Like many students in the Development Planning Unit, I realized that this year’s field trip would be a great opportunity to take pictures. However, I felt I wanted to do more than just going on a solitary mission to capture whatever crossed my path. I decided to launch a project that pushes the photographer to reflect during the process of taking pictures and that gives coherence in the way work is seized and presented.

The final concept took shape as I spoke about my intentions to fellow students. We decided to create a photo-blog with a collection of pictures taken by students in Peru, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania where we would be conducting research as part of our respective MSc programs. As a collective we then agreed on 9 different photographic themes that would work as our creative lens. The final blog works as a mosaic of moments and motives that will hopefully capture the viewers’ attention. The project is entirely voluntary and student run, and all pictures were taken between April and May 2014.

We believe that the appeal of the project resides in the diversity of photographic styles of students, the varying interpretations of the selected topics and the diverse locations and experiences that DPU students were exposed to. We hope that it is conducive of real insight into people’s work and day-to-day experiences, allowing viewers to emotionally engage with different realities as depicted in the pictures and giving food for thought.

For us photographers, the project was a great opportunity to use our skills with a concrete purpose in mind, and also resulted in the creation of a temporary platform to experiment and explore the potential of photography. The project was a challenge, yet it allowed us to make the most of the experience and we are now happy to be able to share our vision with fellow students, alumni and curious minds alike.

The selection of pictures below has a photojournalistic quality to them and triggers reflection, as they seized some of the tensions that we witnessed in the field. There is a story behind each picture, as told by the photographers.

‘Contrasts’
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania © Jorge Ortiz 2014
MSc Urban Development Planning

‘This picture was taken from the third floor of the hotel in which we stayed during our work as UDP students in Dar es Salaam. With this panorama surrounding us, it was not necessary going to slums to have a taste of how inequality expresses itself in urban contexts. It was actually not completely comfortable (in ethical terms) to swim there after a day of work with the communities, where people were completely open to talk with us about their inaccessibility to certain environmental goods, like potable water. In my opinion, the fieldtrip to Tanzania was helpful for getting or strengthening that ethical fiber that any development professional should have.’ – Jorge Ortiz

‘Estamos en el aire’ (‘We live in the air’)
Jose Carlos Mariategui, Lima, Peru © Loan Diep 2014
MSc Environment and Sustainable Development

‘Lima’s rapid urbanisation, fragmented planning and conflictual land issues have led the city to expand beyond its territorial boundaries. An increasing amount of the population is now occupying the slopes of the Andes Mountains surrounding Lima, where exposure to disasters is considerable, and upon which mobility is particularly limited. This picture has been taken in Jose Carlos Mariátegui, Lima’s largest and poorest municipal district. When approached, people living in the area state: ‘we live in the air’. Beyond a simple reference to the high altitude in which the informal settlement is located, it also metaphorically reflects on the marginalising impact of Lima’s development plans on a vulnerable segment of the population.’ – Loan Diep

‘Breaking the rigidity of the grid’
Cambodia © Joana Dabaj 2014
MSc Building & Urban Design in Development

‘The picture represents a little girl standing in front of her house and simply eating some dried berries… a simple act. The grid behind her is a sort of a fence constructed by the family in order to protect their house. The family has appropriated several materials in order to build their “home”: bamboo, wood, corrugated metal sheet… as part of an informal settlement, the issue of privacy is always critical, one can easily break this tessellated surface, pass his hand through it or look behind it so what did it serve other than delimiting a space?’ – Joana Dabaj

‘A horse with no name’
Mekelle, Ethiopia © David Hoffmann
MSc Urban Economic Development

‘Some people say that Black and White photography is good at capturing the soul of an image. As it is, colours tend to distract the viewer from shapes, textures and raw emotions that it might contain. There is little soul left in this ill horse, however… it was abandoned in the middle of the city by its owner, where it is more likely to be run over by an inattentive driver than being saved by a caring soul. The skeleton of a building in the backdrop completes the picture, and reminds us of the fragility of the urban environment, where hope and despair cohabite.’ – David Hoffmann

‘Dream, Fly? Seek a way out of traffic lines!’
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania © Asimina Paraskevopoulou 2014
MSc in Urban Development Planning

‘An image out of focus: shot just with a stretch of the arm outside the window. A need to get some fresh air while spending 3 ½ hours inside an air-conditioned mini-bus was the reason for a split opening of my side window. The view at that point: vehicles stuck in traffic lines due to flooding on the streets of Dar es Salaam. During rush hour and when the tropic clouds pour the city with rain the transportation system paralyzes. Commuting in the city of Dar is always an adventure: dala-dala buses, private taxis, public transportation, whichever the vehicle the ride is going to be probably a frustrating experience. And even though infrastructure improvements are planned and already under construction, with the BRT system being at the center of attention, it seems that the advertisement’s quote in the background “DREAM, FLY, SAVE” is the ‘only’ solution!’ – Asimina Paraskevopoulou

View images from the DPU Student Photography Project on Flickr or read more on the DPU website.

The DPU welcomed Joan Clos, the Director of UN Habitat, and Micahel Arthur, UCL Provost to a session that also featured DPU Visiting Professor David Satterthwaite. The session was chaired by Julio D. Davila.

Day two of the conference provoked a series of interesting talking points, among which were: informality as a way of contesting the city; calls for counter-narratives to prevalent practices in urban design; the need to separate a one-project approach from a more integrated and systematic approach to city planning; the differential merits of applying overly pragmatic approaches to planning and urban development discourses; and why we need to think of cities as urban planners and not simply as as development experts if we are to enact real change at the local level beyond the SDGs in 2015.

Today’s sessions saw lively discussions and audience participation throughout

Approaches to urban equality and informality in the cities of the global south

The opening session of day two focused on issues of urban equality and informality in the global south. With a focus on different regions, speakers discussed urban circumstances in Egypt, India and Ecuador. An overarching theme of the session was in reconstituting the relationship between people and the city in different ways. This was reflected in Omar Nagati’s talk which discussed the changing nature of the public spaces appropriated by street vendors, and how activists have contested and reoccupied certain parts of the city in Cairo.

Sheela Patel particularly talked about informality and how to incorporate exiting ‘informal’ practices into formal regulatory frameworks. Emphasising the importance of a strategic approach to planning that addresses long term goals, not by simply resolving immediate concerns in a step-by-step process, Diego Carrion talked us through several infrastructure projects at different scales in Quite, Ecuador. Discussant Pushpa Arabindoo stressed the importance of forging better links between pedagogy and practice especially when theorising an understanding of informality – something very central to the vision of the DPU.

The DPU60 Reflections Working Paper series was launched to coincide with the conference. These papers have been written by former DPU staff and can be download from our website.

Participation and contested practices in urban design and planning: Rights, needs and urban imaginaries

A fascinating discussion about urban design followed in Session 3 that ranged from very grounded case studies to more theoretical articulations of urban design as a disciplinary practice. Soomsook Boonyabacha advocated people-led development solutions at the city-wide scale as an alternative to simply isolated urban projects. She drew on her experience with ACHR and CODI to suggest how this could be done, but she sees a need for new financial mechanisms to support these alternatives. Focusing on a specific city case study, Jane Weru presented the challenges faced by many urban dwellers in Kenya in fighting against land speculation and the dominance of wealthy landholders, but also the inflexibility of the statutory legal system.

‘Practicing Dissensus’ was the title of Camillo Boano’s presentation. He spoke of the need to rediscover the potential of urban design, which has been ‘capitulated to the developer’ in many circumstances. Jane Rendell, the discussant for the session echoed Camillo’s calls for subversive urban practices and counter-narratives, where dialogue at these points of disagreement can foster productive outcomes. The plenary discussion continued to unpack these issues, and particularly ‘unlearning’ as a means of breaking away from the dominant discourses that define the boundaries that need to be crossed.

An exhibition of work from currently DPU PhD students is on display throughout the event.

Forging New Relationships in Governance and Planning: State, Market and Society in a Post-Economic Crisis World

A common theme from speakers in Session 4 was that urban projects cannot be thought of one by one, but must be packaged or conceived in relation to one-another. Antonio Estache opened the session with an analysis of lessons from Public Private Partnerships. With infrastructure demands still huge and urbanisation rates higher than they were 25 years ago, he suggested that PPPs have not done as well as many expected, and that greater realism is required in fitting PPPs in with urban strategies. Peter Brand drew comparisons between Bogota and Medellin, contrasting Bogota as a socially just and multicultural city, versus Medellin as a spectacle city – a government export project. The critique of Medellin suggested that as such it shows off poverty, rather than necessarily addressing it in a holistic way. He finished by asking if, as planners, we standing on the glossy surface of capitalism, or the foundations of ethical and social concerns.

Lawrie Robertson presented the challenge of the ‘strategic planning equation’: meeting the rising social aspirations of urban residents. He sees three present themes in urban development, from the perspective of city managers: to ‘grow faster’ in order to remain internationally competitive; to ‘spend now’ through the involvement of private sector in development; and ‘localise’ through the decentralisation of responsibilities. He finished with a call for us to seek out pragmatic and effective solutions, which echoed the other speakers. This was picked up by discussant Mike Raco, who sees the term as devoid of substance as it claims to remove ideology and politics from the equation. He went on to question where social movements and the democratic voice fit into this call for pragmatism in urban governance, asking ‘do you have to be a technical expert to be political?’

Somsook Boonyabancha speaks in the second session of the day.

Urban Development and Development Assistance

In the final presentation of the day Dr Joan Clos, the Director of UN Habitat, looked ahead to Habitat III. He identifies the event as coming at a critical time: post-SDGs; responding to the latest conversations on climate change; and to the continuing challenges posed by urbanisation. It will therefore be the role of the Habitat conference to discuss how to incorporate this broader thinking in cities at the local level. Part of the agenda is UN Habitat’s proposal for National Urban Policies and related Local Urban Policies.

David Satterthwaite followed, asking how can we make aid work better for the poor? He bemoaned the fact that fewer international agencies and development banks have urban sections than 30 or 40 years ago, in spite of the widely understood importance of combating urban poverty. If ‘the urban’ features prominently on the post-2015 agenda, he sees this as representing a sea change. This would have important knock on effects for local governance working with urban poor groups in the co-production of knowledge and service delivery in support of better city planning. He stressed that at present this remains an ‘if’.

David Satterthwaite addressing the audience

The discussion continues tomorrow!

For bios of all of the speakers taking part in the conference, please visit: https://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/dpu/dpu60/dpu60-conference/speakers

You can read more about the conference via our website

Monday April 7^th was my first day at the 7^th UN-Habitat World Urban Forum in Medellin. This is quite a special edition of WUF, as it is building up to the Third United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, Habitat III. But instead of heading to the conference centre, I ended up going to the Habitat International Coalition general assembly at the department of Architecture of the National University of Colombia. And it was totally worth it!

The day started with reporting by representatives from representatives from different regions and working groups updating HIC members and participants of the various activities of the network. This included the launch of the impressive book called ‘La vivienda, entre el derecho y la mercancia: las formas de propiedad en América Latina’ (http://www.hic-al.org/noticias.cfm?noticia=1532&id_categoria=8), which reflects on the model of housing production of Federación Uruguaya de Cooperativas de Vivienda por Ayuda Mutua (FUCVAM) and its applicability in other Latin American countries.

Then the various activities that HIC will take part inside and outside the World Urban Forum were introduced. The event closed with a discussion of future projects and alliances, which turned into a really interesting debate on the ‘social production of habitat’ and the need to continue documenting and learning from the activities of HIC members in this field.

Apart from great discussions, HIC also produced a powerful document on its expectations of Habitat III. Among other things, the document highlights that ‘urbanization is not inevitable’, calling for ‘equitable, ethical and people-centered development planning’ which supports for ‘social production of habitat’ and recognizes the ‘social function of property, prioritizing commons and collective goods over private interests’. These are crucial issues to bring to the discussions around the Habitat III agenda, which show a clear and constructive mode of engagement of HIC in this process (some of these points are articulated in the following statement at the HIC website: http://www.hic-net.org/news.php?pid=5397).

Some of the other DPU highlight of this first day of WUF includes the televised one-hour panel discussion in which Julio Davila shared the floor with Architect Martín Pérez and scholar Fernando Viviescas.  They discussed the principles of a sustainable and equitable city using examples from Medellin, Singapore, Bangalore, Accra and Nairobi. The panel will be aired at Canal UNE you tube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/televidentescanalune

The history of Somaliland has long existed as a quiet success story within the more volatile Horn of Africa. Having declared independence from neighboring Somali in 1991, the nation has since operated as a relatively stable, if persistently unrecognized, autonomous state. Partially underpinning this image of stability is the nation’s demonstrated commitment to moving beyond clan politics to a multi-party system of democracy—represented in the incidence of six different elections ranging from the local to the presidential level. The most recent of these local council elections occurred November 28, 2012, an occasion I witnessed as a part of a 52-member team of international election observers. This election acted as a window into the wider Somaliland political system, highlighting a unique set of institutional arrangements, offering insights into key themes of citizenship, participation, and democracy.

The November 2012 elections saw nearly 2,400 candidates vying for 379 seats spread across six districts of Somaliland. For the seven different political associations represented, this election would determine the top three ultimately eligible to contest all future elections for the following ten years. As such, candidates stood as both individuals and party representatives, raising the stakes for all-out campaigning on two different levels. The observation mission, headed by Dr. Michael Walls of DPU and Dr. Steven Kibble of the NGO Progressio, allowed us to witness a month marked by vibrantly-hued rallies of song and dance, cars full of chanting youths, and billboards, walls, rocks, and even donkeys emblazoned with campaign paraphernalia. Beyond complaints related to traffic jams, noise, and the occasional injury sustained by over-exuberant supporters tumbling out of vehicles, campaigning proceeded in a largely peaceful and equitable fashion. Polling day demonstrated a few more hurdles— most significantly the overwhelming practice of multiple voting. (This was certainly exacerbated by the lack of a voter registration system, and apparent impermanence of the ‘indelible’ ink used to mark those that had already voted.)

Other concerns surfaced regarding the sometimes heavy-handed police response to disorder, particular as voting day waned on and polling stations began to run out of ballot papers. Further disturbances were evidenced in the wake of announced results, with protests, sometimes violent, occurring throughout the nation. Despite these setbacks, the international observer team was ultimately able to report on process that was reasonably free, characterized by exceptional polling staff, and which tackled the major concerns posed by the vast number of candidates. In a wider region marked by nonexistent, violent, or repressive electoral histories, and in a nation-state characterized by a severe lack of resources, it is easy to be charmed by the unlikely and repeated success of elections.

Beyond these more procedural concerns related to the election process, the stories we gathered generated a series of reflections in relation to different visions of citizenship and participation. The Somaliland political structure today acts as a hybrid system, melding representative democratic institutions (executive, legislative, and judicial) with the more traditional decision-making mechanisms of consensus-building amongst clan elders. The fluidity between these different systems remained highly visible within the November elections, where more informal clan systems continued to shape the formal electoral process. This was perhaps most evident within the various political associations themselves, which had not developed particularly distinctive policy orientations, and continued to mobilize loosely around kinship lines.

Reports of negotiations amongst clan elders to determine which candidate to support were common and were reflected in the tendency of some candidates to suddenly withdraw from the race, or even switch party allegiances. Perhaps more positively were the examples of this influence in the voter education system, where more informal practices supplemented the formal donor-driven education system to support the population on how to decipher the (rather overwhelmingly) ballot paper. These experiences highlighted the multiple ways in which these spaces pushed against, influenced, or transformed each other.

What is perhaps most interesting here is to consider the role of Somaliland’s clan-based system, which has historically infused everything from political decision-making processes to service delivery. Within this structure, the emphasis on public deliberation and consensus created clear spaces for certain visions of citizen participation—an ethos that curiously underpins many of the ‘participatory governance’ initiatives initiated today. Unsurprisingly then, recent moves to institutionalize the trappings of representative democracy are felt by some to constrict these more traditional spaces—relegating a more robust form of citizen participation (at least for men) to the routinized sphere of elections. Yet in other ways this evolution offers other potentials—generating certain legitimacy for the unrecognized nation, and creating certain safeguards for the well-being of groups that may have particular interests outside of clan lines—demonstrated most concretely in the case of women.

In Somaliland, the current election marks another step to institutionalize a multi-party system, with the hopes that the top three elected parties are able to forge lasting allegiances and associations amongst a broader spectrum of the population. Though there are certain gaps in regards to social and political enfranchisement, what remains is to examine whether this represents one step in an evolving process—a foundation from which deeper discussions on social and political participation can emerge. At the same time, it is important not to lose sight of the rich tradition of democratic debate that has characterized the Somaliland system, and the opportunities for public involvement that this offered. As the nation continues to move along a particular democratic path it is valuable to continue watching these spaces of engagement, perhaps drawing lessons for a wider region strongly influenced by kinship bonds, and allowing for deeper theoretical discussions on the shape and visions of citizen participation.

Stephanie Butcher is the Graduate Teaching Assistant for the MSc Social Development Practice at the DPU.

As children growing up in the UK in the 90s, Comic Relief’s Red Nose Day represented a week of  treats where we could wear non-uniform to school, throw water balloons at our teachers and sport red noses – all in the name of helping people living in poverty. Next month people around the country will once again embrace Red Nose Day, hoping to beat the £74 million raised in 2011. Comic Relief states that alongside raising funds it also aims to “help the public…understand the root causes of poverty and injustice”. To what extent will the campaign engage the public in a conversation about social justice? Will the discourse and images used present simplified and damaging views of the people it aims to help?

photo by author (of a photo by Julien Harneis)

Comic Relief creates an impact on its audience by contrasting an image of people living in poverty (often in African or South Asian countries) with a night of indulgent entertainment. The inequality made stark between viewers and the people they see on their screens is effective in stimulating guilt which drives donations, but does not encourage those watching to fully explore what they are confronted with.

In order to emphasise this inequality, direct comparisons are often made between the people featured and viewers’ lives in the UK. This year Christine Bleakley muses that “we take for granted safe water…imagine living where one mouthful could be fatal”. These contrasts draw attention to difference, helping to create a sense of “ourselves” and “others” where the measure of variance is poverty. This idea of poverty is often used to explain the situations depicted, however the meaning and causes of the concept are not fully unpacked.

Kate Simpson (writing about young people who have taken gap years in developing countries) argues that, when presented with inequality without an adequate framework to understand it, people rely on logic of luck to interpret what they are seeing. Comic Reliefs lack of engagement with the root cause of inequality and social injustice doesn’t invite viewers to look beyond this mysterious explanation of poverty. The stories told often focus on individuals or communities as a single unit without considering the wider structural context. This doesn’t initiate a conversation that considers history, culture, markets, gender or politics. Audiences are not encouraged to reflect on the structures that link their lives with those of the people on their screens and are not confronted with the ways in which they can take responsibility beyond making a donation to Comic Relief.

To drive contributions, Comic Relief emphasises the impact of the money raised and how easy it is for viewers to make a difference. Billy Connelly looks the audience straight in the eye, telling them that he has “no doubt that you can change the world”. This idea is exciting, however it doesn’t communicate the complex reality of generating change in the lives of people living in poverty. It doesn’t explain that, in using the funds, choices have to be made about who not to help and which programmes not to prioritise. There is no attention paid to the forces that may countervail these efforts such as politics, markets and environments.

Photo by author (of a photo by babasteve)

The picture presented is also inadequate in ways beyond this. In order to create impact, the Comic Relief campaign focuses on poverty, violence, fear and disaster. The images used are taken in slums, under resourced hospitals and the homes of the ill. This represents a partial view of the lives of people in these countries and reinforces a negative, narrow image of developing countries. As Chimamanda Adichie points out, the danger of this single story is that it creates stereotypes and that “the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete”. The story that is told is not damaging because the situations are fabricated or because people living in these countries don’t face huge challenges. They are damaging because they don’t give proportional weight to the triumphs and successes that also happen on a daily basis.

Comic Relief does go some way to present a different side of the lives of people featured in their publicity. Positive images of smiling children, improved living conditions and successful entrepreneurs often feature in the second half of their films. However, these are primarily used to illustrate the impact that funds raised by Comic Relief have made. There is a real emphasis placed on the hard work, resolve and capacity of people living in poverty to help themselves alongside Comic Relief funds. These statements are important. They hint at a second, parallel story beyond that of the helpless and suffering African. However, they are limited and still present people in a positive light within a context of deprivation.

This discourse, used by Comic Relief to communicate with the public, conceals issues related to poverty, social injustice and development. However, it is clear that, in its other areas of operation, the organisation makes a concerted effort to engage with these issues.

Comic Reliefs’ International Grants Strategy acknowledges its position within the global development context and that choices must be made in using its finite funds. There is an express focus on specific countries and locations and an explicit commitment to nine programme areas. In making grants there is an undertaking to understand the causes of poverty by examining a balanced picture of the cultural, political and socioeconomic context their partner organisations work in.

When considering grants made within the programme area of trade, Comic Relief acknowledges that economic growth holds no guarantee of increased job opportunities or living standards for the poorest people within a country. There is a consideration of structural factors such as the global trade system and local producer’s access to markets. The constraints that these may place on development strategies inform the support of partner organisations that work precisely with those vulnerable to the global supply chain, recognising that these people specifically have the least power.

There is a clear disparity between the language and concepts used to engage the public on Comic Relief night and those used by the organisation in its work throughout the year. To a large extent this may be explained by the primary purpose of fundraising during the evenings programming. Here the need is to generate shock, guilt and encourage people to ease these feelings by donating.

photo by author (of a photo by Meanest Indian)

The story that is told during the show on March 15^th will be powerful. The viewing figures are often tremendous, peaking at 12m in 2011. The mixture of entertainment with issues based narratives draws a unique audience for whom this may be one of the few times they engage with development issues during the year. This suggests a missed opportunity to explore the structural links between their own lives and those on the screen. Viewers are permitted to feel that they have a limited responsibility to these others and that simply by making a small donation they can resolve conditions of poverty.

This does not increase the capacity of viewers to understand the development context, the role of the markets through which they secure their livelihoods and buy their commodities and the power of their government vis a vis other national governments. This does not increase the audiences’ incentive or capacity to advocate on behalf of the people they see on their screens.

Post written in collaboration with Stephanie Butcher

From April 29th – May 14^th, eighty-five students from the Urban Economic Development (UED) and Development Administration and Planning (DAP) programmes conducted a series of research projects centred on poverty reduction strategies within the burgeoning Ethiopian city of Mekele and its environs.

Mekele, located in the northern Tigray region of Ethiopia, is a mid-sized but rapidly expanding city home to some 200,000 residents. Ethiopia as a whole remains largely rural , and has somewhat  lagged behind in the rapid-fire urbanization occurring within the rest of the world – with its GDP still nearly 85% reliant on agriculture.  Mekele, however, stands out as a major urban centre in the country’s north, and is home to one of the country’s most prestigious universities. A recent grant from the World Bank has funded an urban beautification project, creating wide cobbled avenues populated by pedestrians, mototaxis, and the occasional donkey or camel. On the whole, we found the city to be safe, friendly, and patiently receptive to the student inquiries.

The following series of photographs illustrates our experiences in the city and surrounding countryside:

Although technically a city, Mekele retains a quiet, laid-back atmosphere, unlike the capital, Addis Ababa. The cobblestone streets shown here were recently paved as part of a beautification project funded partially by World Bank.

Monday is market day in Mekele. Women and men from the surrounding rural areas flood into the city to sell their produce and wares. Seen here: guava and cabbage.

This woman was kind enough to allow us to photograph her after she sold us a curiously large citrus fruit of some sort.

Part of the permanent market, on the outskirts of the city centre, where everyday household products are bought and sold. As sites of income generation, markets featured prominently in our students’ research.

A colourful market stall specialising in baskets of all shapes and sizes. In Ethiopia, basket weaving is traditionally women’s work.

A market of a different sort: Hawzien is small town 2 hour’s drive from Mekele, and very much within the city’s sphere of influence. Hawzien is also the site of a midweek market, seen here.

Many women travel to the Hawzien market from rural areas, some walking more than 4 hours, their young children often in toe.

The rural areas outside of Hawzien. This photo was taken from a village where the students were interviewing cooperative members.

We encountered this man in a village outside of Hawzien, he had just purchased colourful yarn for his wife.

Mekele is blessed with amazing produce, particularly fruit. Fruit salads of mango, guava, papaya, avocado and banana were a popular treat for students and staff.

All photos in this blog were taken by Henry Maths

Alex de Waal, writing in the NY Times on 21^st February, argued that instead of focusing on the negative, international policy-makers should recognise the remarkable achievements of many in Somalia, and most particularly those of the self-declared Republic of Somaliland. [http://nyti.ms/zP0L4T] His comments were timed for two days before a major international conference on Somalia held in London and hosted by the UK government on 23^rd February. But in the run-up to the conference, William Hague repeatedly used the phrase ‘Somalia is the world’s-worst failed state’, suggesting that the focus on the negative is here to stay. This is in spite of conference talk about ‘supporting local initiatives’ and the need for the process to be ‘Somali-led’. Taking a rather more cynical line, respected French academic Gerard Prunier described the conference as ‘Alice in Wonderland Goes Imperialist’, and ridiculed the organisers for calling for Somali-led initiatives while inviting few Somalis to the conference itself. [http://bit.ly/whCEH3] So how do we pick our way through the myriad of viewpoints?

While I agree with many of Prunier’s points and even much of his argument, I have to say that I am not as cynical about the process as he is. And while I wholeheartedly support the tenor of much of de Waal’s article, we need to take considerable care if we are to chart a constructive engagement that recognises positive achievement. The conference was welcome in many ways in that it raised many important questions and suggested a new sophistication in some of the discourse amongst the international donor, diplomatic and civil society communities. However, there is no consensus yet on what that sophistication means in policy terms.

And what of Somaliland? They have certainly achieved an immense amount. Meaningful elections, the transfer of power from a standing incumbent to his opposition challenger … these are remarkable advances, as is the durability of peace throughout most of the country. Indeed, Somaliland is seen by some as an object lesson in how Somalis will succeed if they are just left alone. But that fails to recognise the fact that Somali society has always been based on links, particularly through trade but also religion and politics, with the outside world and between different Somali clans. That model relies precisely on not being ‘left alone’. But Somaliland also clearly shows us that the nature of engagement is vitally important. Heeding that observation, many people are talking about the need to support locally-based initiatives. But there is great risk there too, because it means having to find a way of picking who to support. Somaliland has achieved a lot, and Puntland has also made some progress, but what about the burgeoning number of smaller entities who are claiming ‘local legitimacy’? Individuals were even handing out business cards at events in London during the week of the conference declaring them to be President of some hitherto unknown Somali state. Which ones are real and worth supporting?

As complicated as the situation is, there are some lessons we can learn as outsiders. There seems little doubt that there is a need for local disputes to be resolved before there is a move to form a ‘national’ government, whatever that might look like. That is the process that occurred in Somaliland. It means that there needs to be a great deal of discussion amongst Somalis and led by Somalis about how they will settle the complex web of grievances and counter-grievances that have built up over the past two decades of conflict in the south. International actors can support the process by allowing it to take place, by insisting that resolutions are agreed before the process moves on, and by providing small amounts of material support where there is a demonstrable need. But those interventions need to be proportionate. They must not dominate the process, which needs to succeed or fail on its own terms. In other words, there has to be real reward for local groups who succeed in agreeing a peace deal with their neighbouring antagonists, but they must also bear most of the cost of achieving that deal, and also the cost of failing to do so.

That also means that an early focus on elections would be counter productive. For many Somalis, representative democracy in which individuals are elected to make decisions on behalf of a populace is less democratic than the patriarchal but otherwise egalitarian (for men) system of discussion and debate that is employed under Somali custom. So elections are not a process of ‘democratisation’ but rather the opposite: a retreat from the slow and unpredictable process of consensus-building to a less egalitarian but more efficient form of decision-making. Now let’s not get this wrong: it is very likely that representative democracy will eventually be needed in some form in the Somali territories in order to facilitate the establishment of a reasonably legitimate state. That is, after all, the transition that Somaliland has gone so far towards achieving. But in the southern areas of the erstwhile Republic of Somalia, the time is not yet right for that transition. And in the meantime, external actors need to be prepared to go along with an unpredictable and probably fairly slow process of consensus-building.

The most remarkable thing about Somaliland is that, whatever the claims to the contrary, it was founded as a genuinely multi-clan polity, and no other multi-clan Somali political entity has been so successful and with such genuinely local involvement. The simmering tensions between the different clans represented within Somaliland’s colonial borders represent a significant challenge, but it is important to remember that those who are currently most dissatisfied with the Somaliland administration were intimately involved in the formation of the state between 1991 and 1997. The fact that Somaliland was founded as a multi-clan political union with broad local support should not be forgotten by anyone.

Part of the lesson is that political nationalism is not the same as cultural, linguistic or religious unity. The political nation-state is a construct that requires a great deal of compromise. Somali society is remarkably vibrant and, in many ways, successful. The measure of economic performance that would pass for GDP per capita if reliable data were available almost certainly surpasses that of neighbouring countries. The telecoms, finance and trade sectors thrive. Just about everywhere, not just in Hargeisa or Bosaso. But business unity and cultural, linguistic and religious commonalities have not formed a good base for nationhood elsewhere, so why should they here? The dream of a unitary state based on either one or other sub-clan grouping or, at the other extreme,  a Greater Somalia, just don’t make sense.

As the various actors who met in London on 23^rd February move to develop a new approach to supporting stability in the Somali Horn of Africa, they would do well to build on local initiatives, and to support the successes that are already evident. But that needs to be done with caution and patience. Hurrying the process is likely to worsen security for the UK, US and Somalia’s neighbours and prolong the crisis for locals. But facilitating a process which is Somali-led requires a willingness by international actors to step back and let Somalis agree for themselves: first of all, the terms under which they’ll coexist with other clans and sub-clans; and, secondly, what their state will look like. That will test the patience and commitment of international actors, regardless of how sophisticated their dialogue. But it’s a test that they need to pass just as Somalis themselves must negotiate difficult compromises.

Post written by Jo Maguire, DPU alumna 2003-05.

The new Bolivian constitution, introduced in January 2010, when over 64% of the voting population approved it, states that adequate housing is a right (Article 19, Section I), that the state will promote social housing plans based on the principles of solidarity and equity, directed preferably at low-income families (Article 19, Sec II) and that collectively owning property is recognised (Article 56, Sec I)

Many of the articles in the new constitution await the introduction of laws to support them, and social housing provision and the right to collectively own urban land is among them. Collective land is legally recognised in rural areas, as an important feature of indigenous rural communities, but not in urban areas. However, the residents of a community in Cochabamba are the attempting to change that, by pushing the local government to pass an ordinance that recognises their community as collectively owned, and by proposing a new national law that recognises collectively owned solidarity communities in general.

The Community Maria Auxiliadora is a beautiful anomaly. In the peri-urban “Zona Sur” of the city of Cochabamba, it was created 12 years ago by a steering group of five women, following the vision of Rose Mary Irusta. She took out a loan to buy a parcel of land so that low-income women and children could have access to their own house, rather living in the squalid, overcrowded rented housing conditions that so many families have to endure in the city, with the related problems of stress, illness, abuse, youth delinquency and child neglect. The result of this vision is the Habitát para Mujeres, Comunidad María Auxiliadora (Habitat for Women, María Auxiliadora Community), an intercultural solidarity community.  Currently with just under 2000 residents (365 families), it is planned to grow to 5000. It has a democratic base, with a Management Committee elected every two years, and a President and Vice President that are always women. There is much encouragement of women’s leadership, recognising that women tend to be more concerned and affected by their families’ housing. There are many single parent families. A mainstay of the community is the community work carried out on Sundays, where the community’s principles of solidarity and mutual self-help are evident. The community is not religious, nor has a political line. It is multicultural: residents come from all over Bolivia, there are different indigenous groups as well as mestizos (mixed race), and two indigenous languages are widely spoken as well as Spanish.

To enter the community a family has to have a low income and not own a house or land in Bolivia. They must sign that they agree to the community rules: that the land is collective, that they have the right to indefinitely use the plot allocated and leave it to their children; that they cannot sell or rent out their house, as the community is “for living, not for profit”; that they will do community work and attend the monthly meetings; that they will not sell alcohol. The cost entering the community and having a plot on which to build a house is 600 US$, i.e. 3$ per square metre, while surrounding neighbourhoods are selling at over 20$ per square metre. It can be paid over a year. The price is fixed, so making a plot and house accessible to low-income families and avoiding the current free-market approach to land in peri-urban areas, where land is bought as an investment and left vacant. While a family does not have an individual title deed, they do have a legal document naming them as co-owners of the whole community and giving them and their descendents the right to occupy their housing plot.

The social impact is impressive. There is security, a rarity in peri-urban areas; less alcoholism or violence within the family than in other neighbourhoods; mutual support and solidarity (for families in crisis there is a repayable fund to help them, and if that is not enough a whip-round). Many of the young people are studying at university; the local school says that the community’s students are getting the best exam results; there is a self-managed youth group, putting on events for the children of the community and carrying out projects. The community is developing its own culture, and restoring aspects of a culture still found in the countryside in Bolivia but usually lost when people move to the city: a culture based on communitarianism rather than individualism.

The cornerstone of this social and physical capital gained by residents is the collective ownership of the community. If the residents had individual title deeds they could do what they liked within their walls and the community would have very little control. As it is, the Management Committee debates an issue and then takes it to the monthly community meeting for a decision: a man continues to beat up his partner and children, despite help from the Family Support Committee, should he be expelled from the community? A family has not paid their monthly housing loan payments to the NGO for over a year and does not live in the house, should the house be given to another family and their investment repaid?

All this has been gained by a lot of hard physical work. The residents have cleared the roads, put in a well, water tank and pipe network, and a sewage system with an ecological treatment plant, built a community office, sports facilities, and an afterschool club. Most of this has been done without help from any level of government. National and international NGOs have helped to an extent, especially with house building loans.

The community is better known internationally that locally, with a World Habitat Award in 2008, and as a shining example for the Habitat International Coalition. But there are many powerful local interests that work against the community: politicians visit and say it should be a model for all Bolivia and then do nothing. The whole of the Zona Sur of Cochabamba city, with 200,000 residents, is still classified as rural land, and this benefits a corrupt network of surveyors, lawyers, “loteadores” – people that illegally buy grazing land from local peasant farmers and divide and sell it as housing plots – as well as local government officials and politicians.

So the struggle to get collectively owned urban land legally recognised is not easy. The community, particularly the group Mujeres Lideres de la Communidad Maria Auxiliadora (Women Leaders of the Maria Auxiliadora Community), is currently attempting to push the local government elected body to pass a ordinance that recognises that the community is collectively owned land, however there are representatives and officials that oppose it. The community has elaborated a law that will permit collectively owned urban land and recognise solidarity communities, which is supported by the Vice Ministry of Housing, and is presently with the President’s office and other Ministries for consultation.

An unexpected breakthrough resulted from a recent judges’ verdict. Rose Mary Irusta was taken to court, accused of fraud by a small group within the community. They had family members working abroad, had built large houses and wanted to sell up and move on. The judge stated that they knew perfectly well the rules of the community when they entered it, and there was no evidence of fraud. Moreover, he stated that the community was collective owned; so giving some legal acknowledgement to the existence of collectively owed urban land.

Jo is an architect living and working in Cochabamba-Bolivia. The views expressed in this piece are her own.

There is no shortage of global, historical and national initiatives to improve the housing of poor women and men currently and predominantly living in informal settlements. Yet, as Geoff Payne (2005) calculates, these initiatives will be outstripped in terms of need and arguably, what is being constructed tends to be of inadequate quality. When the resources exist to solve the housing problems why is improving urban informal settlements not more of a national priority?

photo ©Juan Camilo Maya.2012. Rio de Janeiro

I argue that part of the reason that they are not more of a priority is because informal settlements are framed within a particular economic logic where improving informal settlements is fundamentally an issue of the productivity of the poor. However, the economic fortunes and growth rates of developing countries have more to do with the terms of trade and foreign exchange rates than they do with productivity gains from improved living conditions of the poor – especially if the poor are considered marginal to modern economic dynamics anyway.

Policy makers wanting to improve informal settlements face a conundrum. It is clear that informal settlements must be improved but they cannot point to spectacular productivity gains that arise from improving informal settlements. Moreover, they accept that national economies are subject to powerful international economic forces that must be managed for the benefit of the country as a whole. The conundrum emerges, I argue, following J.K Gibson-Graham, because analysing informal housing is restricted to a framework in which only the capitalist economy counts.

 In many ways, this is an intellectual and political inheritance from Engels’(1872) analysis of ‘The housing question’. Famously, Engels’ argued that it is only through the abolition of capitalist modes of production that solutions to the housing question will emerge (1975, 32); thereby establishing a relationship between poor people’s housing and capitalism. This relationship has been debated and refined in relation to informal settlements but the relationship between the housing of the poor and capitalism has remained intact (see Steinberg 1982 and 1983 and Nientied and van der Linden 1983 in IJURR). The relationship presents policy makers with a heady mixture of solving housing problems while grappling with the most powerful economic forces of the day and generates compelling stories. However, they have little to offer in terms of making the improvement of informal settlements more of a priority.

Clearly, capitalism is a powerful economic force, but it is not the only economic process ‘in town’ – so to speak. So what would happen if we analysed informal settlement improvements in relation to ordinary, diverse local economies? If the productivity improvements were conceptualised in relation to what people actually do rather than what they can’t do in relation to powerful capitalist economic dynamics? Capitalist forces would still matter but then so would other economic registers in which poor women and men’s economic activities figure in more positive ways. I believe that demonstrating these more positive stories and decentring capitalism is an important part of the challenge of making the improvement of informal settlements more of a priority.

PHOTO: J. Walker

Approaches to development which prioritize economic growth have been consistently criticized on the basis of their trickle-down assumptions, and for losing sight of equality as an objective. An ongoing theme in international development, therefore, has been attempts to develop frameworks which ensure that the needs of poor women and men are understood, and catered for, in economic development and livelihood programming.  Yet all too often there seems to be a sort of slippage between the intention of such frameworks and their application, whereby, in practice, they are perversely used to justify the exclusion of poor people.

One anti-poverty framework which is currently in the ascendancy is the ‘Making Markets Work for the Poor’ (M4P) approach[1]. Championed by major donors such as the UK DfID and the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC), M4P was developed in part as a corrective to previous anti-poverty approaches, such as the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach, which,  while it had a strong emphasis on the strategies and assets of poor households, failed to robustly address the structural and institutional constraints that exclude poor women and men from accessing markets and employment.

In this light, the M4P approach explicitly aims to combine growth with active measures to ensure the access of the poor to markets. Its intention is to foster systemic change focused on the systems of entitlement and the (formal and informal) ‘rules’ or institutions that support or impede poor people’s access to and control over markets.

Over the last six months I, along with DPU associate Nadia Taher,  have been working with the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) in their South Caucasus Progamme[2] (which covers their development assistance activities in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia). This work builds on a long history of collaboration between the DPU and the SDC working on gender equality issues. In this case we are working with the SDC’s Gender and Governance advisor to bring a stronger gender equality focus to their work in the region.

One of the issues that we are addressing with the SDC team is how to make sure that the eight Economic Development and Employment (EDE) projects that they support in the South Caucasus (which have all been structured using the M4P approach) actively cater to the needs of poor women and men. These eight projects, reflecting the prevalence of poverty in remote rural areas in the South Caucasus, are all in the field of horticulture and animal husbandry, and attempt in different ways to connect village households dependent on farming to urban markets for their produce.

A critical issues here is that, not infrequently, the NGOs implementing these EDE  projects appear to be working in ways which sideline the inclusion and interests of the poor. Many of the project teams feel that they should primarily focus on support to existing private sector enterprises (including, in some cases, established international businesses), but are hesitant to work with the poorest women and men farmers or agricultural labourers.  Ironically, the justification for this approach is typically that to work directly with poor women and men would contravene the principles of the M4P framework, which proposes a ‘light touch’ facilitative approach, working with existing actors and processes, rather than interventions which create new processes and institutions, which are dependent on the project and may therefore be unsustainable. Whatever the justification, the outcome is odd for poverty focused projects when,  for example, it is seen as in keeping with the M4P framework  to purchase lorries for an established dairy processing business, while direct interventions such as support to the creation of cooperatives or famers associations, or start up grants or loans to poor households are disallowed on the basis that they are ‘unsustainable’.

In other cases, project interventions prioritize the interests of growth, but do not attempt to promote equitable access to the wealth created. For example one project focuses on supporting established businesses to develop fruit processing in high quality fruit value chains, arguing that this will create wage labour (casual agricultural labour and work in processing facilities), but envisages no interventions to support the rights and labour conditions of a casual agricultural labour force, despite the fact that this is a labour force which is notoriously vulnerable to poorly paid and exploitative working conditions.  Thus their interpretation of the systemic change envisaged by M4P appears to be about changing the systems of market access for medium sized business, while leaving the systems whereby agricultural labours are exploited untouched.

The SDC are aware of these issues, and, in response, have been stressing that there is space within the M4P framework for a more active, rights based interpretation. For example, they point out that the M4P approach advocates working with a full range of ‘market players’ – and, while it is important to work with the private sector in the interest of economic growth, rights based and pro-equality interventions also require working with other market players, specifically supporting civil society and government bodies working on issues related to labour rights, governance, and market regulation, or producers associations which protect the rights and negotiating capacity or women and men engaged in farming.

So why, in this case, is it that the application of pro-poor frameworks such as M4P often lead, in practice, to pro-business interventions which sideline the poor?  Is it that models of growth-led development are so embedded in our minds that we can’t take alternative forms of enterprise, such as cooperatives, or state regulated markets, seriously? Or that the ways in which the performance of economic development projects are measured (for example economic return on investment) mean that a truly pro-poor orientation will always score badly in the short term? Or that poor people are difficult to reach, because they don’t fit into neat organised associations which are easy to work with, and conform to the requirements of our framework? Or that dealing the institutions that underpin poverty requires confronting vested interests, and sensitive political structures that project teams feel are ‘out of reach’? Whatever the reason, it seem very clear that however sound frameworks  such as M4P are on paper, we need to apply constant critical scrutiny to what they deliver in practice, as they have a tendency to create a new logic all of their own when they hit the real world.