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
