Special consultation on volunteer participation in working with the urban poor
Excerpts from paper presented by. Victor E. Tokman, ILO,
September 1990.
How do we approach the problem of the urban poor?
"Strategy No. 1 - As producers and entrepreneurs who can develop
if duly supported. Here the emphasis is on incomes and employment and on access
to resources and markets. Ideologically there is a shift from the expectation
that everybody will be a worker in the modern sector, to one in which the
majority will become independent producers.
The instruments are mostly provision of resources, mainly credit
and training, but, particularly today, complemented by deregulation. Credit
experience is very rich and we already know a lot. It is successful in terms of
repayments, less clear in terms of employment. Credit packaged with other
instruments is the best performer but the learning process is facilitated by
starting with credit only. The government is not particularly efficient at
providing credit, NGOs or links with banking system are a better wayx to support
activities which they already know, participation and group solidarity for
collateral. The limitations: very difficult to pass from pilot to systemic
approaches; only the "core" group can be supported; the producer benefits, not
necessarily the workers.
Strategy No. 2 - The emphasis is on empowerment and organisation
which have two variants: (1) The incorporation into the already existing social
movements, i.e. labour or entrepreneurs. The first strategy leads in a way to
the latter. Labour can be promoted by organising on a trade union basis like
SEWA in India where revindication is linked to development of self-employment
activities. A complementary movement is becoming increasingly accepted by
established unions which try to incorporate the informal interests in their
organisations claims.
(2) A second variant is to work with the community without
prejudging the type of organisation but rather letting the poor themselves
decide their own forms of organisation The effort here is geared to assisting
them to make their own social enquiries about their conditions of living and to
formulate their own strategies. The use of "animation work" to stimulate the
formulation of voluntary organisations for improving their living conditions is
an important component of this methodology and can indeed constitute initial
steps for further producer support."
"The policy to help the poor cannot be conceived in isolation
since social and economic integration at the national level is a requirement for
development. Dual societies will not be sustainable. The more difficult path of
mobility through employment will need to be reinforced (a) by creating the
possibilities of equal access for all through a human resources strategy which
allows the poor to get education, health and nutrition, and or to be able to
compete for the opportunities which will be open; (b) by ensuring that the
advantages of modernisation, mainly new and better goods and services, also
reach the poor."
Photo: UNV/Gilles Reboux
Front cover photo: UNV/Eva Leon Hing
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