THIS BOOK DESCRIBES a set of initiatives by low-income communities in Karachi (Pakistan), whose residents have sought to improve their living conditions by way of self-help activities and who have organized themselves to lobby government agencies for the provision of infrastructure to fulfill their basic needs, with the support of the Urban Resources Centre (URC). This book may be useful to anyone working with community development in the Third World wishing to draw on the experience of how other communities have undergone independent organization.

In the foreword, the chair of the Urban Resource Centre describes how the local government in Karachi neither includes low-income communities in planning nor consults them about projects that are implemented around them. The role of the Centre is to analyze formal sector plans and to help the communities which will be adversely affected to develop alternatives. This usually includes putting them in contact with similar communities in informal fora in order to share information and experiences. With this work, the Centre seeks to promote a better understanding of development issues relating to low-income groups within NGOs and formal sector planning agencies.

The book begins by highlighting Karachi’s major problems, which include housing shortages, illegal settlements, water shortages, lack of sanitation provision, and also covers the issues of health, education and transport. It describes government responses to low-income groups, whereby the inner-city poor have been resettled away from the city centre and do not benefit from government housing programmes. The changing relationship between the people and the state is also described, whereby people are increasingly conscious of their civil rights and, through the lobbying of government agencies, have forced them to respond to their basic needs. Government bodies are also hampered by misappropriation of funds, poorly trained officials and bureaucratic structures.

The book then describes how communities come together to form community-based organizations (CBOs) to tackle their problems. The structure and leadership of organized communities and the strategies they use to obtain basic services from government agencies, including bargaining power with politicians, are examined. These organizations use innovative ways to tackle their problems, and formal sector organizations should note how communities have tackled the issues affecting them and how self-help efforts could be integrated into formal-sector planning. The book points out how community-based organizations are in need of financial, technical and social support from the formal sector in order to function effectively.

The subsequent sections of the book describe some of the community initiatives as examples, drawing on experiences from Orangi, Lyari and Manzoor, and are narrated by community participants themselves. Reference is made to problems such as land tenure and eviction, lack of provision for water, electricity, transport and education, and how the community (including women’s and youth groups) tackled them through self-organization. The community members discuss the issues of leadership and group political force, legal processes and dealing with bureaucracy. The book concludes with a short summary of the main points arising from the study which, the Urban Resource Centre hopes, can be used as lessons in other projects.