The share of urban poverty in the developing world has jumped from 17 per cent to 28 per cent in the past 10 years. In eastern Asia, nearly half of all poverty is found in urban locations while in sub-Saharan Africa the urban share of poverty is 25 per cent (Rural Poverty Report, 2011).The World Bank report said in 2000, 48.9 per cent of total population was living under poverty line in Bangladesh including the 34.3 per cent 'extremely poor' while it was 57 per cent in 1990.
In last two decades, Bangladesh made significant progress in order to eliminate poverty by achieving Millennium Development Goals. According to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) 2010 household survey, 31.5 per cent of the total population lives below the poverty line - including 17.6 per cent who are said to be 'extremely poor'. This rate decreased to 26 per cent at the beginning of 2015. In spite of better standard of living, with the supply of electricity, gas, clear water and sanitation services, an estimated 28 per cent of the population is still living below the poverty line in urban areas of Bangladesh in 2014 while many researches reveal urban poverty rate is not decreasing as long as rural. What are the hindering factors for that?
Rapid urbanisation, increases in migration and unplanned extension of administrative urban boundaries are the major reasons for urban poverty. Along with these, limited employment opportunities, degraded environment, poor housing, lack of access to water and sanitation services for the urban poor cause poverty in urban areas. Labour demanding job affects poor's health condition; therefore, the urban poor are in a difficult situation to escape poverty. In urban areas, migration of low-income groups from rural to urban adding pressure on basic services, infrastructure and environment. Majority of slum dwellers have migrated from elsewhere to Dhaka. A research by Centre for Urban Studies (CUS, 2005) found eight reasons for migration to urban areas while 39.53 per cent of slum households are migrating for jobs, 17.2 per cent due to river bank erosion and around 20 per cent for meagre income.
In spite of considerable development in last two decades, increased number of population is one of the major reasons for urban poverty in Bangladesh along with all other developing nations. The world's urban population in 1950 of just 746 million has soared in the decades since. In 2009, the number of people living in urban areas (3.42 billion) surpassed the number living in rural areas (3.41 billion). In 2014 there were 7.25 billion people living on the planet, of which the global urban population comprised 3.9 billion. In Bangladesh, 28 per cent of populations are living in urban areas in 2014 while half of population of the country will live in urban areas by 2030 (UNDP, 2014). Since the independence, Dhaka city population has grown 6 per cent yearly while national population growth was 2.2 per cent only. Thus, urban poverty has been institutionalised.
Whether urban development demands different kinds of attention or not? It is unfortunate that there is not enough research to be definitive, but there are plenty of plausible hypotheses for this.
In last four decades, development organisations were concentrated on rural issues especially for women development, disaster management, nutrition, combating violence, aware community on their rights and governance while government institutions provided services to the urban community, rather than focusing on institutional development, good governance and community awareness. Proper development of infrastructure, implementation of building code, and land use planning were never considered part of city development. Therefore, urban poverty challenges the development community in several ways.
Since beginning development organisations were concentrated on their working in rural, therefore their professionals also trained in line with rural development and livelihoods. Due to the immediate needs and population shift, the organisations are moving to urban development by addressing the risk and vulnerabilities of urban areas; however their professionals are bringing rural knowledge during their journey. As context is everything, now the questions come whether the organisations are equipped to face the different challenges of urban context.
Urban slums and all the informal settlements and their dwellers offer another sort of deprivation. Addressing needs of rural poor was much easier as their needs and deprivation were seen to everyone, however, in a more mobile context; the ties take time to settle in urban areas, rather helps to hide the deprivation too. In rural areas, it is easier to implement any programs including cash transfer, money for work by targeting poverty while it is more complicated in urban areas due to a greater mobility in residence. A large portion of slum dwellers are denied basic health services, on the other hand it involves cost.
Another paradox is to deal with high level of pollution, toxicity and traffic-related injuries while poor urban dwellers are not responsible for producing all these. The urban poor spend big share of their income for food and accommodation consumption. Food intake is dependent on growing price level while street foods help them to suffer from non-communicable diseases. Urban hazards are likely to hit harder because of population densities, so disaster-proofing urban planning and infrastructure is vital in promoting urban resilience. All these never allowed them to come out from the vicious cycle of poverty.
Access to services may appear enhanced in urban areas, but it is not for all. Often their quality is uneven and the competition for them is intense. Urban institutions are complex and hold various forms of formal and non-formal sources of authority and are not welcomed to urban poor. Quality of services varies from the community to community in order to the practiced power structure. A separate urban sector policy is yet to be enacted by addressing the needs of urban poor dwellers.
Considering this paradigm shift, development organisations have been implementing a significant number of projects targeting urban poverty and governance; however few of them talked about the deprivation, worked with mainstreaming service providing agencies in order to enhance their accountability and efficiency towards dwellers. Very few projects have been picked the growing urban realities and have not developed context specific urban programmes as well. Therefore, there was a very limited dissimilarity between the projects developed for Khulna city and Dhaka city.
Mohammed Norul Alam Raju is National Urban Coordinator at World Vision Bangladesh. The writer can be contacted through [email protected]
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