One of the foremost issues affecting network service coverage to poor areas is the extent of tenure security that households and neighbourhoods possess at the time infrastructure proposals are being formulated. Irrespective of the source of funding (whether it is a donor agency, NGO or private sector organisation), informal settlements are often marginalised by improvement programmes because their illegal status makes them a risky undertaking. Physical infrastructure may be expropriated, bulldozed, or left to decay if communities are evicted. The concern is exacerbated with private sector financing, because private sector firms not only sink funds into network costs but also expect a return from that investment through a developed customer base. Moreover, as the potential customers and 'financiers' of the service, the poor themselves often deem the risk of insecure tenure too great. Many poor householders are not prepared to pay the capital costs of water and sanitation connections and few will invest in upgrading internal facilities and fittings if they risk eviction, no matter what quality of life and hygiene improvements such investment may bring.
The partnership framework for water and sewerage network services targeting the poor must include a strategy for resolving land tenure constraints. Without this, those poor groups - already marginalised because they lack property rights - become further marginalised because they cannot access the benefits of improved service delivery. Municipalities stating their commitment to pro-poor partnerships are deceiving themselves and others if they have not addressed how the key issues surrounding tenure will be overcome. Coordinating and facilitating land tenure is one role that municipalities cannot delegate. For some settlements, the process is relatively straightforward if the political will is there. The key to unlocking the barriers may lie in tackling the paperwork in a bureaucratic environment. For others, it will require extensive debate and agreement with other government departments (railways, roads, and district and state departments are often involved due to the encroachment on land they own). However, municipalities must set a precedent by resolving tenure issues on munical-owned land before expecting higher levels of government to follow suit.
The resolution of tenure problems occupying private land is obviously more difficult. Whereas some municipalities have instigated land-sharing proposals with private landowners to provide land titles to residents in some core areas of developing cities, these initiatives are few and far between.4 Land acquisition is rarely an option, and resettlement - particularly from core areas to the periphery - is increasingly frowned upon by donors because of the harmful effects on the poor (e.g., decreased job opportunities and increased travel time). The process of resolving land tenure is also inherently part of a broader land-management process burdened with political wrangling and consequence.
However, some well-focused leaders and champions of change are able to come to agreements that suit a range of stakeholders, thereby facilitating expansion of private sector activities in poor areas of the city. The difficulties of resolving tenure insecurity for the poor are not just partnership issues: they belong to a broader urban management mandate, affecting all aspects of the lives of the poor (see Chapter 5). Nevertheless, they strongly influence the ability of the partnership to meet coverage objectives, and past service improvement initiatives do provide pointers for the municipality to address tenure problems within the partnership arrangement. For instance:
• understanding when the poor have de facto security5 but not the title deeds due to administrative delays;
• facilitating quicker action to grant title deeds once barriers are removed;
• providing medium-term security (e.g., permission to reside for 10 years) to create a predictable context for the poor and for service providers to make appropriate decisions; and
• creating interim stages of tenure that build confidence and enable other service options to be considered.
Box 7.3 A Story of Land, Community Mobilisation and Network Extension |
When the Integral Improvement Programme of Barrio San Jorge in Buenos Aires was launched in an assembly held in the settlement, some 150 people attended - the largest number of inhabitants attending any meeting in recent years. The government required the organisation of the community and the creation of a formal, legally recognised entity in order to integrate the programme and fulfil the necessary procedures to achieve land tenure in the barrio. Accordingly, elections were held in Barrio San Jorge for the first time: all residents voted for candidates in their block, and 16 residents were democratically elected to represent the interests of whole community. They constituted a Neighbourhoods Commission, which is the first organisation committed to prioritise the neighbours' main needs over the interests of external political, religious and aid groups. Although the commission arose not so much as a community initiative but more in response to a demand from the government, most elected candidates and representatives had taken part in activities supported by the institutions working in Barrio San Jorge. This commission formalised a process of building community organisation that had been in progress through small, continuous and diversified initiatives during the previous three years. Thus, in Barrio San Jorge, the community organisation was neither the result of a pure bottom-up process controlled by the population nor a top-down process controlled by external agents, but rather a combination of the two. Members of the commission and staff from provincial and local government, IIED-AL and other institutions working in Barrio San Jorge took part in a one-week workshop on participatory neighbourhood development. The workshop was run by the German government's technical assistance agency (GTZ), which applied the 'ZOPP' participatory learning methodology to elaborate an integral development plan for the settlement. Among a large number of ambitious goals set for the programme, priority was given to the improvement of infrastructure, basic services and environment and, in particular, the transfer of land ownership from the government to the inhabitants. Some months later, the commission developed into the cooperative Nuestra Tierra ('Our Land'). Its name expressed the reason it had been founded and its main concern. The cooperative obtained massive support from the inhabitants, since 85% of the families were members, and most began to pay a minimum quota towards its running costs. Both the emerging community organisation and our [the IIED-AL] team put most of their efforts and hopes in land transfer. The emphasis on land regularisation became one of the main strengths of the cooperative for motivating the community. But it was also one of its main weaknesses, as time passed and the hopes of achieving the transfer of land were discouraged by the endless bureaucratic procedures. Although the intended goal was not met, the cooperative and IIED-AL accomplished one important advance. The provincial government earmarked the site occupied by Barrio San Jorge for housing programmes for the actual settlers, which virtually eliminated the risk of eviction. Nevertheless, the failure to formally complete the transfer of land ownership eroded much of the trust of the community in the cooperative, and also left a heavy burden of frustration among its members. During this period, the cooperative had begun to be recognised by most inhabitants as the institution of reference for the needs and problems that could not be addressed by individual households. The cooperative became involved in many everyday activities, such as the repair of the water pump, the permanent demand to the nearby factory to not interrupt the supply of water, or the provision of bulbs for public lighting. Other initiatives sought to improve living and environmental conditions, including campaigns for garbage collection, the construction of wire baskets in which households could place their garbage for collection by garbage trucks, and constant pressure on the municipal government to ensure that the waste trucks came to collect the garbage and to provide the machines to clean ditches. IIED-AL supported these and some other actions through a daily presence in the settlement and continuous work with the community to promote the active participation of its members. Given the fact that the water supply network that the cooperative and IIED-AL were to install would operate much more easily if supplied by the conventional water distribution system, when the newly privatised water company Aguas Argentinas was extending the potable water network to an area close to Barrio San Jorge, increasing pressure was brought to bear on the company to extend its system to the barrio. Links to Boxes Unlike most community initiatives, in which the inhabitants were invited to meetings in the 'House of the Barrio', in this case the cooperative and IIED-AL went out to meet the people. The strategy stemmed from the idea that if the community did not reach out to the community organisation, the organisation should reach out to the community. Open meetings were held in all the streets of the neighbourhood. At these meetings, members of the cooperative and IIED-AL explained technical aspects of the project and proposed a form of organisation for the implementation, based on the lessons provided by the pilot test. Many inhabitants overcame their fear and reticence about taking part in a community activity by coming to those meetings. When some of them expressed scepticism and mistrust about the project, suggesting that it could be a new unfulfilled 'promise', we [IIED-AL] sought to persuade them with the [achievements already made] we had: 25 houses having access to water and sanitation, hundreds of pipes and cesspits stored in the building material bank, a group of hired workers laying the main pipeline, and many years of permanence in the settlement, sharing not only achievements but also frustrations. We made no promises. The success of the project depended essentially on linking community forces and working together. Although there was no certainty that the operator would provide water, a group of neighbours decided to take the initiative in their street. The following weekend, three groups of neighbours laid the pipelines in their streets. From those initial groups, the impulse spread all over the settlement. Many streets had to postpone their contribution to the installation of the pipes, as the technicians were not able to assist more than three streets at the same time. With such community mobilisation, it was possible to provide pipelines for 250 houses in three months. This should be compared to the pilot test, when it had taken six months to provide a pipeline for 25 houses. Given the lack of any decision by Aguas Argentinas, IIED-AL contracted a company to drill a well from which to draw salty water for the piped water network. The work became unnecessary, one week later, when Aguas Argentinas confirmed that an extension of the piped potable water system would reach Barrio San Jorge. Since April 1995, most of Barrio San Jorge's inhabitants have had running potable water within their home. Many have started to improve their bathrooms and kitchens, buy sanitary devices, and fix tiles on the floors and walls. There used to be dozens of buckets in evidence in and around most houses, and now they are no longer there. It also seems that health problems have diminished considerably. According to doctors in the local health centre, health problems associated with poor-quality and inadequate water, and back pains associated with fetching water, have decreased sharply. According to teachers from the local school, the school-children now enjoy more hygienic conditions. The involvement of the new elected local government and the private water company in the last phase of the project allowed an agreement to be reached for ensuring the maintenance of the network. Aguas Argentinas took over the operation, maintenance and repair of the system, while the families have to pay it at a fixed rate. This was the first experience for this company of working in partnership with a low-income community, an NGO and a local government. The firm also acknowledged the merits of the innovative technology applied within Barrio San Jorge and it is currently applying the same methods in other low-income settlements. The participation of the community broadened both quantitatively and qualitatively throughout the decade, partly in response to the different approaches taken by IIED-AL and partly because of the characteristics of each project. At the outset, when the team working in Barrio San Jorge had a more assistance-oriented approach, participation was based on limited consultation with the community. When the proposal of some mothers to build a child centre was approved by the church, the group was consulted about its needs and expectations, and two projects were presented for selection. Subsequently, at the time of formulating a long-range comprehensive programme for the improvement of the settlement, elected representatives of the community took part in the diagnosis of problems, the identification of working objectives and the planning of activities. They also began to become involved in many negotiations with provincial and municipal government, private companies and local donors. In the water supply and sewerage project, almost all street-based groups within the barrio negotiated with IIED-AL for changes, such as adopting organisation models and systems which matched their preferences better than those proposed by technical staff, as well as providing labour for project implementation. |
Source: Extract from Schusterman and Hardoy, 1997, reprinted with permission |