The poor dictate Asia's future, experts say

JAKARTA (JP): The future of Asia's cities lies in their poor people who provide cheap goods and services, an international conference was told yesterday.

But cities have yet to pay attention to their needs, as they cater more to the consumptive needs of better-off residents, Ela R. Bhatt and Adi Sasono said.

"The future of Asia's cities lies with poor, hard-working people and particularly the poor women," said Bhatt, founder and general secretary of a 220,000-strong trade union in India called the Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA).

But she said concerns over urban employment and the wealth the so-called informal sector generates, trails far behind worries about urban population explosions.

When it comes to urban investment, Bhatt said it is often forgotten that the private sector also includes small-scale industries and firms.

"If the cities of Asia are to prosper, it is this private sector which is going to make it happen," Bhatt said.

The trade union based in Ahmedabad now has its own bank. Many of the women, who include incense stick rollers living in slums, are the sole supporters of their families, Bhatt said.

Bhatt and Adi, the director of the Center for Information and Development Studies (CIDES), were addressing a three-day seminar titled: The Future of Asia's Cities.

The international event is organized by CIDES with the New York-based Asia Society. It ends today.

Many speakers at earlier sessions raised the need for the development of cities to be sensitive to the aspirations of the poor.

Governments and the private sector need to agree on a common vision for urban development, which includes the aspirations of the common people who are actually the city's income generators, according to one speaker.

Adi said cities are a continuous battleground "of economic needs and wants."

He said the question is how to accommodate both the needs of people working only to survive, and those who have disposable incomes. The urban poor working in the informal sector often exceed 70 percent of the population of Indonesia's large cities, Adi said.

He told of a project in which he was involved in Samarinda, East Kalimantan. The Citra Niaga commercial center which accommodates small scale traders, developed a slum area which was hit by fires three times.

It received the Aga Khan award in 1989 as an exemplary model of community and private sector partnership.

Other speakers in a session on residents' participation in city planning included Osborn Elliot, the chairman of the Citizens Committee of New York City, and Masafumi Nagao of the Tokyo-based Sasakawa Peace Foundation. (anr/swa)