Living conditions in many Southern towns and cities have long been unacceptable. Children grow up in squalor, adults live in fear of eviction, piped water supplies are intermittent if they exist at all, sanitation facilities are lacking, housing investment is inadequate with materials that frequently require replacement, drainage is non-existent, resulting in pools of stagnant water, and solid waste is left in dumpsites close to living spaces. In many cases, low-income settlements are located some distance from major economic centres, poorly connected with under-serviced and expensive transport routes. However, it is equally common for these settlements to be proximate but...

The significance of Urban Poor Funds lies in their ability to support shelter improvements for the “hardto-reach” group that is typically left out of both poverty-reduction and housing programmes. This section begins by summarizing the scale and extent of informal shelter. It then considers state efforts to support improved shelter and analyses the success of these efforts. The section examines the concerns that donor assistance and state agencies do not reach some of the lowest-income and otherwise most disadvantaged households.

There have been many efforts to improve inadequate shelter but they have failed for a multitude of reasons. In particular...

Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI) is a transcontinental network of organized communities of the urban and rural poor in Asia, Latin America and Africa. SDI-affiliated communities are engaged in many struggles reflecting the difficulties faced by their member organizations. Savings schemes defend themselves against eviction threats and negotiate for secure tenure as well as exploring strategies to improve their members’ livelihoods using a variety of methods and approaches. SDI’s methodology encourages residents living in informal low-income settlements to organize themselves into savings schemes, which then federate at the city and national levels. A key mechanism for investing in improved tenure and...

The analysis in Section 2 above demonstrates that both market mechanisms and state agencies have struggled to provide adequate shelter alternatives. This is the context in which Shack/Slum Dwellers International and other civil society groups have been pressing for change that favours low-income households. As elaborated in Section 2, political elites have used shelter programmes as a source of patronage to further their own ambitions and interests, offering resources to a range of grassroots organizations but demanding political allegiance in return. Neo-liberal state policies have resulted in the withdrawal of some programmes, and a partial switch to market-based mechanisms for...

In a context in which neo-liberal approaches have been in ascendancy, and the state has been, at best, reticent about its contribution to development, pro-poor change is difficult. Many civil society efforts have concentrated on critiquing state positions, contesting policies (such as those towards privatization) and supporting defensive activities against state actions hostile to the poor (such as the eviction of lowincome settlements). Other civil society strategies have been to engage with service provision, for example participating in state service-delivery programmes, or to extend financial services to lowincome groups through the growth of micro-finance agencies. SDI affiliates, federations of the...