TT30

Sustainable cities and the right to housing

For those of us with a nice car and a good place to call home, its difficult to begin to understand how “those” guys survive in those shanties or on the streets. I invited a friend of mine sometime ago to go and visit a slum in Nairobi (some of you may have heard of the sprawling Kibera slums) and he said he would really love to come but he didn’t know whether he can find a parking space and if he does, he is worried what “those” guys “will do to my car – they may take off a tyre, a light or just scratch it!” To my friend, the thought of driving his new car over heaps of rotting, smelling waste was too much. And this applies to many of us, including me. There is a big wall separating us from the homeless that dialogue is impossible. To us, they are lazy bums, pick-pockets, thugs and criminals only capable of doing harm to us. Perhaps we look like enemies to them too isolated in our sleek cars speeding past them without a care that they are as human as ourselves. They are much more innocent than the dictators who kill innocent people for the sake of power, the corrupt, evil politicians and others in leadership with millions of dollars in their bank accounts and still accumulating more and more … Many of the people on the streets are victims, sick, disabled, discriminated, oppressed and simply rejected by a capitalist, consuming society. I am not a socialist, I know I sound like one right now but I have nothing against just enrichment and I am a firm believer in human dignity ….

The right to housing is an internationally recognized human right. The right is contained in such basic international human rights documents as Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Article 25.1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Art. 11.1 of the ICESCR for the right to adequate housing. UN declarations have affirmed the right including United Nations Declaration on Social Progress and Development (1969) and the United Nations Vancouver Declaration on Human Settlements (1976).  The right to adequate housing is also present in the MDGs Goal 7, Target 11 of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG 7-11) (http://www.unhabitat.org/mdg/) aims at a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020.

The meaning and scope of the right to housing has been elaborated in General Comment 4. of the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (CESCR), the monitoring body under ICESCR. The right to housing should be interpreted broadly to encompass the right to live in "security, peace and dignity". The right to housing is linked to and directly impacts other fundamental human rights such as the right to security of person (in the case of forced or arbitrary evictions or other forms of harassment); the right not to be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with one's privacy, family, home or correspondence), right to health …

While what amounts to adequate housing may differ in different social, economic, cultural, climatic, ecological, and other factors, certain aspects of the right are applicable are applicable across the board in determining adequacy of housing: These include: Legal security of tenure (a certain degree of security against forced evictions, harassment and threats); availability of essential services, facilities and infrastructure such as safe drinking water, sanitation and washing facilities, drainage; affordability; Habitability (adequate space, physical security, shelter from weather, and protection from threats to health like structural hazards and disease); accessibility; location (away from pollution etc) and cultural adequacy.

According to UN Habitat, it is estimated that 1.1 billion people live in inadequate housing conditions in urban areas and in many cities of developing countries, more than half of the population live in informal settlements, without security of tenure and in conditions that can be described as life and health threatening. Among an estimated 100 million homeless people around the world, available data suggest that increasing proportions are women and children. Accordingly, a rights-based approach to development in the housing sector is necessary to empower the poor and the homeless; promote security of tenure, particularly for women and vulnerable groups in inadequate housing conditions; strengthen protection against forced evictions and discrimination in the housing sector; and promote equal access to housing resources and remedies in cases of violations of housing rights. (http://www.unhabitat.org/content.asp?typeid=19&catid=282&cid=789)

A few examples (best practices) illustrate different approaches to combating homelessness and upholding the right to adequate housing. The initiative range from government projects, community projects with international support and UN/NGO initiated projects. While governments are obliged under the ICESCR to ensure the progressive realization of economic, social and cultural rights, some governments in the developing world who are largely dependent on foreign support for their economic sustainability may not be able to marshal the resources to deal with overwhelming numbers of poor, homeless people in the cities. It is therefore important in talking about sustainable cities to critically examine how cities in their planning and strategic development can increasingly address problems of homelessness and shanties which undermine sustainability.

Examples include:

Rosario Habitat Program in

Argentina

http://database.bestpractices.org/bp_display_best_practice.php?best_practice_id=1173

http://www.logos.undp.org/index.php?id=445&L=1

Vancouver

,

Canada

http://www.homelessness.gc.ca/about_us/index_e.asp#HPI

How to solve several problems with one investment: Low Income Housing, Green Building, & Urban Revitalization

When talking about sustainability it is easy to become overwhelmed.  It is about the economy.  It is about the environment.  It is about society.  In short, it's about people and their relationships with each other, the planet, and future generations.  I can't think of any subject matter that cannot be analyzed through the sustainability lens and, in fact, my bias is that all subjects should be.  However in saying that sustainability is about everything, many people argue that it quickly becomes a buzzword that really means nothing.  It is too big as a concept to wrap one's head around.  There are so many complexities and inter linkages the brains of the more simple-minded short-circuit quickly when trying to apply the principles and ethics of sustainability to their daily lives.  So how can we make this complex (yet fundamentally simple) concept more accessible?  Some examples can be found via the World Habitat Awards.

What got me interested in the awards was the recent winner, Plaza Apartments in San Francisco.  This project embodies sustainability in my mind.  It provides shelter for the chronically homeless, helping to further social sustainability.  It revitalizes an older building and neighborhood, increasing investment and furthering the development of jobs and economic growth, furthering economic sustainability.  And it uses green building technologies, recycling an old building and installing new water and energy and other conservation measures. 

I do not think human beings can be sustainable as a society if they do not take care of those in need.  All of the homeless, sick, and desperate people of the world cannot be ignored.  None of the other advances in sustainability can last if this fundamental problem of poverty and need is not taken care of.  Desperation of masses make society inherently unstable and therefore unsustainable.  So we need to take care of people.  The trick is to not make this a trade-off but to do so in a way that furthers the other goals of economic and environmental performance.  Plaza Apartments does a good job of doing all of this and I hope this model of helping people can be adopted worldwide.

Look Mommy a Machine Gun!!

The following is a story a friend of mine just sent from an unnamed African country, where he is serving as the acting Country Director of a large international NGO:

*************************

Once upon a time….

The first part of my mission is to officially close a 7 year 10 million dollar project, that includes officiating at the closing ceremonies, shaking hands and deciding the fate of all that equipment; 11 vehicles, 20 computers, 40 motorbikes, 2 offices, furniture and letting go about 100 staff people.   Mmm. Ok.

So on Tuesday 25 September I loaded up the proverbial wagons and set out on an 8 hour odyssey towards the first of two towns which are the bases for the project.  I am in the expat special Nissan prado with my accountant, my administrator and an armed military officer. Now, that is an unusual complement since usually we NGO types don't like guns in the vehicles , you know neutrality and all that but I am heading out with the severance packages for the entire staff which comes to about $70,000.   Of course that's in the local currency which is about 4,40 pound boxes of cash.  Ok so I have to sit in the back, let the military ride shotgun, its all good. I had been warned that sometimes there have been robberies on the road, no reason to get done over project money.   I thought "this might be enough money to cause someone to do something stupid".  Anyway I made the call.  Our vehicle is followed by another with a logistics team (in a white landcrusier of course). They are gonna take a final inventory so I can decide the disposition of the stuff. So we are set.

Blog Roll: Making US Foreign Policy Smarter

With a little over a year to go until the Americans choose their next President, it's a good time to be monitoring how U.S. foreign policy debates in Washington will evolve and take shape under the next leadership (all but certain to be a Democratic one, if you believe the pundits and poll numbers).

A great place to track this is the blog of the CSIS Commission on Smart Power. CSIS - The Center for Strategic and International Studies - is, of course, one of the biggest and most influential think tanks in Washington. It's always in the thick of national and global policy debates (with its lineup of past and future government heavyweights), and the Commission on Smart Power is its main vehicle this time around to frame the terms of discussion. It defines "Smart Power" as:

"The effective integration of 'hard power' - our military might - and 'soft power' - our ability to wield influence by attraction and persuasion."

At first sight there seems little that is new about the idea. Prominent experts have always exhorted policy-makers to strategically combine multiple instruments - from the very hard to the very soft - from the entire foreign policy arsenal. But as an attempt to set the terms of the debate, it just might work. For one, it's catchy. And it skates the objections of those who think soft power sounds too... well, soft. The intelligent use of power is something every political candidate can get behind. But whatever its success in shaping current and future policies, the blog offers quick links to the latest U.S. foreign policy developments, and copious analysis of burning issues by experts in and outside its think tank walls.

UN Climate Change Site Up

                                                                                                 

UN has launched its new climate change site.

The Growing Problem of International Environmental NGOs

by M. K. Dorsey

A recent piece in Science, titled: "Globalization and Conservation: A View from the South" opens:

"Large international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) are increasingly setting the global conservation agenda. These INGOs have developed a range of tools, e.g., Biodiversity Hot Spots (1), Global 200 Ecoregions (2), and others (3) to set priorities and to compete with each other. They often use a corporate "branding" strategy to help raise funds and to define and communicate their niches in a  crowded and competitive market. This corporate model has been very successful for fundraising: Conservation International's "Hot Spots" strategy accompanied an increase in overall annual expenditures from U.S.$27.8 million in 1998 to U.S.$89.3 million by 2004, and World Wildlife Fund U.S.A.'s "Ecoregions" program accompanied a rise in expenditures from U.S.$80 million to U.S.$121.7 million between 1997 and 2005 (4). This helped offset declines of ~50% in government and multilateral agency investment in biodiversity conservation over the past decade (5) while expanding the influence of these INGOs globally. These factors have led some to equate the operations of large INGOs with transnational corporations (6)." (FULL PDF)

This continues a discussion inaugurated by Mac Chapin (.pdf) and carried on elsewhere by Liza Grandia and other colleagues.  As well as a 2005 Anthropology News (.pdf.) item I did, titled: Conservation, Collusion and Capital. Kenny Bruno and colleagues have also tracked related matters in their "Greenwash: The Reality Behind Corporate Environmentalism" (click image).
 

Sources say that at the coming 2008 IUCN meetings in Barcelona, some may carry on the conversation, after a rather lackluster attempt to do so at the Bangkok meetings in 2004. Stay tuned.

Thoughts on China, Incremental Infrastructure, etc.

First of all, big thanks to Meir for sending around the New York Times article on China and Africa. This is a topic that has received a lot of play in the international media recently - with some commentators going as far as lumping Chinese assistance together with those from Venezuela and Iran as "Rogue Aid." (I believe it was the Foreign Policy Magazine.)

What I'm interested in is: what do you all actually think about the way China is putting its resources into developing countries? On the one hand, those who object to it say that Chinese aid is based purely on cold, hard strategic interests, and hardly has the welfare of recipient populations in mind. It employs imported Chinese labor, and pays no attention to the ethical status of regimes. On the other hand, it's not like the more invasive style of traditional development institutions like the World Bank has had a glowing record. 

Observations from My Recent Trip to Kosovo

Posted by Andrew Yang, 7/24/07

There are lots of fun, interesting or downright horrifying things I can write about this two week experience in Kosovo (on top of my previous stint working there). But I’m going to stick to the topic of development (it’s long enough as it is!!). Below I've gathered quotes, anecdotes, and observations that made such strong impressions on me, I am still reflecting on them to this moment. They will help explain why my experiences in Kosovo have further increased my doubts about the traditional instruments of development. (primarily projects from actors like the UN, USAID, World Bank, contractors, large development NGOs like CRS, CHF, and others like Red Cross, etc.)

My conversations with people in Kosovo often brought out some intense emotions, and one of the most frustrating things for them could be summed up by the following comment: “millions and millions of dollars have come into Kosovo… we see it on TV all the time. Yet we look around us, and lives in our communities have not gotten that much better. Where have all the money gone? Look at that gap, and tell me there is no manipulation [corruption]!” Another couple living in a slum-like neighborhood said to me: “we expected to live like you do.” “Like Americans?” I asked somewhat incredulously. They answered without hesitation: “why not? We certainly deserve something better than this.” Even where families provided a long list of materials they received, most did not believe their lives had changed in significant ways.

Response time, limits to growth and China

-- A. Linhares

I've been invited to speak in the Getulio Vargas Foundation about my work related to tt30, and decided to introduce, in a brief 20 minutes, The Club of Rome, Limits to Growth, the coming global bargain, and what we've been doing these last years.

Imagine you are the owner of a large resort, with a beautiful lake.  However, danger lurks in the horizon.  Imagine you have a lillipad problem, with those growing at an exponential rate, doubling as each day passes.  When would you find out that it was a serious problem?  Consider three cases.  If you found out whenever the lilipads reached 50% of the lake, you would have a single day to respond before they covered the entire lake.  If you found at 25%, you would have only two days.  If you found at 12.5%, three days.  And if you found at 6.25%--c'mon, this is hypothetical, and you don't need to lie.  Nobody would find it at 6,25%; but even if they did, that's only four days to respond! 

This is the immense problem with exponential growth.  We've been having exponential growth in numerous areas: population, economic activity, pollution, and so forth.  How long do we have until a serious limit is reached?  China's economy, for instance, has grown close to 12% this year alone. This means that they are, in practice, doubling their economic activity each 6 to 7 years. Thus, you might want to call the exponential explosion in industrial output circa 2000 as "China" (see slide 11 here). (And you can imagine this can only be at some consequence.)

I mentioned also that China is moving cities around like FGV would make minor redecorations.  Below is Ed Burtynsky's TED prize video, which I wish I had had time to show in my presentation. This is sobering stuff, something you won't regret watching in full.

 

Green Market Hustlers

From Foreign Policy in Focus

- M. K. Dorsey | June 19, 2007

On the opening panel of the Arctic Science Summit Week, Jeff Miotke announced, “Climate change policy must be based on sound silence.” It was a poignant and telling slip of the tongue. Miotke, the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary of Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental Scientific Affairs, joked that his error might have “just cost me my job.” Then he promptly corrected himself: “sound science not silence.” The audience at the March 2007 meeting, a veritable who’s who of leading polar scientists, burst into laughter.

Miotke’s Freudian slip was bittersweet given the failure of leadership on climate change from Washington in general and the White House in particular. The Bush administration’s legacy of denials has morphed into present-day foot-dragging. In November 2006 the shrill pronouncements of President Bush and his advisors prompted outgoing UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to note that climate skeptics “are out of step, out of arguments, and out of time.”  ...

[full piece at: Foreign Policy In Focus] [.pdf]

[also running at Asia Times]