urban governance in an era of climate change
DESCRIPTION
ClimUrb researcher Ferdous Jahan looks at forms of urban governance that may help or hinder the adaptive capacities of low-income households and communities in urban BangladeshTRANSCRIPT
Ferdous Jahan
Urban Governance in an Era of Climate
Change
The Key Concern/Message
Most knowledge about low-income settlements in Bangladesh originates from ‘owned’ settlements
But, the future growth of low-income settlements will be on private land with dwellings rented out
Thus existing knowledge may be inappropriate for the next generation of ‘slums’ that will house millions of rural migrants and people displaced by climate change
The Bangladesh research finds significant differences between the adaptive behaviours of owners and renters
People living in squatter settlements, especially those long established on public land, are better placed to develop effective adaptive practices and enjoy better governance than those in privately rented settlements.
Actors in Governance A. The State- the government or agencies of the government
Producer role (e.g. infrastructure, shelter etc.)
Provider role (e.g. water services delivery)
Enabler role (i.e. the government will develop policies, create
environmental incentive for the profit/non-profit actors to operate,
contract service delivery tasks and monitor their activities)
B. Non-State Entities(NGOs, Business groups, religious organizations,
for profit groups, philanthropic organizations etc.) may take on
producer and/or provider roles.
C. Citizens (poor low income settlement residents)
Participator- citizens express their demands for services
Receiver- citizens do not/cannot express their demands and act as
passive recipients
Producer- i.e. citizens produce goods and services (or forced to produce
goods and services) due to lack of producer in the market
Three External Factors
the rules and norms used by participants to order their
relationships: Rules-In Use,
the attributes of states of the world that are acted upon in these
arenas: Physical/material Conditions, and
the structure of the more general community within which any
particular arena is placed: Attributes of Community (public
versus private)
The External Factors
The construction of poor people’s practices is dependent on
The social and economic resources of households and communities
(i.e. resource availability),
physical location and structure of the community, and
the existing power structure.
These factors collectively influence people’s ability to maintain core functions in the face of changing contexts (i.e. resilience) and
adoption of the right measures by making appropriate adjustments
and changes.
Types of settlements (public versus private) matter
The differing resource availability, community structure and norms
generate two different types of power structure
More external factors in public slums and less in private settlements
How Bagmara and Rupsaghat dwellers connect to power structures
Three Sets of Skills used by the poor
Physical skills (i.e. they try to make the best use of their labour
and/or intelligence to get access to jobs)
Initial networking skills through which they try to access to services
Scanning skills (i.e. their access to information through which they
can acquire knowledge about the risk or opportunity associated with
the environment).
The reliance of the actors on these different sets of skills varies according to
the variation in action situation: public settlements are in privileged
situation
Power
Structure
Resource
Availability
Community
Condition
External
Factors
Actors with early
level of
networking skills
Action
Situation
Need or
Demand
Rules and
familiarity
with rules
Scope of
action
Physical
Skills Scanning
Skills
Networking
Skills
Action
Outcome
(if) Positive,
consolidation of Network
Developing Network for co-production
The poor develop a number of informal networks to cope
up with the situations based on:
Resource availability, i.e. whether the relatively powerful
actors have enough resources to provide
Willingness to provide- if these powerful actors are
interested in sharing these resources. Their willingness
depends on two factors-
whether they are sympathetic to need of the poor and
whether they can serve their interest by helping the
poor.
Resources
Willingness
High Low
High Strong Network Collaboration leading
to competition (Weak
network)
Low Apathetic Network Absence of network