Urban Povety Reduction and Urban Security Consolidation: A New Paradigm at Work? A review of theory and practice

THIS PAPER ON urban poverty and security was prepared initially for the International Conference on Urban Poverty in Nairobi in 1999. It provides a simplified background to current ideas and activities in the field, in order to advance the understanding of urban poverty and security, and contribute to more effective practices. It is a useful document for researchers, practitioners and policy makers dealing with poverty and security in urban areas.

The paper tries to identify ideas and approaches to the issues of urban poverty and urban security that have emerged over the last two decades. It further aims to investigate whether these ideas are consistently reflected in prevailing theories, strategies, policies and programmes in a way that suggests a new paradigm. With participation, sustainability and multisectoriality being increasingly on the international agenda, it is crucial to explore how these issues are reflected. By looking at both theory and practice, the author examines the extent to which they have influenced each other.

The paper is divided into two parts. The first discusses and examines the conceptualization of poverty in general, and urban poverty and security in particular. The second analyzes how these ideas have been translated and implemented in programmes to eradicate poverty and increase security. To this end, the author assesses ten different programmes from seven countries, which deal with the issues of urban poverty and/or urban security. The programmes were chosen according to their degree of compliance with the theoretical concepts discussed earlier in the paper. Included are case studies from Johannesburg, Abidjan, Dakar, Addis Ababa, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Hyderabad and Bulgaria. Each chapter consists of information about the background, the concept, the main objectives, implementation and the achievements of the presented project. The paper stresses further key aspects to be taken into account when dealing with how the concepts of urban poverty and security have been translated in practice, and highlights successful approaches, aiming to facilitate a more successful implementation in the future, which reflects the crucial elements in relation to urban poverty and security.