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By Howaida Kamel, Cairo Community Manager

The entire country waited in apprehension for the 48-hour ultimatum to end. Local media had placed a countdown timer on the screen while showing the live feed of Tahrir, Itahedaya, and other major squares around the country. Large numbers of protesters started taking the streets around 3:30pm, waiting for the 4:30pm mark. With the Muslim Brotherhood supporters occupying the square at Cairo University, I stayed in the suburb of Maadi rather than go to Tahrir, especially considering the rumors that they had stopped traffic on all major bridges.

However, 4:30pm came and went without an address by the General Sisi, Head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). We kept on getting tidbits from the media that SCAF officers were meeting with significant political figures such as Ahmed el Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Al Azhar, Tawadros II, the Egyptian Pope, Mohamad Badr, the head of Tamarud, and Nobel laureate Mohamed El-Baradei. At around 5:30pm, warrants were granted for the arrest of head Muslim Brotherhood officials that had incited violence during the protests, and others were banned from leaving the country. The apprehension in the country increased. The reign of the Muslim Brotherhood had clearly exceeded its time limit, but nobody knew how SCAF planned on taking power away from them. Anxiety is the only word to describe what the country was feeling at that moment.

At 7pm, Morsi’s presidential powers were officially stripped.

It was already well past 8pm when this appeared on all local TV channels. Egyptians felt slightly relieved, and definitely confused,while waiting for the press release to fill in more details. Shortly afterwards, General Sisi appeared on the screen to address the nation. Sitting on both sides of him were the political leaders mentioned above, as well as members of SCAF and the head of Hezb al Nour, the Salafi political party. In his speech, General Sisi made strong remarks about the will of the Egyptian people to continue to fight for a better Egypt, and about the army’s duty to protect this will. He emphasized that SCAF has no intention of staging a military coup, but has to abide by the decision of the majority. As such, the latest constitutional amendments were nullified, and the Head of the Egyptian Supreme Court will be appointed as an interim President for the nation until new parliamentary and presidential elections are held.

And with that, Egypt took to the streets in celebration. Cars were honking, people were chanting, blowing whistles and foghorns. I immediately left my house and went down into the streets to find everyone celebrating and cheering. Fireworks and firecrackers were going off left and right, people brought down cans of Pyrosol and were lighting them on fire above the crowd. Everyone was congratulating each other proudly. We took to the streets in masses to show that the Egyptian people cannot and will not settle for anything but “bread, freedom, social justice, and human dignity,” the same demands that were made in 2011. This is not considered a second revolution, even though a second regime was removed from power; it is a continuation of the struggle for the past two years to find a model of democracy in which every Egyptian has an equal voice.

Notes from Tahrir: June 30th
Notes from Tahrir: July 1st
Notes from Tahrir: July 2nd Notes from Tahrir: July 3rd

Notes from Tahrir: July 4th

According to the International Labor Organization, there are more than 215 million working children around the world. These children are often engaged as domestic workers, street vendors, beggars, or washers, in both the semi-formal and informal sectors of the economy. In cities across the developing world, children’s labor serves as an important source of income not only for the children themselves, but also for their families. However, children who work have limited time to go to school, a constraint that ends up depriving them of their childhoods and their future. On the occasion of World Day Against Child Labor, read on to learn about initiatives in Dhaka, Mumbai, Lagos, São Paulo, and Mexico City that are making progress in the fight against child labor.

Saima Sultana Jaba, Dhaka Community Manager

Shubbo, an eleven-year-old boy from Dhaka, welds car parts for a living. Too young and skinny to carry parts, Shubbo carries out one of the most risky and demanding tasks while his boss sips tea. He works from morning until late at night, and earns less than a dollar a day.

According to the International Labor Organization, there are 3.2 million children between the ages of 5 and 17 working in Bangladesh. Child labor has already received considerable attention in Bangladesh because of working children’s lack of access to education, leisure, and play, and increased risk of trafficking, abuse, violence, and exploitation.

To eliminate the incidence of child labor, the government of Bangladesh has accorded a prominent place to children’s rights in its national development agenda, and has undertaken a number of initiatives and policy measures. The Compulsory Primary Education Act of 1990 made the enrollment and attendance of primary education free and mandatory for all children. The government also targets vulnerable children, especially urban, working children, and attempts to cater to their educational needs free of cost. Although primary education is free, indirect costs such as transport, uniforms, and school supplies are not, which is why many children must work to be able to afford the additional expenses of school.

In 2006, the government enacted the Labor Act, which includes a chapter on child labor. This new law prohibits the employment of children under 14 years of age, and prohibits hazardous forms of child labor for persons under the age of 18. Although the current policy attempts to promote human rights, often it fails to establish social justice and to emphasize education, especially to urban slum communities, and it does not provide a strong enforcement mechanism for the child labor provisions. Limited access to government primary schools in the poorest urban slum areas is a large part of this issue. UNICEF Bangladesh recently released a report that urban slum areas have the worst performance regarding children’s well-being and access to basic services compared to rural and non-slum urban areas. In poor urban areas, school attendance is 20 percent lower than in rural areas.

The remarkable “Basic Education for Hard to Reach Urban Children Project” has helped 200,000 working children aged between 8-14 years old with access to education. This project, funded by UNICEF, SISA, DFID, and the government of Bangladesh, provides two hours of non-formal basic education a day to child laborers. Because it would have been impossible to abolish child labor completely from the start, the project adopted a “learn and earn” approach, where parents and employers were persuaded to let the child go to school for just two hours a day, and continue their work responsibilities the rest of the day. Not only does this project provide access to education and recreation for working children, it also provokes greater awareness of the rights of children in Dhaka.

The government’s laws and the “Basic Education for Hard to Reach Urban Children Project” are a good start to fighting child labor, but much remains to be done. The government should provide stipends or subsidies so that children can afford the indirect cost of schooling, and should also enforce laws, monitor actions, and create awareness about the adverse effect of child labor through media campaigns.

Photo credit: Child Labor of Bangladesh

Carlin Carr, Mumbai Community Manager

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 of them, 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.

Child laborers are everywhere. According to Pratham, an educational NGO based in Mumbai, nearly 35,000 children are working in the city. Laws prohibit children under the age of 14 from working, but they can be found not only in small workshops in Dharavi but on the streets peddling wares and in middle-class homes as domestic help. “Employment of children is not confined to just a few sectors but has invaded most areas of work,” says a report by Pratham that outlines the organization’s approach to tackling child labor. And for this NGO, education is the answer.

Pratham is India’s largest and best-known NGO working to provide quality education to underprivileged children. However, when Pratham launched the mission “Every child in school and learning well” — their endeavor to have 100 percent school enrollment in both rural and urban India — they realized that there was a population whose childhood and rights as children were being forfeited. Working children, especially those who had come to Mumbai alone, had little choice but to earn a daily wage for survival and send any of their extra pittance back home to the villages.

In response, Pratham launched a new campaign called “No child working and every child in school.” The task was easier said than done, especially given the complicated family circumstances of these kids. The families are usually extremely poor, and often a range of other factors contribute to ill-fated direction in the lives of these children.

While the issue is visible in Mumbai, the roots of the problem of laboring children are undeniably in the villages. Pratham decided to head to the “source states” — primarily Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, and West Bengal — with an outreach program. Their focus was twofold: children already in the city were rescued, with the help of local organizations, and sent back to their villages, and programs were developed in the villages to “mainstream education” and provide more income-generating activities for the families.

Today, Pratham operates the outreach initiative in seven states through Pratham Council for Vulnerable Children (PCVC) and has reached nearly 16,000 children across the country. The model exemplifies the highly interconnected circumstances of most urban migrants. Many of Mumbai’s most difficult issues cannot be tackled in the city alone. The growing need for employment in villages and lack of quality education is driving urban child labor. This model underscores the importance of policy reforms and civil society initiatives to strengthen opportunities in rural areas if the problem of child labor is to truly be eradicated.

Photo credit: Abhisek Sarda

Olatawura Ladipo-Ajayi, Lagos Community Manager

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.

The Lagos state government enforces the Labour Act and the Child Rights Acts in order to limit the sacrifices underage children make to help support their impecunious families, such as skipping school, health hazards, and exposure to sexual abuse and harassment. These laws prohibit any form of labour during school hours, set a minimum age for work outside home, and ascribe certain basic rights to children, such as education and balanced development. Any child found working on the street hawking or in shops during schools hours is picked up, and their parents are punished for disregarding the law. While this does not address all the aspects of child labour, it tackles the most prominent one, which is access to education.

The Child to Child Network (CCN) is a non-governmental organisation that partners with UNICEF to protect children’s rights. Since 2007, the CCN has helped over 300 child laborers off of Lagos’ streets. The program involves targeted outreach events during school hours in high-risk areas where children are often found working, like Oshodi, Kuramo Beach, and Ojota. The children are approached and their interest is piqued through recreational activities such as soccer, leading them to feel comfortable and communicative. The children are invited to the CCN office, where further activities and counselling take place to determine how and why they ended up as child laborers (reasons often include poverty, abuse, or estrangement from parents). Children who are willing are then taken off of the streets to undergo a one-to-three-month rehabilitation and therapy program at the CCN office, during which accommodation is provided. Some children are sent back to school, others are reunited with their families (provided the environment is safe), and some are put in homes for better care.

The CCN is currently focusing on monitoring the progress of the rehabilitated children to ensure that they are not back in working conditions on the street of Lagos. The organisation’s National Coordinator, Mrs. Ngozi Ekwerike-Okoro, looks forward to starting these monitoring initiatives by July 2013. The presence of organisations like the CCN, and the state government’s efforts to tackle child labour are a good start at reducing child labour cases in Lagos.

Photo credit: Mishimoto

Catalina Gomez, Coordenadora da Rede em São Paulo

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.

Segundo um informe de Reporter Brasil de Maio de 2013, 3,4 milhões de crianças e adolescentes de 10 a 17 anos estava trabalhando até 2010 no país. Desde 2000, a redução foi de 13 por cento. Os resultados podem ser atribuídos a vários esforços, mais o Programa de Erradicação do Trabalho Infantil (PETI) merece um destaque.

O PETI foi estabelecido em 1996 com o objetivo de retirar as crianças e adolescentes de 7 a 14 anos, do trabalho. O programa oferece um beneficio mensal de R$40 para cada beneficiário morando em áreas urbanas e R$25 para as áreas rurais. A partir de 2006, PETI e o programa Bolsa Família foram integrados, unificando o mesmo sistema de cadastro e da atenção dos assistentes sociais. O PETI foca-se na prestação de serviços assistenciais para crianças e adolescentes. Atualmente têm 800 mil beneficiários no território nacional. Para receber o beneficio do PETI, as crianças e adolescentes devem estar frequentando a escola com uma media de atendimento de 85 por cento. Além disso, precisam atender um reforço escolar. Os pais das crianças também deverão participar nos eventos organizados pela escola. Este é um mecanismo chave para envolver aos pais na educação dos filhos.

A execução do PETI é uma responsabilidade municipal. Na cidade de São Paulo, a Secretaria Municipal de Assistência e Desenvolvimento Social é responsável pelo programa, igual que do Bolsa Família, para garantir uma abordagem coordenada. Segundo um estudo de 2007, 1800 crianças e adolescentes trabalham na cidade. Perto de 65 por cento deles operam no centro da cidade e 35 por cento na periferia. As principais atividades realizadas incluem pedido de esmolas, venda de produtos nas áreas comerciais e reciclagem.

Em São Paulo, o PETI beneficia perto de 1200 crianças e adolescentes. A cidade tem desenvolvido algumas outras iniciativas no combate do trabalho infantil incluindo a operação de linhas telefônicas para denunciar casos de crianças trabalhando. Também tem implantado campanhas educativas para a população em contra das esmolas para crianças. Mais ainda existe muito trabalho pela frente. Primeiro, é requerido um trabalho inter-sectorial mais integrado entre a assistência social e a educação, saúde e trabalho. Isto inclui melhor monitoramentos aos programas PETI e Bolsa Família para conferir no cumprimento das condicionalidades de cada um deles. Também são requeridas ações mais efetivas no apoio das crianças desenvolvendo trabalhos menos visíveis, tais como o trabalho doméstico e a prostituição, os quais afetam drasticamente às meninas.

Crédito fotográfico: Assistência Social da Cidade de São Paulo

Catalina Gomez, São Paulo Community Manager

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 well-being.

According to a recent report from Reporter Brasil, there are 3.4 million children and adolescents aged 10 to 17 working in Brazil, which represents a 13 percent drop in the total number since 2000. This result can be attributed to a number of efforts and initiatives, but the Child Labor Eradication Program (Programa de Erradicação do Trabalho Infantil), known as PETI, deserves a special focus.

PETI was established in 1996 with the aim of abolishing child labor: it targets working children and adolescents ages 7 to 14 in an attempt to ensure enrollment in school and that they stop working. The program offers a monthly stipend of R$40 (US$22) to each urban beneficiary, and R$25 in the rural areas. Since 2006, the program has been integrated to the cash transfer program Bolsa Familia, so both have the same registry system and social assistance personnel. PETI currently has 800 thousand beneficiaries nationwide. In order to receive PETI’s support, every beneficiary child must present an average school attendance rate of 85 percent, and should also be registered in after-school activities. Parents are required to attend periodic school activities, which is key in engaging parents in their children’s education.

PETI’s operation takes place at the municipal level. In São Paulo, the Municipal Secretariat of Assistance and Social Development is in charge of implementing the program, along with Bolsa Familia, in order to to ensure a coordinated approach. According to a 2007 study, around 1800 children and adolescents were found working on São Paulo’s streets. Close to 65 per cent of them worked in central areas and 35 per cent in the periphery. The main activities carried out by these youth was begging for money in commercial areas, recycling, and selling various products at street crossings.

In São Paulo, PETI benefits around 1200 children and adolescents. The city has also established hotlines to report cases of child labor, and there are periodic campaigns educating citizens on the importance of not giving away change to children on the street. But there is still much work to be done before the eradication of child labor. First, greater inter-sectorial work is required at the local level, involving not only social assistance, but also the education, labor, and health sectors. This includes greater monitoring of families who are currently beneficiaries of PETI and Bolsa Familia to ensure that they are complying with the program requirements. Secondly, more proactive efforts are required in order to support children carrying out less visible work, like domestic work and prostitution, which is drastically affecting girls.

Photo credit: Assistência Social da Cidade de São Paulo

María Fernanda Carvallo, Mexico City Community Manager

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.

Una de las modalidades en la Ciudad de México es el trabajo urbano-marginal que consiste de actividades productivas y de servicios que se realizan por la población infantil en la calle o en espacios públicos, por las cuales reciben un ingreso. Este tipo de trabajo es la forma más visible del trabajo infantil, por lo que ha atraído la mayor atención de actores y políticas gubernamentales. En contraste, otra de las aristas en el Distrito Federal, es el trabajo infantil y adolescente doméstico en hogares de terceros, que son actividades domésticas compensadas en hogares ajenos particulares. Este trabajo impide el acceso, rendimiento y permanencia en la escuela y se lleva a cabo en condiciones que afectan el desarrollo psicológico, físico, moral o social de las niñas, niños y adolescentes. Dado el contexto, el 99 por ciento de las trabajadoras domésticas son niñas y adolescentes en situación de vulnerabilidad que las hace particularmente presas de abuso sexual. Por lo tanto esta actividad es invisible tanto en las estadísticas nacionales y estatales como en los programas sociales y también para la opinión pública en general. Además, este tipo de trabajo es el menos regulado y el peor remunerado. Es por esto que es de mayor importancia avanzar el estudio y la visibilización de trabajos en hogares de terceros.

Ante esta problemática, el trabajo de Thais se basa en el derecho a una vida libre de explotación económica y en erradicar el trabajo infantil. Thais afirma que esta práctica sigue estando presente debido a elementos como: la contribución económica a las familias para que estas salgan de la indigencia, la poca visibilidad del fenómeno en México, la falta de una alianza social, acuerdos para establecer acciones orientadas a la erradicación del trabajo infantil y su protección inmediata a los que se encuentran trabajando.

Las acciones que implementa Thais van en tres ejes: la primera es la realización de estudios para contribuir con conocimiento específico que permita visibilizar las formas de trabajo infantil y avanzar en la caracterización de las modalidades de trabajo. En segundo lugar, la capacitación a servidores públicos, educadores y profesionales relacionados con la atención de niñas y niñas trabajadores para brindarles herramientas con las que puedan acercarse a los niños de manera respetuosa, con calidad y calidez. Finalmente, el eje de políticas públicas ofrece información sobre la regulación en convenios internacionales, legislación local, organizaciones de la sociedad civil y otros actores con el fin de desarrollar estrategias de protección de acuerdo a la adecuación del marco legal, internacional y asignación de presupuestos.

De las acciones de Thais se desprende un diagnóstico de “Trabajo infantil y adolescente doméstico en hogares de terceros en el Distrito Federal” e “Iniciativas legislativas sobre el trabajo infantil doméstico en hogares de terceros”. En dichas investigaciones se recomienda conocer con mayor exactitud las dimensiones del problema y jurídicamente establecer una tipología de modalidades de trabajo infantil y adolescente en hogares de terceros. Por ejemplo, una tipología de empleadores e identificar peores formas que deben ser eliminadas de inmediato y ampliar el marco jurídico vigente. A la sociedad civil se le invita a visibilizar la problemática ante la opinión pública, difundir los derechos de las adolescentes trabajadoras domésticas de acuerdo a la Convención de los Derechos de la Niñez y la legislación Mexicana y promover condiciones favorables al desarrollo integral de las adolescentes que realizan trabajo doméstico, acorde con sus necesidades. Finalmente, en materia de políticas públicas se sugiere establecer un Programa Nacional de Acción que coordine las acciones de eliminación de las peores formas de trabajo infantil. También debe incluir la modalidad de trabajo infantil doméstico dentro de los programas sociales orientados a la niñez y adolescencia y visibilizar a esta población como un grupo, cuyos derechos necesitan protección.

Foto: ADN Argentino

María Fernanda Carvallo, Mexico City Community Manager

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 lack of access to a proper education. However, poverty is the main factor that leads to child labor in Mexico City.

One main form of child labor consists of money-generating activities and services provided by children on the streets or in public spaces. This kind of work is the most visible kind of child labor and has therefore caught the attention of stakeholders and government agencies focused on policy work. However, another aspect of child labor is domestic work. Children and adolescents are employed in people’s homes, restricting their access to education. Moreover, the children’s psychological, physical, moral, and social development is affected by the working conditions of domestic labor. Additionally, 99 percent of domestic workers are girls and young women in vulnerable situations, making them targets for sexual abuse. However, they are largely missing from national and state statistics, as well as from social programs and from the public eye. Furthermore, this type of work is the least regulated and the lowest paid. For this reason, it is especially important to improve the visibility of underage domestic work.

Thais Social Development is an organization that works to eradicate child labor, and is based on the right to live a life free of economic exploitation. Thais states that these practices still exist because of the economic contribution children can bring to families so that they can get out of poverty, the low visibility of the child labor phenomenon, the lack of a social alliance, and the lack of agreements that establish action-oriented methods to eradicate child labor.

Thais’ work is focused in three areas: the first is to conduct studies to contribute to the knowledge that will allow the various forms of child labor to become visible, and to improve the characterization of working arrangements. Secondly, the training of public servants, educators, and professionals to provide them with tools to better approach children in a respectful and warm manner. Finally, the focus on public policy provides information on international agreements, local legislation, and civil society organizations in order to develop protection strategies that adjust to the legal, international, and budgetary framework.

Two reports have come out of Thais’ work: “Child and Adolescent Domestic Work in Private Households in Mexico City” and “Legislative Initiatives on Child Domestic Workers in Private Households”. Both investigations make recommendations about understanding the precise dimensions of the problem, and legally establishing a typology of child labor arrangements in private households. Civil society is encouraged to improve visibility of child labor to the public eye, to promote the rights of adolescent domestic workers according to the Convención de los Derechos de la Niñez (Children’s Rights Convention) and the Mexican legislation, and to promote favorable working conditions for adolescents doing domestic work. Finally, with regard to public policy, it is suggested to establish a National Action Program to coordinate action to eliminate the worst forms of child labor. It is also recommended to include a category of child labor in social programs aimed at children and adolescents to draw attention and visibility to this population as a group whose rights need special protection.

Photo credit: ADN Argentino

To me, the more difficult part of this question may not be answering what a more equity-driven approach to city infrastructure would look like — but figuring out how we would get there from here. In Chennai, we have interacted with government servants from a number of agencies that regularly deal with the urban poor, such as officials from the Slum Clearance Board or the city department that builds and maintains public toilets. Especially in India, government officials are often portrayed as corrupt and lazy, barriers to better governance. However, what we have found is that many officials are actually sincere and hardworking, but that they themselves face barriers that prevent them from taking actions that benefit the poor and create a more equitable city Read more.

Para mí, la parte más difícil de esta pregunta no es responder en como un enfoque patrimonial dirigido a la infraestructura de la ciudad se miraría—sino tratar de averiguar cómo podemos llegar allí desde aquí. En Chennai, hemos interactuado con los funcionarios del gobierno de una serie de agencias que tratan con los pobres urbanos regularmente, tales como los funcionarios de la Junta de Eliminación de Suburbios o el departamento de la ciudad que construye y mantiene los baños públicos. En la India especialmente, los funcionarios del gobierno son representados a menudo como corruptos y perezosos—barreras a la gobernación eficaz. No obstante, lo que hemos encontrado es que muchos funcionarios son realmente sinceros y trabajadores, pero ellos mismos tienen barreras que se enfrentan y que les impiden tomar acciones que beneficien a los pobres para crear una ciudad más justa. Leer más.

Submitted by Editor — Thu, 03/13/2014 – 15:43

The AIDS crisis continues to loom large in India, with more than 2.5 million people infected with HIV. The country has taken steps toward addressing the issue, including launching a National AIDS Control Program. Still, the virus has taken the lives of millions of mothers and fathers, and UNICEF estimates that there could be as many as 4 million children affected in India, including those living with HIV — estimated to number nearly 100,000 — those orphaned by AIDS, and those whose parents are living with HIV. Read more or join the discussion.

Submitted by Carlin Carr — Mon, 12/02/2013 – 00:00

India and China have been saddled side by side in the race for rising economic superpowers. While China has edged ahead on many fronts, India’s large youth population provides a massive potential. “An estimated 1-1.2 million new workers will join the labor market in South Asia every month over the next few decades – an increase of 25-50% over the historical average,” says a World Bank report. Job creation needs to match this upcoming labor force. A new government initiative in India, the National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC), has prioritized providing this generation with the necessary education and training so the country can reap the benefits of its demographic dividend. Read more or join the discussion.

Submitted by Carlin Carr — Mon, 11/11/2013 – 00:00

The poor live in precarious circumstances on a daily basis. Unexpected illnesses or job losses that would put a strain on any family often leave the poor on the brink. With no access to the formal banking system, microloans have not only served to help in emergency situations, but have actually helped these families to build up savings and gain access to important, life-saving products. The loans, mainly to women, have expanded in purpose and scope since Grameen launched its rural banking system in the 1990s. Today, microfinance institutions such as Samasta in Bangalore have used the women’s groups that form the basis of lending to focus loans on other important intervention areas, including insurance, home gas connections and water purifiers. Read more or join the discussion.

Submitted by Carlin Carr — Mon, 10/28/2013 – 00:00

Housing tenure can have a transformative impact on the lives of the poor. The security of ownership rights opens pathways for slum dwellers themselves to upgrade their living environments without fear of relocation or demolition. Beyond improved structural environments, tenure security also leads to improved health conditions, education levels and income levels. In this sense, housing tenure’s ripple effects make it one of the single most important aspects of improving the lives of slum dwellers. Read more or join the discussion.

Submitted by Carlin Carr — Mon, 10/21/2013 – 00:00

Slums in the census are defined as “residential areas where dwellings are unfit for human habitation” because they are dilapidated, cramped, poorly ventilated, unclean, or “any combination of these factors which are detrimental to the safety and health”. For the latest round, the census designated slums in three different ways – notified, recognized and identified (identified slums do not have legal status as a slum, but must consist of at least 60-70 tenements with at least 300 people). Read more.

Submitted by Rakhi Mehra — Wed, 10/09/2013 – 07:42

This year marks an important turning point in mental healthcare in India. The landmark Mental Healthcare Bill 2013 has been introduced and is under review to be passed as law. The new bill decriminalizes suicide and protects the rights of the mentally ill from inhumane treatment. It also “aims to ensure that proper medical treatment is provided to mentally ill patients” and “seeks to regulate the public and private mental health sectors and establish a mental health system integrated into all levels of general health care,” says an article in the Indian Express. Gaps in care have been filled by NGOs that not only work to provide treatment but to increase public awareness around issues of mental illness that have added to stigmatization of these patients. Read more or join the discussion.

Submitted by Carlin Carr — Mon, 10/07/2013 – 00:00

Manmohan Singh, India’s prime minister, speaking during India’s 66th independence day, admitted that the government has not done enough on skill building for India’s youth and announced the setting up of a national skill development agency (NSDA). Read more.

Submitted by Rakhi Mehra — Mon, 08/19/2013 – 05:52

The 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi brought the world’s attention to India. The major event was one of the first and largest of its kind to be held in the country. “A total of 6,081 athletes from 71 Commonwealth nations and dependencies competed in 21 sports and 272 events, making it the largest Commonwealth Games to date. It was also the largest international multi-sport event to be staged in Delhi and India, eclipsing the Asian Games in 1951 and 1982,” according to statistics on the event. While the mega sporting event was rife with controversy, it also presented the opportunity for the city to test out new transport methods and for international organizations to introduce greener and cleaner ideas. Read more or join the discussion.

Submitted by Carlin Carr — Mon, 08/19/2013 – 00:00

Juvenile crime all over the world often goes hand-in-hand with lack of opportunities. Blight-stricken areas from New York to Nairobi with low employment rates and education levels leave directionless youth with few options. Lacking support systems to show them alternative paths, teens often take to criminal activities. While crime amongst youth has not been such an issue in India’s urban areas, recent studies show a marked escalation in illicit activities. In fact, the “State of the Urban Youth India 2012: Employment, Livelihoods, Skills” report that came out last year says that juvenile crime in urban areas of India rose by 40 percent between 2001 and 2010. The youth involved in criminal activity were largely from low-income working families; the study found that “lack of education is an important factor with over 55 percent juvenile criminals being illiterate or with limited primary education.” Read more or join the discussion.

Submitted by Carlin Carr — Mon, 08/12/2013 – 00:00

The issue of diversity is universal, but can have big consequences in cities in the developing world. People of a different origin, religion, or culture become the “other,” leading to marginalization, discrimination, and violence. The following examples show different ways in which differences can be overcome and even come to be seen as a resource. Read on for solutions for integrating Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians in Mumbai, indigenous and afro-descendant students in São Paulo, sub-Saharan immigrants in Cairo, and Somali women in Nairobi.

Carlin Carr, Mumbai Community Manager

Mumbai’s largest slum, Dharavi, draws attention for many reasons, and not just its size. The half-million residents of this one-kilometer-square area come from all over the country, bringing not just a diversity of languages 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.

In 1992, Hindu mobs destroyed the Babri Masjid (mosque) in Ayodhya, Northern India, claiming that the site was one of the most sacred for Hindus: the birthplace of the God-king Rama. Muslims across the country were outraged over the demolition and riots quickly spread. Mumbai saw unprecedented communal violence. Once the violence receded in 1993, rampant distrust between communities as well as for the police plagued the city. An Economics and Politics Weekly article describes the need for a peaceful coming together: “Disturbed at the horrendous devastation, some concerned citizens and members of the police force in the city, decided to quench the fire of hatred and the destruction caused by it. Their steps, small but firm, ultimately resulted in mohalla committees. The importance of such action at local level cannot be neglected in the building of the civil society.”

The committees were made up of every day citizens who met regularly with local police to discuss social issues in the areas, including how to respectfully continue religious processions that often marched during festivals. A 2010 article quotes a former Mumbai police commissioner Satish Sahney, who explains what was particularly unique about Mumbai’s Mohalla committees: “Though such peace committees are not new, the unique thing about the mohalla committees set up in Mumbai was that they comprised of ordinary people who wanted to live peacefully. It was also a way of maintaining a constant dialogue between the police and the people by sitting together and exchanging views in solving problems.” In fact, a few years ago, when the verdict in the Ayodhya trials was being announced and the city feared violent reactions to the decision, police turned to the still-active Mohalla committees to discuss how to maintain peace in the communities.

Today, Mohalla committees continue in Mumbai and have expanded discussion points to include civic issues, water and sanitation needs, grievances with police in the area, facilities for youth and festival celebrations. Also, with more violence against women in Indian’s cities, Mumbai has turned to the Mohalla committees to discuss recommendations for making the city safer. The success of the committees is likely due to their flexible nature–each one is set up differently, according to the needs of the area and the community leaders involved. All, however, have one essential component: ordinary citizens are provided a powerful platform to come together with State representatives to work toward the betterment of their communities. In today’s pluralistic urban environments all over the world, Mohalla committees set an example for active local participation in bettering communities and bringing to life democratic participation in addressing the needs of cities.

Katy Fentress, Nairobi Community Manager

Refugee women of Somali origin living in Eastleigh — a neighborhood in the east of Nairobi that over the course of a few decades became a major stronghold for Somalis escaping the war back home — do not have the luxury of choosing how to live their lives in the same way their male counterparts do.

The problem can be attributed to the fact that women who escaped from Somalia at the peak of the war no longer had their customary extended support networks and coping mechanisms to rely on. In addition to this sense of displacement, one must also take into consideration the fact that many of them may not have been educated by western standards, leaving them illiterate and with few means with which to challenge the male-dominated world that they were now forced to rely on.

According to a report published by the Kenyan Refugee Consortium, Somali refugee women in Nairobi have a compromised capacity to claim and protect their rights. The report indicates that the main organization responsible for the protection of refugees is the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR), which focuses above all on providing assistance for the regularization of refugees’ legal status, some form of psychotherapeutic counseling, medical services, and accommodation. Beyond the work done by UNHCR, there are also various international NGOs and faith-based organizations that attempt to provide assistance to Somali refugee women, but these services are generally of a legal or medical nature and do not focus on helping the women integrate into the surrounding society.

One organization that does attempt to improve poorly educated Somali women’s chances to expand their opportunities is the Eastleigh Rajo (from the Somali word for “hope”) Literacy School. The school is part of the Global Enrichment Foundation that was founded by Amanda Lindhout, a freelance journalist who was kidnapped in 2008 while visiting the Somali capital, Mogadishu, and was held prisoner for 460 days.

The aim of the Rajo school is to teach women math and how to read, write, and express themselves in English and Kiswahili, “making it easier for them to secure employment, access services, seek medical care, respond to authorities, travel and shop for necessities.” With these skills, the hope is that the women will be able to transform themselves into “informed and active advocates in their community.”

Rajo school was launched little over a year ago and currently has 75 women between the ages of 13 and 75 enrolled. Beyond running awareness-raising campaigns in the wider community, the school also organizes Friday workshops in which guest speakers are invited to engage in dialogue with the students about various topics such as female circumcision, health, micro-financing, etc. The foundation relies mainly on donations to keep afloat and has so far secured the support of such high-level sponsors as Hillary Clinton.

The importance of education for Somali women to challenge traditional roles was described in an article by Fatuma Abdulahi, who emigrated to Eastleigh from Mogadishu as a girl and experienced on her own skin the challenges faced by Somali women there. In 1992 she enrolled in an English school because, in her words: “The only way to escape this systematic silencing of women and the oppressive new culture was to study my way out of the slum.”

Fatuma managed to win a scholarship that allowed her to travel to Hong Kong to finish her studies. She has since returned to Africa, where she works to “contribute to the changes necessary in Somali culture so the next generation of Somali girls lead better lives.”

The Kenyan government is faced with many difficulties when it comes to helping Somali refugees integrate into the structure of Nairobi, and women’s education is still not a priority in this respect. The isolation of the Somali community, both at its own hands and that of Kenyans who view Somalis through the prism of terrorism or piracy, is one of the primary hurdles the government must tackle. According to the Kenyan Refugee Consortium, a first step towards overcoming this challenge would be to officially recognize residents by providing them with ID cards and hence legitimize their presence in the country. Once that is done, the rest might begin to fall into place.

Photo credit: Diego Fernandez Gabaldon

Catalina Gomez, Coordenadora da Rede em São Paulo

No Brasil o Estatuto da Igualdade Racial foi aprovado em 2010 como um conjunto de regras que visam diminuir a discriminação racial e a desigualdade social existente no país. Embora o estatuto tenha sido aprovado, ainda as populações pardas, negras e indígenas continuam sendo excluídas; uma área onde esta situação é evidente é no aceso à educação superior.

Em São Paulo, existem vários casos que evidenciam a referida exclusão social; por exemplo, no ano passado, o 70 por cento dos matriculados na Universidade de São Paulo foram alunos brancos formados em colégios particulares. O 30 por cento restante foram alunos que fizeram ensino regular em escolas estaduais ou municipais públicas. E só um grupo muito pequeno de estudantes pardos, negros e indígenas foi aceito.

Para corrigir este ciclo de exclusão no sistema educativo e promover maiores oportunidades para toda a população sem importar sua renda ou raça, varias medidas estão sendo adotadas. O primeiro passo foi dado pelo nível federal em 2003 com o mandado de incorporar ações afirmativas nas universidades federais por meio do estabelecimento de um sistema de cotas sociais e raciais. Alguns destes sistemas têm sido avaliados e demostraram bons resultados.

Atualmente o Estado de São Paulo é o primeiro em promover a expansão do sistema de cotas nas universidades estaduais, incluindo varias das melhores instituições do país como a Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), a Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP) e a Universidade de São Paulo (USP). A meta é bastante ambiciosa: Para 2016 ao menos 50 por cento das matrículas em cada curso deverão ser ocupadas por alunos que cursaram ensino médio em escolas públicas. Dentro dessa meta, um mínimo de 35 por cento deverá ser assegurado para negros, pardos e indígenas.

As instituições estaduais e municipais de São Paulo estão atualmente desenhando o sistema para que este seja uma realidade. Primeiro, estão estabelecendo um sistema de atração de bons alunos do ensino público. O principal critério de seleção seria com base na nota do Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio (Enem). Segundo, estão em processo da criação de um fundo especial para garantir a permanência dos alunos com renda familiar inferior a 1,5 salários mínimos. Terceiro, estão discutindo mecanismos para fortalecer o sistema de educação pública para que no futuro seus estudantes possam competir com aqueles de escolas privadas de forma mais igualitária.

Para desenvolver esta iniciativa estão previstos R$94 milhões. Atualmente os conselhos educativos da UNESP e da UNICAMP já tem aprovado a iniciativa, só ficando a pendencia da USP; espera-se que a instituição não tarde em responder positivamente para não atrasar os esforços previstos para iniciar no segundo semestre do ano.

Crédito fotográfico: Flavio Dutra

Catalina Gomez, São Paulo Community Manager

In 2010, Brazil passed a law on racial equality in order to reduce racial discrimination and to promote greater social inclusion among excluded groups. But even with this law, the dark-skinned, black, and indigenous populations continue to face discrimination. One of the areas where this is most evident is with regard to access to higher education.

In São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city and main economic hub, there are many cases of social exclusion. Last year, for example, more than 70 percent of the new students admitted to the University of São Paulo (one of Brazil’s most important academic institutions) identified as white and reported having attended private high schools. Around 30 percent of the admitted students had attended public state or municipal schools; and only a very small group of the admitted students identified as dark-skinned or black.

There are several measures being adopted to reduce the cycle of exclusion in the education system and to promote greater opportunity to all citizens, regardless of economic background or race. The first step was taken at the federal level in 2003, with a law that required all federal universities to enact affirmative action initiatives, including social and racial quota systems. Some of these initiatives have been evaluated and have shown to be effective.

Currently, the State of São Paulo is the first state to promote the expansion of the quota system in all state-managed universities. This include some of the best and most respected institutions in the country, like the Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP) and the Universidade de São Paulo (USP). The goal is quite ambitious: By 2016, at least 50 percent of all admitted students in São Paulo’s state universities will be graduates from public schools, and from this group, at least 35 percent will be dark-skinned, black, and indigenous students.

São Paulo’s state and city authorities are currently designing the mechanisms to transform this initiative into a reality. First, they are establishing a merit-based program that will select the best students from the public school system. The main criteria for selection will be the results of the standardized test all high school students take. Secondly, they are establishing a special fund in order to guarantee access for students whose families earn less than one and a half the monthly minimum wage. Finally, they are working to improve the public school system so that future students will be able to compete on an equal basis with graduates from private schools.

These efforts are expected to require a public investment of R$94 million (US$52 million) over the next couple of years. The UNESP and UNICAMP’s student councils have already approved the proposal, and they will both start implementation this year. The USP is still waiting on a final verdict, but it is very likely that it will approve it shortly in order not to be left behind.

Photo credit: Flavio Dutra

Howaida Kamel, Cairo Community Manager

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 in 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 brutal police clashes in 2005 in front of the UNHCR regional office.

In order to address the tensions created as a result of development practices, Inklusion teamed up with Free Dimensional and the Tadamon Multicultural Council to run the Living Together – Cairo program from 2007 to 2010. The program endeavored to bring together the personnel of the 25 civil society organizations that are members of Tadamon in order to address the issue of racism in Egyptian society. The program provided training sessions, workshops, film screenings, and speaker sessions. These workshops targeted second- and third-tier employees rather than the directors in hopes that this would change the attitudes of the service providers from within rather than through a top-down approach. Moreover, the program pushed for coordinated efforts amongst these member organizations to promote coexistence by emphasizing the need for poverty alleviation for all communities.

While the program itself ended in 2010 due to personnel changes within these organizations, Tadamon has continued to implement its own programs that emphasize multiculturalism and inclusion in the poorer areas of Cairo. Tadamon’s director, Fatima Idris, emphasizes that Tadamon has continued implementing workshops, training sessions, and art programs that promote cultural diversity as a resource. Living Together has also implemented a public campaign, reaching out to public institutions and civil society organizations at large, using its trainings at Tadamon as a methodology. Today, Tadamon continues to advocate for diversity as a resource within the programs they run. However, there is still a need for this methodology to be implemented in other organizations outside the Tadamon network.

In order for this dialogue to occur, however, there must be a large-scale recognition of the racism embedded within Egyptian society. For multicultural inclusion and trainings to be successful in Cairo, more efforts must be made to reconcile the differences between refugee and Egyptian populations, especially in the competition for basic services. This requires public officials to expand access to public services to include refugee populations by changing legislation that supports exclusion, and by committing to the incorporation of these refugees as residents of Cairo.

Photo credit: Naath Community Development

هويدا كامل – مديرة وحدة القاهرة

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.

من أجل معالجة التوترات التي نشأت نتيجة عن ممارسات التنمية، تعاونت منظمة Inklusion مع منظمة Free Dimensional و Tadamon (تضامن – مجلس متعدد الثقافات) لإنشاء برنامج Living Together – Cairo (المعيشة معا – القاهرة) و إدارته في القاهرة من عام ٢٠٠٧ حتى سنة ٢٠١٠. يجمع البرنامج بين حوالي ٢٥ منظمة من منظمات المجتمع المدني المشتركين في التضامن لمعالجة مسألة العنصرية في المجتمع المصري. قدم البرنامج دورات تدريبية و عروض تقديمية تستهدف موظفي الدرجة الثانية والثالثة بدلا من المديرين لتغيير منهج مقدمي الخدمات بطريقة مباشرة. وعلاوة على ذلك، شجع هذا البرنامج أعضاء المنظمات على التعاون والتناسق معا لتعزيز التعايش والوحدة بين المصريين واللاجئين من خلال تأكيد أهمية مساعدة الفقراء من جميع الطوائف.

في حين أن البرنامج في حد ذاته انتهى في عام ٢٠١٠ بسبب تغيرات الموظفين العاملين في هذه المنظمات، واصلت منظمة Tadamon برامجها التي تنشر الثقافة التعددية في عشوائيات القاهرة، و تشجع كلا الجانبين على الإنسجام معا. أكدت فطيمة إدريس، مديرة Tadamon، إستمرار المنظمة في تنظيم حلقات عمل، ودورات تدريبية، وبرامج فنية لتعزيز التنوع الثقافي في مصر. وقد نفذت أيضا منظمة Living Together حملة عامة للوصول إلى منظمات المجتمع المدني و المؤسسات العامة على نطاق واسع باستخدام نفس منهج وتدريبات منظمة Tadamon. تواصل منظمة Tadamon جهودها لنشر التنوع الثقافي حتى اليوم، ولكن هناك حاجة لتطبيق هذا المنهج في منظمات أخرى خارج شبكة Tadamon.

لكي يحدث الحوار بين الطرفين، يجب معالجة مشكلة العنصرية المضمنة داخل المجتمع المصري. ولا بد من بذل المزيد من الجهود لتسوية الاختلافات بين السكان المصريين واللاجئين, خاصة في مشكلة منافستهم على نفس الخدمات الأساسية. ويتطلب ذلك من الموظفين العموميين أن يوفروا المزيد من الخدمات العامة للسكان اللاجئين من خلال تغيير التشريعات التي تدعم الإقصاء، ومعاملة هؤلاء اللاجئين كمواطنين قائمين في القاهرة.

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Katy Fentress replied on Wed, 07/17/2013 – 04:37 Permalink

When reading the experiences of Dhaka and Bangalore this week, it’s hard not to realise how many worlds away Nairobi is. As a country, Kenya does not have any large-scale garment industries, if anything one of its main economic sectors is the second-hand resale of the very brands (Primark, Matalan, H&M) that were made by garment workers in the above cities and, after having been worn ten times, were given away to charity. Similar working conditions are however experienced by employees in the industrial sector that specialises in household commodities (soap, toilet paper, tin foil, cellophane wrap, pots, pans etc) for the national market. These employees often live in slums that lay adjacent to the factories and provide a source of cheap labour to the owners who are not required to employ them full time or with a contract. As a result, any attempts on the part of NGOs to cajole factory owners into providing improved working conditions for their workmen have generally gone unheeded because it doesn’t benefit them or their profit margins. So far activism in these slums are constrained to tackling issues regarding land tenure because, as Ulfat mentioned, exhausted and underpaid workers are hard pushed to be able to organise effective trade unions to pressure their owners into respecting their rights.

It is important to remember how few consumer goods for international consumption are produced in Africa. As the Nairobi example demonstrates, what multinational exploitation does exist comes in the form of the infrastructure development which is taking place all over the country and which is on the one hand providing employment to large-scale sections of society but which is at the same time undermining the rights of many hard working people associated to this boom. It’s hard to draw parallels really, informal work tends to be oppressive everywhere and globalisation can be pinpointed as one of the main determinants of demand for cheap labour and hence unfit working conditions. While unions and any form or workers’ associations that battle for their rights are undoubtably necessary, they face an uphill battle when it comes to fighting against large corporations and profit-oriented businessmen who either are the law or have the law in their pockets.

Katy Fentress URB.IM – Nairobi Community Manager

@whatktdoes

By Christina Gossmann, originally published in The Con.

When talking about foreign investment in Africa, China springs to mind first. Chinese malls, Chinese highways, Chinese bridges. But Chinese housing? Not so much. Because like so many other investors, the Chinese failed to link the target market with the much-needed quality social housing. On a continent where mortgage markets barely exceed 5% of GDP (compare that with 40% of GDP in North America and a whopping 80% in Denmark!), owning a house is merely a dream for most — a pretty far-off dream.

Nevertheless, there is a growing demand and a growing property market. Kenya, East Africa’s techno-economic hub, has seen the best residential market performance in the world in 2012. Fueled by its wealthy diaspora and a tiny local upper class, cement consumption and land values have been on the rise. “People want greenery,” says Jan Van den Broeck, a Belgian researcher who came to Kenya to study land development. “They want well-planned cities, pedestrian-friendly streets, development certainty — no more chaos,” he adds. Like other Africans, Kenyans dream of a better living than China can provide.

This is where the Russians come in.

Renaissance Capital, a Western-style Russian investment bank, was founded in 1995 by an overachieving pair of thirtysomethings — New Zealander Stephen Jennings and an American grandson of Soviet émigrés, Boris Jordan. Rendeavour, the urban development branch of Renaissance Capital, first got involved with Kenyan land when giving into the pleas of businessman Vimal Shah, who wanted to turn the prime agricultural land northeast of Nairobi, previously owned by coffee grower Socfinaf Ltd, into what is considered an even better use of land these days: commercial land. After viewing the site from a helicopter in 2007, Jennings agreed, because, after all, there was a lot of money to be made. The idea for a high-profile, high-end, mixed-use residential and commercial development was planted then, and after several long years of planning and design, the Tatu City master plan was unveiled in 2010.

The name Tatu stems from the coffee farm that was previously located in the place of the development. “To preserve the coffee-farming heritage,” Tatu proudly states on its webpage, the name was kept. At the same time, it says, the name represents the city design’s ethos and fusion of three holistic issues: mind, body and spirit (live, work and play). Tatu City strives to decentralise Nairobi, with an autonomous, strategically placed secondary urban node to Nairobi’s city centre. Equipped with commercial, tourist, social and recreational facilities, the development aims to house an estimated 62,000 residents on its 1,000 hectares. When browsing the Tatu City website, one cannot help but notice the overwhelming and slightly sickening sense of corporate responsibility, including a tree farm, job centre and “health and happiness” for the coffee farm children. Tatu City is not the first time Renaissance Capital has dusted its boots on African soil. Having entered the African market seven years ago, Renaissance Capital has since developed the largest on-the-ground presence of any international investment bank, said joint CEO John Hyman at a pan-African investor conference in Nigeria earlier this year. Renaissance Capital has offices in Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, among others, and similar satellite or “new” cities are planned in the DRC and Ghana.

In short, Renaissance Capital has been around the block — a few times. An estimated 25% of Renaissance’s revenue, in fact, comes from Africa, and in 2011 the bank was named best Africa investment bank for the second consecutive year in an Africa Investor ranking. But will a mixed-housing development such as Tatu City actually improve living standards for Nairobi’s residents? If you have not guessed it already, the hard but honest truth is no. Instead, it will recreate the same inequalities that already exist.

Here is why. Let’s begin by examining the mortgage market. The 2012 Year-Book on Housing Finance in Africa, published by the Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa, found that the cheapest house in Kenya — which is not the target pricing of Tatu City — costs between one and two million Kenyan shillings (between about US$11,500 and US$23,000), with a monthly mortgage payment of US$150. Only about 10% of all Kenyans earn enough to support such a mortgage, meaning that most of the so-called “growing middle class” in Kenya cannot buy a simple, entry-level house. Next, consider Tatu City’s location. Nairobi is a city where, according to slum-dweller collective Muungano Wa Wanavijiji, 70% of housing stock comprises 10m2 shacks made of wood, mud, tin sheets, wattle. It’s a city where recreational spaces have taken on a bigger total landmass than all its slums put together, a city where 60% of the population lives on 5% of the total land area. “This development is not big enough to give proper response to urban poverty,” explains Van den Broeck. But at the same time, he does not blame Renaissance Capital for tapping into this market, because “you cannot expect the private sector to do what the government should do.” Private banks want revenues, not to improve the world. And even if they did, they could not. Urban poverty is a problem too big to tackle for a small emerging-markets investment firm, as cheeky and daring as it might be.

The problem’s scale leaves little wiggle room. Tatu City — if built — would clearly be a city for the upper-middle and high class. “But that’s not unconstitutional,” Van den Broeck insists. Not even in the eyes of Kenya’s 2010 progressive, state-of-the-art, decentralising, rights-granting-and-defending Constitution. Starting in April 2013, under Kenya’s new president, this shiny, new Constitution is being implemented, temporarily putting the central and new county governments in a state of perplexed confusion. Not only is the government okay with the massive private development, being a “strategic partner” through the Kenya Vision 2030, but Kenya’s government actually seems to like satellite cities such as Tatu. Since 2009, officials have been busy marketing and displacing around Konza Techno City, Tatu City’s tech-savvy, somewhat aggressive, publically financed business sister — also known as “Silicon Savannah.” Twice the size of Tatu and located 60km from Nairobi in Malili, Konza City is actually written into Vision 2030 as a Ksh800 billion (more than US$9.2 billion) “flagship project.”

The most interesting part about all these urban development plans is that nothing is actually happening. Be they privately or publically funded projects, both Tatu and Konza are land speculations, massive gambles based on barely anything more than an ambitious idea. Van den Broeck agrees. “Just the simple fact that people are thinking about the land makes prices go up,” he says. “They pick a highway — prices go up. They fence the area — prices go up. They put up a sign saying “Tatu” — prices go way up. But there is nothing actually there.”

But times have changed for Renaissance Capital, and the gamble might be coming to an end. After multiple near-bankruptcy experiences during the financial crisis when the bank’s credit rating was downgraded, Renaissance Capital had to sell 100% of its shares to Mikhail Prokhorov, the world’s 58th richest man and proud owner of another Russian investment bank, Onexim, as well as basketball team the Brooklyn Nets. On top of that, Renaissance Capital is involved in some serious legal complications with minority shareholders, including the (illegal) placing and removal of caveats, a criminal court case and some others — a total of six cases, according to Van den Broeck.

What will happen in this gamble of Russian roulette with African land is unclear, but the trigger has certainly been pulled.

Christina Gossmann is what you might call a self-loathing Russian who writes about cities. Her favourite is Johannesburg, but she’s starting to like Nairobi, where she is currently working for UN-Habitat on housing finance and economic development through Information and Communications Technologies. Christina holds a BA in Economics and Psychology from Wellesley College and has just finished her first year in the Master of City Planning degree at the University of California, Berkeley. She also works as a freelance journalist. You can reach Christina at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter: @chrisgossmann.

Photo credit: The Con

Power supply, generation, and distribution are some of the many challenges facing developing nations. Lagos receives 25 percent of the power generated in Nigeria every day, but it’s only enough to meet less than 10 percent of the energy demand. In response to the inadequate supply, the city government has created three running independent power project (IPP) plants that generate energy, and two more are scheduled for completion before the end of 2014. Read more.

El suministro, la generación, y la distribución de energía son algunos de los muchos retos de las naciones en desarrollo. Lagos recibe el 25 por ciento de la energía generada en Nigeria a diario, pero esta energía es sólo suficiente para cubrir menos del 10 por ciento de la demanda de energía. En respuesta a la oferta inadecuada, el gobierno de la ciudad ha creado tres Productores de Energía Independientes (IPP, por sus siglas en ingles), plantas que generan energía, y dos más están programadas para completarse en el 2014. Leer más.

Submitted by Wura — Thu, 03/13/2014 – 15:36

I’ve written a fair bit about the housing problem in Lagos. A city of anything between 15 and 18 million persons, with a 48.6% poverty rate (2012), and an acute shortage of low-cost housing. There’s of course no shortage of luxury housing. Victoria Island and Ikoyi are home to hundreds of empty luxury apartments; priced out of reach of all but the insanely wealthy. IT entrepreneur Jason Njoku has got an interesting post on the economics of housing prices in Lagos. Two years ago I wrote extensively on the Eko Atlantic City project being spearheaded by the state government, adding 9 square kilometers of reclaimed luxury territory (“the Manhattan of West Africa”) to Lagos’ Victoria Island. Any news of progress in terms of access to (relatively) low-cost housing is therefore much welcome. Which leads me to the focus of today’s post. Read more.

Submitted by Tolu Ogunlesi — Mon, 03/03/2014 – 12:47

I recently attended the launch of an exhibition at the Goethe Institute’s Lagos office, on the “Post-Oil City”, drawing on efforts from all around the world to create cities that have tamed the traditional hunger for fossil fuels. Some of them are brand new cities (like Masdar in Abu Dhabi), others are existing cities trying to make changes (Curitiba, Brazil, which in 1974 launched the world’s first BRT system). Read more.

Submitted by Tolu Ogunlesi — Fri, 01/31/2014 – 15:03

Data has emerged showcasing the latest trends of our demographic shift – the global population now articulates a ‘youth bulge’. The UN-Population Demographic Profile (2010) show children, and ‘youths’, comprise 1.6bn, and 1.0bn, of the population in less-developed regions. The population is younger; and Sub-Saharan Africa is no exception. Attention is now turning to youths: what young people do, what opportunities they initiate for their families and nations, and what it means to be ‘young’ in the developing world. However, an important caveat requires recognition: the focus has been particularly male-focused. Our understanding of girls, within both public and private spaces, remains limited. Such is the debate in this blog post – if we are now looking at ‘kids’ in the city and development, what are the experiences of girls? What can we learn about the city through an engendered perspective? Fundamentally, who is responsible to grant equal rights? Two models of intervention are discussed be, each using alternative methods to provide rights for girls. However, each acts to reinforce the need to improve our understandings on ‘being’ a girl. Read more.

Submitted by Gemma Todd — Mon, 01/20/2014 – 10:08

Lagos is on the cusp of a radical change in the way the city is organised. Not only is the first light rail being built in the city, thirty years after the idea was first mooted; the government has also recently announced that construction will soon start on the 4th Mainland Bridge, long overdue by many standards. A few years ago I listened to a talk by the designers of that bridge, and was fascinated by how they envisioned it to not only work as a conventional bridge but also a direct stimulant/supporter of economic activity. The design is of a two-level bridge, the upper one for vehicular movement, the lower one for a combination of a tram line, rows of shops and goods vendors, and a pedestrian lane; that idea informed by the realization that modernizing Lagos does not have to happen at the expense of the trademark hustle-and-bustle that gives the city its peculiar character and feel; the things that make Lagos Lagos. Read more.

Submitted by Tolu Ogunlesi — Mon, 01/06/2014 – 12:17

Lagos is the most populous city state in Nigeria, home to over five percent of the nation’s 166 million residents, and ever growing. To manage this large group of people and to create an environment that is not only safe and accommodating but also filled with opportunities for improved living and continuous growth, the state government and various civil society organisations have spent 2013 working on a number of ingenious projects to achieve these goals. Read more or join the discussion.

Submitted by Wura — Mon, 12/23/2013 – 00:00

Within development studies a shift has been identified. An increasing sense of consciousness has emerged on whose ideas are being used to theorise development practice, whether they are applicable, and offer effective solutions. The post-development school of thought is centred on deconstructing ‘universal’ ideas of development. Novel viewpoints have emerged which are transforming how the ‘developing’ world is understood and what role citizens of the Global South can play. With post-development thought, urban researchers, and planners, are advancing new thinking to plan inclusive cities in the Global South. In a succeeding event on urbanisation at the African Research Institute, the subject matter was how urban planning in Africa is adapting for the future. Read more.

Submitted by Editor — Thu, 12/19/2013 – 15:32

According to the 2010 sentinel survey of Nigeria, Lagos has an HIV prevalence rate of 5.1 percent. The survey shows that the majority of the state’s HIV presence is in urban areas; the rural prevalence is only 1.3 percent. In light of the high and growing HIV prevalence in Lagos, a number of agencies, private firms and civil society organisations are working hard to spread the word about HIV prevention and to care for patients. Read more or join the discussion.

Submitted by Wura — Mon, 12/02/2013 – 00:00

In 2004, an estimated 5,000 lives were lost from road crashes on Nigerian motorways. This number more than tripled in 2006, with an estimated 16,000 people killed as a result of road crashes. Low awareness of road safety among road users (pedestrians and motorists), and poor road conditions are some critical factors responsible for these avoidable fatalities. The city of Lagos is crawling with millions of people, the majority of whom travel on foot. Recently, there has been more emphasis on keeping city pedestrians safe from harm’s way by improving road safety rules and infrastructure. Read more or join the discussion.

Submitted by Wura — Mon, 11/04/2013 – 00:00

It is widely believed that urbanisation is occurring faster in sub-Saharan Africa than anywhere else in the world, as migrants move from rural to urban settlements. This is a fallacy. While the populations of numerous urban areas are growing rapidly, the urbanisation levels of many countries are increasing slowly – if at all. Natural increase, rather than net in-migration, is the predominant growth factor in most urban populations. African governments, policymakers and international donors need to acknowledge fundamental changes in urbanisation trends, and respond to the irrefutable messages these impart about urban employment, incomes and economic development. Read more.

Submitted by Editor — Mon, 10/21/2013 – 13:16

India and China have been saddled side by side in the race for rising economic superpowers. While China has edged ahead on many fronts, India’s large youth population provides a massive potential. “An estimated 1-1.2 million new workers will join the labor market in South Asia every month over the next few decades – an increase of 25-50% over the historical average,” says a World Bank report. Job creation needs to match this upcoming labor force. A new government initiative in India, the National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC), has prioritized providing this generation with the necessary education and training so the country can reap the benefits of its demographic dividend. Read more or join the discussion.

Submitted by Carlin Carr — Mon, 11/11/2013 – 00:00

Os “Nem-Nem” são jovens entre 15 e 24 anos que nem estudam, nem trabalham, nem procuram emprego. Segundo dados do último censo, Brasil tem mais de 5 milhões de “Nem- Nem” no seu território, com grande concentração nas áreas urbanas. Rio atualmente tem mais de 150 mil “Nem-Nem”; preocupa que aquela população cresceu em 30 mil entre 2000 e 2010. Quais são as causas deste fenômeno? E quais são as respostas da cidade para enfrentar aquela situação? Leia mais o discutir.

A “NEET” is a youth between ages 15 to 24 who does not study and does not work. According to the latest Brazilian census, there are more than 5 million “NEETs” throughout the country, mainly concentrated in urban areas. In Rio alone, there are more than 150,000, and the number is rising: between 2000 and 2010, there were more than 30,000 new “NEETs.” What are the causes of this phenomenon and what is the city doing to respond to this situation? Read more or join the discussion.

Submitted by Catalina Gomez — Mon, 11/11/2013 – 00:00

In September this year the Kenyan government launched the Uwezo Fund, a 6 billion Ksh. cash reserve (approximately $70 million) aimed at channeling financial resources into the hands of youth and women. Money for the fund was obtained from capital set aside by the Jubilee Coalition during this year’s election campaign, for use in the case of a run-off. The Jubilee Coalition, led by Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy Samuel Ruto, pledged that any money that was not spent on the campaign would be channeled into a fund of this sort. Six months after winning the election, they stood by their commitment and announced that the application process for accessing interest-free loans was now open to registered youth and women’s groups. Read more or join the discussion.

Submitted by Katy Fentress — Mon, 11/11/2013 – 00:00

El desempleo juvenil es un problema especialmente grave en Cali. Las tasas de acercan al 33 por ciento, la más alta de las principales ciudades del país (la media nacional en este sector demográfico es del 17 por ciento). Si bien es cierto que la tasa general de desempleo en la capital del Cauca es también superior a la nacional (13 por ciento frente al 9 por ciento), los jóvenes caleños sufren este problema de forma desproporcionada. Aunque las causas del desempleo son complejas, cabe destacar un periodo de recesión económica que duró 10 años, de 1995 a 2005, que coincidió con la llegada de fuertes flujos migratorios. Aunque a partir de 2006 la economía ha crecido, no lo ha hecho en tasas suficientes para absorber la bolsa de desempleo y los nuevos flujos migratorios. La falta de cualificación para los nuevos trabajos que van surgiendo es otra barrera para que los jóvenes obtengan empleo. Leer más o discutir.

Youth unemployment (for youths 16-24 years of age) is a particularly severe problem in Cali. The rate is 33 percent, the highest in big Colombian cities (the average national rate hovers around 18 percent). Even though the global unemployment rate in Cali is also higher than the national average (13 percent versus 9 percent), young caleños suffer disproportionately more than older age groups. The causes behind this problem are complex, but it was certainly aggravated by a 10-year recession (from 1995 to 2005), precisely at the time when immigration flows were very strong. Even though the economy resumed growth in 2006, it was not at a sufficient rate to reduce the large number of unemployed, or to absorb the continual arrival of immigrants. The lack of necessary qualifications and skills also poses a barrier for young job seekers, especially for the poorest ones. Read more or join the discussion.

Submitted by Jorge Bela — Mon, 11/11/2013 – 00:00

বাংলাদেশের আর্থসামাজিক উন্নতির জন্য মহিলাদের অর্থনীতিতে অংশগ্রহণ প্রধান চাবিকাঠি। শহরাঞ্চলের মহিলারা বিশেষত যারা ঢাকায় বাস করেন, তারা প্রতিনিয়ত বিভিন্ন জটিল সমস্যার মুখোমুখি হন যেমন নারী সহিংসতা, অপুষ্টি এবং গর্ভকালীন শারীরিক জতিলতা; এসকল সমস্যার অন্যতম কারণ নারীদের অনেকসময়ই পরিবারের অর্থনৈতিক সিদ্ধান্ত নেয়া থেকে বঞ্চিত করা হয়। মহিলারা ঘরের সকল কাজ করে এবং ঘরের বাইরেও তাদের কাজের সুযোগ ও চাহিদা বেড়ে যাচ্ছে; কিন্তু এসকল কাজের বিনিময়ে তাদের উপযুক্ত মজুরি দেয়া হচ্ছে না। সুতরাং, বাংলাদেশ এবং অন্যান্য উন্নয়নশীল দেশের অর্থনৈতিক বৃদ্ধি নিশ্চিত করার জন্য অর্থনীতিতে মহিলাদের অংশগ্রহন অত্যন্ত প্রয়োজনীয় এবং তাদের অংশগ্রহণের জন্য যথাশীঘ্র প্রয়োজনীয় আইন তৈরি করা উচিত। Read more or discuss.

Finding ways to financially include women is one of the major keys to socio-economic development in Bangladesh. While women are usually responsible for household labor and increasingly for outside work and wages, they generally do not receive equal recognition or pay for their labor. In fact, according to a Food and Agricultural survey, only two percent of the women in Bangladesh own land, which is very low compared to other neighboring countries. Despite women’s notable representation in the workforce, their lack of access to land ownership is one of the fundamental barriers to financial stability. Financial inclusion is therefore a high-priority policy goal for Bangladesh in order to ensure stable and equitable economic growth. Read more or discuss.

Submitted by Editor — Mon, 10/28/2013 – 00:00

The poor live in precarious circumstances on a daily basis. Unexpected illnesses or job losses that would put a strain on any family often leave the poor on the brink. With no access to the formal banking system, microloans have not only served to help in emergency situations, but have actually helped these families to build up savings and gain access to important, life-saving products. The loans, mainly to women, have expanded in purpose and scope since Grameen launched its rural banking system in the 1990s. Today, microfinance institutions such as Samasta in Bangalore have used the women’s groups that form the basis of lending to focus loans on other important intervention areas, including insurance, home gas connections and water purifiers. Read more or join the discussion.

Submitted by Carlin Carr — Mon, 10/28/2013 – 00:00

In Kenyan communities that have little of the collateral needed to access credit, a common approach is to set up savings and investment associations known as “Chamas.” A Chama is an informal group, often composed of women, that follows a system by which everyone contributes money on a regular basis and in turn gets disbursed a fixed amount. The method evolved from the tradition of rural women grouping together and pooling their labor to work on each other’s farms. Read more or join the discussion.

Submitted by Katy Fentress — Mon, 10/28/2013 – 00:00

En el 2013 el Banco Mundial realizó un estudio junto con Global Findex (el Índice Global de Inclusión Financiera) confirmando grandes brechas de género en el tema de inclusión financiera. De acuerdo al Banco Mundial, las mujeres son 15 por ciento menos propensas de tener una cuenta bancaria, (la cifra es mayor en mujeres en condiciones de pobreza), lo que hace que este grupo sea muy vulnerable ante el tema. Este estudio demuestra que la inclusión financiera va más allá de la apertura de cuentas bancarias, como el acceso a sistemas de préstamo y ahorro, o el pertenecer a sistemas financieros formales que abren las puertas al ingreso proveniente de otras fuentes. Asli Demirguc-Kunt, Directora de Investigación del Banco Mundial afirma que “[s]in una cuenta, a las mujeres les cuesta más ahorrar formalmente y recibir subsidios gubernamentales o remesas de familiares que viven en el extranjero.” Las mujeres son el sustento de los hogares, por lo que la falta de inclusión financiera refleja poca independencia económica y dificultad al obtener ingresos por cuenta propia. Leer más o discutir.

In 2013, the World Bank conducted a study along with Global Findex (the Global Financial Inclusion Database) confirming the existence of large gender gaps with regard to financial inclusion. According to the World Bank, women are 15 percent less likely to have a bank account (the figure is higher for women living in poverty), making women as a whole more vulnerable to financial exclusion. This study demonstrates that financial inclusion is far more than just opening a bank account. It includes having access to borrowing and lending systems, and being a member of formal financial systems, allowing access to other sources of income. Asli Demirguc-Kunt, Investigative Director at the World Bank, stated that “without a bank account, women have a difficult time saving and receiving government subsidies or remittances from family members living abroad.” Women are the foundation of the home, so the lack of financial inclusion leads to a lack of economic independence. Read more or discuss.

Submitted by Maria Fernanda Carvallo — Mon, 10/28/2013 – 00:00

Jamaican youth are finding entrepreneurial opportunities in the $4 billion global ornamental fish market. The amenable local climate, visionary leaders, neighborhood collaboration, and raw personal initiative combine to pull young urbanites out of poverty. Read more.

Submitted by Tracey Grose — Tue, 10/01/2013 – 12:47

Manmohan Singh, India’s prime minister, speaking during India’s 66th independence day, admitted that the government has not done enough on skill building for India’s youth and announced the setting up of a national skill development agency (NSDA). Read more.

Submitted by Rakhi Mehra — Mon, 08/19/2013 – 05:52

Desafío titánico: La educación de nuestro país

Un México de aspiraciones grandes, pero de políticas públicas cortas (I)

(Un)Happy — Cidades Brasileiras

Para Fajardo lo importante son las ideas, no las obras de infraestructura

Conociendo mejor el caso de Medellin

Urban Talks: Richard Florida and Brent Toderian

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2. Work conditions: informality, coersion and change ›

feyi kay replied on Tue, 07/16/2013 – 15:16 Permalink

In my opinion, i think there should be relevant unions that can cater to different sectors. working unions i mean. there so many workers out there who work in hostile environments but cant complain. they tend to cope with the situation in which they find themselves……which is not right. at least if there are unions that every worker from different sectors or organisations can join….. it will afford them the opportunity to lay their complaints to the appropriate quarters and i believe the right action will be taken.