Factors determining support possibilities

When attempting to work with low-income urban communities, determine support possibilities and target potential entry-points for interventions, certain factors should be considered:

* Promoting community-based activities and participation should build upon cohesive factors such as:

- conditions for greater group solidarity: common struggle against harassment by authorities, landlords and moneylenders

- capacity to organise politically and influence government

- pressure to improve educational and skill levels

- escape from traditional social barriers and constraints

* Community-based activities are also facilitated by:

- concentrated location
- kinship ties and common origins (ea. refugees)
- high motivation for self-improvement, especially among migrants

* At the same time, there are a number of negative characteristics that would argue in favour of outside support to programmes:

- explosive population growth and competition for scarce resources and services

- breakdown of family ties and traditional forms of mutual help

- high incidence of crime, drug addiction, alcoholism, violence and access to socially harmful forms of expenditure

- difficulty of producing food for subsistence consumption (dependence on wage income)

- special vulnerability of women and children (child labour, victims of violence, prostitution)

- health consequences of high pollution levels, exacerbated by working at home and absence of adequate shelter

- psychological pressures bred by density, lack of privacy, recreational space, unmet expectations, commuting difficulties and the expense of transport.

* There are several positive factors which may be singled out for employment-promoting schemes, such as:

- a coincidence of workplace and living sites

-activities that use local raw materials, limited skills, simple technologies, small credit amounts, no formal education

- considerable mobility between jobs

- relatively few obstacles to working women and sharing work within the family

- strong incentives for cash rather than subsistence production

- better access to information (employment, market, wages)

* For the provision of basic services (health, education, housing, transport, nutritional supplements), factors include:

- density of population for delivery of basic service packages
- self-help housing suited to needs
- investments required for environmental improvements
- gender sensitivity in selection, design and delivery