The poor want voice in urban policy making

The poor want voice in urban policy making

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

In fear of imminent eviction, poor communities urged the city
administration to involve them in designing urban policies to
tackling the problem of poverty.

"The city administration should involve poor communities in
designing programs to combat poverty as it is they who know well
their real problems," said Sarwo, 30, a resident of Penjaringan,
North Jakarta, on the sidelines of the Asian People's Dialog 2 on
poverty here on Wednesday.

Sarwo said the inclusion of poor communities in city planning
could produce alternative and amicable solutions to the problems
of urban poverty instead of violent evictions.

Wardah Hafidz, the head of the Urban Poor Consortium, said
that in Indonesia poor communities were always excluded by the
government in designing urban policies.

"At times, the administration invites poor communities in a
pseudo dialogue to design policies but the end result is
fruitless for those poor communities," said Wardah, who also
participated in the dialog.

The administration should really involve the poor communities
in designing urban policies. Otherwise, every policy made by the
administration would be disadvantageous for the poor communities,
she said.

Both Sarwo and Wardah shared their views in the Asian People's
Dialogue 2, which has been also attended by participants from 14
Asian and African countries.

Sarwo, who resides under the flyover in Penjaringan along with
3,000 squatters, revealed that his community have made a
miniature model of a community as part of a proposal which could
be taken into account by city planners.

Sarwo said the model made by the community also included
public facilities like community parks, schools, mosques and
public toilets.

"In the model community, we also include green areas which not
only help the city administration to beautify the city but also
help ease air pollution," Sarwo told The Jakarta Post.

Similarly, Sonia F, a delegate from the Philippines revealed
that the participation of the poor communities in city planning
had proven successful in reducing problems faced by the urban
poor in Manila.

"Poor communities in Manila, for example, could establish a
working committee which represents them in designing urban
policies along with city planners," said Sonia.

Over 170,000 poor families, Sonia revealed, could obtain land
certificates for their houses in Manila, while around 150
hectares were provided by the Philippine government through
mortgage, credit and rental schemes thanks partly to the
participation of the committees representing those poor
communities.

A delegate from Sri Lanka called on the administration to
start dialog with poor communities to solve urban problems.

"The administration will find solutions to urban problems if
they stop regarding poor people as the problem and instead listen
to how the poor people seek solutions for their own problems,"
the delegate said.

The Sri Lankan delegate also remarked that although similar
problems like corruption and the wide gap between the rich and
poor were also a reality in his country like Indonesia, the
administration could partner with poor communities to compromise
in seeking solutions to their common problems.

A delegate from Pakistan revealed that the administration of
Karachi, which has 11 million residents and similar problems to
Jakarta, had urged poor communities in towns to organize
themselves in groups to ease the burden on the administration in
solving urban problems.

"Instead of bulldozing those poor communities, the
administration considers it necessary to adopt the so-named
regularization program by respecting that those poor people have
invested lots of money to build their housing and public
infrastructure," said the delegate.