjir yang dapat mematikan dan membuat Jakarta menjadi lumpuh. Diantara berbagai cara mengurangi dampak banjir adalah mengembalikan fungsi dam dam yang semula merupakan daerah penampungan air. Baca lebih lanjut.
Restoring dams, relocating people, and Jokowi’s increasing popularity
Solving the problem of regular flooding (and traffic jams) could be the litmus test of any governor of Jakarta. Since the first day in office, Jokowi and Ahok have given top priority to resolving this flooding problem. They are very aware that the impact of flooding could be lethal and paralyzing for Jakarta. Among many other ways to reduce the impact of flooding, they are restoring the dams that were originally designed to be water catchment areas. Read more.
Ikatan persaudaraan orang Tegal di rantau
Migrasi masyarakat pedesaan ke daerah perkotaan merupakan fenomena umum. Dengan alasan keterdesakan ekonomi mereka hijrah ke kota demi perbaikan kesejahteraan keluarga. Umumnya mereka datang karena telah memiliki saudara atau teman yang sudah lebih dahulu tinggal di kota. Kerap para pendatang mengalami kebingungan karena harus menyesuaikan diri di wilayah baru perkotaan. Keruwetan kota dan sistem nilai yang berbeda membuat mereka tidak nyaman dengan kehidupan kota. Di tempat yang baru mereka juga dibenturkan dengan kendala ekonomi dan kesulitan mencari pekerjaan seperti yang mereka harapkan. Bantuan kelompok pendatang yang sudah mandiri di kota yang berasal dari daerah yang sama kerap menjadi solusi atas permasalahan bagi mereka yang baru sampai di kota. Ikatan persaudaraan dan bantuan ekonomi yang ditawarkan oleh kelompok ini membantu para pendatang untuk menyesuaikan diri secara budaya dan ekonomi dengan kehidupan dan tantangan di kota. Baca lebih lanjut atau bergabung dalam diskusi.
Kerjasama Selatan-Selatan Sebagai Wadah Pembelajaran Bersama
Sejarah Indonesia terlibat dalam Kerjasama Selatan-Selatan (KSS) atau dikenal dengan South-South Cooperation (SSC) dimulai sejak pelaksanaan Konferensi Asia Afrika di Bandung pada tahun 1955. Konferensi ini memiliki peran penting dalam mendorong kerjasama yang saling menguntungkan antar negara-negara berkembang. Pertemuan ini merupakan cikal bakal terbentuknya Gerakan Non-Blok pada tahun 1961 dan Kelompok 77 tahun 1964. Salah satu hasil dari kerjasama mereka adalah pembentukan Pusat gerakan Non Blok untuk Kerjasama Teknis Selatan-Selatan (Non-Aligned Movement Centre for South-South Technical Cooperation - NAM-CSSTC) dalam rangka mempercepat pembangunan di negara-negara berkembang atas inisiatif Indonesia dan Brunei Darussalam. Sejak tahun 1981 Pemerintah Indonesia mulai aktif mengadakan kerjasama teknis dengan membentuk Indonesian technical Cooperation Program (ITCP) yang bertujuan untuk berbagi pengalaman dan pengetahuan Indonesia tentang pembangunan yang dianggap sukses di Indonesia melalui program pelatihan dan pertukaran ahli di Indonesia dengan dukungan dari negara lain dan donor internasional. Baca lebih lanjut atau bergabung dalam diskusi.
SEA Games 2011: Pertandingan besar masalah besar
SEA GAMES merupakan perhelatan akbar olah raga se-Asia Tenggara yang diikuti oleh 11 negara dan pertama kali diselenggarakan pada tahun 1959 di Bangkok, Thailand. Indonesia sendiri sudah 4 kali menjadi tuan rumah SEA GAMES yaitu pada tahun 1979, 1987, 1997, dan 2011. Tentunya terpilihnya Indonesia menjadi penyelenggara Sea Games merupakan kebanggaan tersendiri dan diharapkan akan memberi dampak positif dari sisi ekonomi dan turisme misalnya. Pelaksanaan SEA GAMES ke 26 ini dilaksanakan di dua tempat yaitu Jakarta dan Palembang. Jakarta pada umumnya menjadi tuan rumah tunggal dalam pelaksanaan Sea Games, namun kini menggandeng Palembang sebagai pelaksana Sea Games berdasar atas kesiapan kota tersebut dan komitmen pemerintah Palembang dalam melaksanakan event besar ini. Baca lebih lanjut atau bergabung dalam diskusi.
Menata-ulang sektor informal di Pasar Tanah Abang
Salah satu dampak yang tidak direncanakan dari kebijakan pembangunan ekonomi dan strategi rekayasa politik Orde Baru Suharto adalah fenomena menggelembungnya sektor informal di perkotaan. Secara akademik istilah sektor informal diperkenalkan pada tahun 1970an sebagai kelanjutan dari diskusi luas tentang isu-isu "urban bias" dan "why poor stay poor" argument utama dari Michael Lipton. Baca lebih lanjut.
Reorganizing the informal sector in Tanah Abang Market
One of the unintended results of Suharto's New Order economic development policy and political engineering strategy is the burgeoning phenomenon of the informal sector in Indonesia's cities. As an academic term, "informal sector" was coined in the 1970s, following the widely debated discussions on the issues of urban bias and "why the poor stay poor" prominently argued by Michael Lipton. Read more.
Memandirikan anak jalanan
Fenomena anak jalanan (Anjal) merupakan permasalahan sosial yang hadir terutama di kota-kota besar. Menurut data Kementerian Sosial RI (Kemensos) saat ini di Indonesia secara keseluruhan terdapat sekitar 4,5 juta anak terlantar. Untuk Jakarta sendiri anak terlantar mencapai lebih dari 230.000 anak. Mereka dengan mudah ditemui setiap traffic light, halte bis, pasar dan berbagai tempat-tempat umum lainnya. Umumnya mereka bekerja sebagai pengamen, penyemir sepatu, peminta-minta maupun penjual makanan kecil di jalanan dan bahkan beberapa dari mereka membentuk geng yang kerap membuat onar dan meresahkan masyarakat. Baca lebih lanjut atau bergabung dalam diskusi.
Peringatan Ulang Tahun Jakarta ke-486 : Pesta untuk Rakyat
Selama sebulan terakhir, dimulai pada 2 Juni sampai 3 Juli 2013 yang lalu, Kota Jakarta sedang mengadakan rangkaian perayaan hari ulang tahun yang ke-486. Dengan mengusung tema "Jakarta Baru, Jakarta Kita", perayaan ulang tahun Kota Jakarta tahun ini terasa berbeda. Dalam merayakan HUT Jakarta tahun 2013 ini, Gubernur DKI Jakarta Joko Widodo lebih banyak menggelar acara yang konsepnya terbuka dan melibatkan masyarakat. Pria yang akrab disapa Jokowi ini mengharapkan, dengan acara-acara yang jenis itu, akan semakin timbul rasa cinta warga terhadap Kota Jakarta. Dari rasa kecintaan ini akan timbul kesadaran untuk menjaga, merawat dan memajukan kota. Jokowi mengungkapkan mulai 2013 dan selama ia menjabat sebagai gubernur, tidak akan ada lagi kesan maupun kondisi eklusif dalam perayaan HUT Kota Jakarta. Semua lapisan warga harus merasa gembira merayakannya. Baca lebih lanjut.
Ciliwung Merdeka: Mengembalikan martabat kemanusiaan warga miskin
Dibawah kepamongan Sandyawan Sumardi, seorang sosial aktivis, sebuah komunitas miskin yang tinggal di bantaran sungai Ciliwung di wilayah yang paling padat penduduk di Jakarta telah melakukan perjuangan untuk memperoleh kembali hak-haknya sebagai warganegara dan sebagai manusia. Ciliwung adalah nama sungai yang membelah kota Jakarta, selalu membawa banjir dimusim hujan karena wilayah pegunungan diatas Jakarta telah berubah dari hutan dan resapan air menjadi vila-vila indah bagi kaum elit. Di tengah-tengah kemelaratan dan lingkungan yang buruk warga miskin dan lemah ini ternyata mampu membentuk Ciliwung Merdeka sebuah platform untuk bergerak dan untuk menyampaikan aspirasi sosial dan politik mereka sebagai warga kota dan warganegara. Baca lebih lanjut.