Hello – my name is Sarah Ward, and I am currenty a ED/MD specialist with Mercy Corps based in the US.

I would like to pick up on something that Perveen said “these are rural migrants; they are no longer bound by traditions of their village or clan and explore new options. However, they may need new skills and ideas to survive in the city.”

I found this to be true as well, and there are key opportunities for these groups; small enterprise can thrive in urban settings, services are in demand, youth (as Linda mentions) and women are not always held back or pushed out by tradition or elders, there can be more competition – but the possibility to enter the market (where there can be tribal or familiar barriers in rural areas)

There are also some special challenges.

It has been my experience, both in conflict-swelled populations (like Freetown, Sierra Leone and Monrovia, Liberia) and in capitals (Cotonou, Benin and Abidjan, Ivory Coast) that a LOT of the folks we are often trying to reach: slum dwellers, immigrants, transients/migrants, youth and women – and usually “from someplace else”. They don’t always have networks, access to systems, “street savvy”, and the entrepreneurial skills that can be assets in urban environments. Sometimes there is even a political or donor-driven policy to “resettle or return” them to rural areas. Then projects that work to provide opportunities and income options are accused of being part of the problem.

Have others encountered this? And if so, have there been any techniques that have addressed the challenges? I have had both positive and negative experiences … and worked to link the populations as Rajiv says, but this has not always been possible…

Do we generalize because the problems of the urban poor are so vast and intractable? The issues with urban planning are the cultural assumptions that we must make to set priorities. Urbanization has been disconnected from industrialization in recent years, as sprawl takes on a life of its own. Walking through Cape Town’s Khayalitsha endless shacks, my guide explained that the water, sanitation and electricity offered to some in Reconstruction and Development housing comes with an obligation to pay a modest rent. “We’d rather live with our people right here and not pay anything,” I was told. Food, housing, health care, safety, training and work, dignity, culture, civil empowerment, each are important but one will rise as a priority depending on neighborhood, city, region; post-colonial, post-conflict, post-disaster, famine, corruption or program focus.

In the Philippines, the continued rise of poverty incidence and the low economic growth in the countryside leads to migration to urban areas. Migration compounded with high population growth has resulted to increasing number of slum settlements, pollution problems, unemployment, deficient basic services, and food security issues. There were some programs that encouraged slum dwellers to return to the countryside but somewhow the vicious cycle remains and many flock to coastal areas which again creates similar problems.

In many cases, urban poor communities are in the informal sector which concentrates mainly in service and micro trading activities (sidewalk vendors, etc.) and other survival livelihoods with low entry barriers. Unless poor urban (and rural) households are able to engage in growth oriented enterprises (vis-à-vis survival type enterprises) and be gainfully integrated in value chains or incorporated in the formal economy where wages, social protection, and productivity are higher or alternatively productivity, income, and level of protection of informal employment are improved, it seems doubtful that their socio-economic and ecological conditions will really change and improve in a sustainable manner.

To follow up on Rajiv, Mary and Perveen’s comments, I think we need to focus on the rural-urban linkages since I believe that proportionately large populations of urban poor are rural migrants. We need a comprehensive understanding of patterns of urban immigration and conduits that facilitate and support this migration. Answers to some of the challenges that urban poor face might lie in the support structure that new and old rural migrant relies on. From my work in India I have observed that social networks are, perhaps, one of the most important drivers of migration and act as the support system for rural immigrants in an urban space. Not surprisingly, the village networks are reconfigured in an urban setting and informal social network are reconstituted and provide critical livelihood support to new as well as old inhabitants of urban spaces. During my research in India I found that laborers working for the contractors in export furniture value chain of Jodhpur were all from two adjacent villages. The entire crew of the marble and sandstone contractors I interviewed in Jaipur consisted of people from neighboring villages. Most of the villagers from Tala Panchayat of Jaipur work in Mumbai in the marble construction value chain and most of the villagers of Karimganj in eastern UP work as security guards at ATM machines in Delhi. New patron-client relations are being established in urban areas and a new emigrant has to often rely on the patron to secure the first job. Rather than being an anomaly, this seems to be a trend. We need to enhance our understanding of dynamics of these informal social networks, their role in securing and sustaining livelihoods in urban spaces, and their role as ‘gatekeepers’ in certain value chains. I would like to hear people comments/ observations on some of the following issues :
1. Are these social networks still very strong and relevant to urban poor even after 3-4 years of migration from their rural homes?
2. How do these social networks operate in urban spaces? What are their dynamics?
3. Is there significant so-relation between social networks and value chains? Is marble construction labor in Mumbai dominated by immigrants from Rajasthan? Is there a huge concentration of people from eastern UP in certain value chains in Mumbai and Delhi? Do people find similar domination of certain sect/ region/ religion in certain urban value chains? Specially, at the lower level jobs in these value chains.
4. If so, do these social network provide the interface to improve the livelihoods of urban poor? How can this network be leveraged to provide greater access to services and better quality of jobs?

PS …Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I am Vikas Choudhary, a researcher and practitioner of enterprise development. Currently I work as a free lance consultant in Washington DC and also teach courses at Georgetown University.

Urban poverty prevails because of the uneven allocation of resources for decades or even centuries– where the focus was building on mega-cities. A mistake where social unrest breeds, making the situation complex, encouraging more migration to urban centers looking for better opportunities. For some, it is a simple fulfillment of living in big cities. Unfortunately, it creates problems of availability of social services.

The “comprador bourgeoisie” economy prevents producers from earning bigger income because of lack of access to technology, credit and market linkages. Sad to say, there are pseudo NGOs supporting market linkages but does not practice fair trade. Ethics again comes into this!

As such VCD becomes imperative. Good governance ensures that the marginal sectors have continual participation in the planning and implementation. Network of township (cities, peri-urban and rural areas) with complementary development planning critical.

Comprehensive land use planning (i.e. areas for agriculture/raw materials, manufacturing/warehouse sector, housing, etc) or the price of the raw materials on identified priority industry will continue to increase making it un-competitive or unavailable, or at worst, food security which immediately affects the urban poor. In a value chain analysis of the priority sector – who are the micro-entreprenuers? who are most vulnerable?

Again the issue of urban poverty is that in a globalized economy, in most cases, cheap labor and not skills remains the competitive advantage of countries…

I would like to make just two comments on Chapter 1.
1) What is “urban”? When I recently dug a bit into this, I was surprised to find that the answer is less obvious than one might think. The conceptualisation that I found most plausible distinguished between “cities” and “towns”, and the defining aspect is the relationship to other places. In this definition, “towns” are defined by the role they play in connecting a hinterland to the world at large. “Cities” are defined by the fact that they provide specialised functions / services to the country or the world at large. There is a separate body of literature that shows that the economic dynamic varies substantially between cities and towns — cities tend to grow, and they tend to create all sorts of opportunities, while towns (in particular secondary towns in rural areas) often stagnate or even work like a syphon, pulling people and resources out of rural areas into the dynamic centers of the country.
2) What do we mean by “poor”? Let me just mention two points here. First, there is this nice picture that is usually quoted to the SEEP Network, a pyramid that distinguishes four different types of poor, from the “specialised poor” to the destitute. Perhaps it’s useful to refer to this typology during this discussion. Second, poverty is a dynamic phenomenon. Some groups are mired in poverty with little chance of escape, while many other groups drop into poverty, move out of it, or temporarily pass through it. Thus, “the poor” is not necessarily a homogeneous group, and it might be useful if we tried to explore the relationship between economic opportunities in cities and towns, and the dynamic of poverty.

P.S. Has anybody else had a look at Stuart Rosenfeld’s “Just Clusters”? I thought of it when I went through the earlier postings. It addresses the question of why there are so few successful clusters in poor areas of the U.S., and what to do about it. It might be worthwhile to pick a few ideas there.

Mary,
If we look at the value chain analysis and its differences from its predecessors, we’ll find that relationships, governance structures, learning and upgrading are some new elements which have been incorporated into the analytic framework. Formal and informal relationship between various actors provides opportunities, as well as constraints, to urban poor to learn and upgrade. Majority of the urban poor are engaged in informal sector, or on the fringes of formal sector of the economy, and thus the old social network plays such an important role in securing livelihoods. In many case few more entrepreneurial people are able to graduate towards job based on technical competency rather than social competency. But these are many who are not able to graduate from relationship based to competency based livelihood. Yes, I agree that many of these patron-client relationship might hamper the upgrading opportunities for urban poor. But at the same time, many times these relationship might not be that exploitative and might provide pathways, and even support, upward mobility.

One of the project I saw in Rajasthan (India) used the social network to provide livelihood support services to new immigrants. These social network and patrons, if configured appropriately, could also serve as a low cost delivery channel to provide effective livelihood support services to thousands of urban poor. Considering that there might be high co-relation between certain value chains and certain social networks, shouldn’t we explore leveraging these network to make these value chains more competitive and enable urban people engaged in these chains opportunities for higher quality of livelihoods?

One could find adequate evidence of these social based network and urban immigrants in anthropology literature. I’ll try to find some and send it across. Meanwhile, thanks a lot for sending Humphrey’s article.
Vikas

I hope it may not be the appropriate topics to discuss on this session although I would like to bring this issues on this discussion.

We have to encourage promoting of SMEs that mutually beneficial to both rural and urban, since SME activity is the main source of employment in both areas. Both market share inputs- outputs equally.

Both urban and rural areas are inter-connected on economic activities. Both rural-urban markets are equally important. Generally development of efficient, competitive markets, including domestic markets for exchanges of agricultural products and urban products consumed by rural consumers, benefits both rural and urban populations.

In my opinion, in this one line discussion, let’s look this issues critically how urban value chain can complement /contribute rural employment and how rural production system can contribute on urban markets.

Urban poor are more vulnerable then rural poor. The urban poor have less copping strategy then rural poor.I am fully agree with Mozharul Islam,s concern slum dweller,s situation. Similarly in post conflict situation most of the returnees and conflict affected population, IDPs are settled on urban areas and facing the similar problem of unemployment, no appropriate technology and other services.

In scope of urban value chain, why not to look alternative economic opportunity/services in nearby rural areas so that we can encourage those population (urban poor) to start some income activities in rural market centers?.