a Puntos de vista interno y externo

The explosive sprawl Khartoum is experiencing is placing huge strains on the city’s traditional infrastructure and service delivery system. Several actors are involved in the provision of urban services. An increasing number of non-state providers across the different sectors have emerged in response to the inability of government services to effectively meet the population’s needs. On the other hand, there are also private providers who are emerging as a response to the ability of households to pay for better services especially in education and health. Non-state actors includes a wide range of NGOs, Community Based Organizations (CBOs), religious organizations, private companies, small-scale informal providers and individual service providers. NGOs and the private sector are the predominant non-state providers, especially in primary-school education health and water supplies to poor neighbourhoods (Abusin 2004). In poor neighbourhoods, communities are taking a lead role in service provision but access to services varies considerably between localities as well as among different neighbour- hoods in the state. Most poor neighbourhoods and informal settlements lack access to public services or have access to services of lower quality (Abusin 2004, SLGP 2005). User fees are normally required and these vary between different providers. A key problem with service provision in Khartoum is that the poor are the least likely to benefit from any public services because of the cost imposed by different providers, placing their service beyond the reach of many (Abusin 2003: 51-54).

Roads and transport

The three main cities that form Greater Khartoum are connected by tarmac roads. Khartoum is also connected to all the country’s major cities by paved highways running between Khartoum, Port Sudan, Atbara, Dongola, Medani and Gedarif. River naviga- tion and air carriers also extend from Khartoum to Joba in the south and Wadi Halfa in the north. A railway network also connects Khartoum with various cities. Types of typical transportation in Khartoum include buses and mini buses, taxis and rakshat

(rickshaws).

The most visible aspect of the road network within Khartoum is that it is inadequate. Obviously, the city’s unprecedented and explosive growth has created great challenges for the authorities to keep up with. As the population has grown, the city's roads have become choked with vehicles of all kinds causing huge pressure on the system and increasing numbers of bottlenecks. The major roads have not been built to the planned width and have many bottleneck points and constraints due to the large number of intersections with major and minor roads. The quality of roads between and within the different areas in the state varies considerably. Within Greater Khartoum, the state of the roads that lead to poor neighbourhoods is appalling. Some roads in poor neighbour- hoods are inaccessible except on foot. Some of the rural localities lie far away from the centre of the city, such as Sharga Al neel. The lack of adequate roads and transport

services isolate these localities from each other and from the city where most services exist (SLGP 2005: 123).

Water supply

The main water sources for the State of Khartoum are underground water sources, the White Nile and the Blue Nile. The level of public water and sewerage coverage by the citywide networks is low. Around 40% of the population of the State of Khartoum lack any formal, household-based public provision of drinking water (Abusin 2003: 34). There are huge variations in terms of access between rural and urban localities within the State and among neighbourhoods within Khartoum. There is also variation in the quality of the water supplied for domestic consumption (World Bank 2003a: 136) and, in addition, there are important aviations in terms of the cost of water for different classes. ‘The displaced and poor communities in peri-urban Khartoum pay as much as 40% of their income for poor quality and small quantities of water, while those who are better off often have plentiful supplies of cheap water’ (UNDAF 2002: 19).

Poor neighbourhoods and rural localities have little or no access to safe water. For most of them, water sources are typically small-scale and serve a few hundred people and their livestock. These sources consist of unprotected shallow wells or groundwater that is pumped from wells drilled into aquifers. Some water systems consist of a water source, some type of tank for storage, and a system of pipes for distribution. Others have only the source where people collect water directly. The sources can be located anywhere from 0.5 to 5 km away from the people’s dwellings. Many surface sources and shallow-water aquifers fail to provide sufficient water for farms and communities. Irrigation requires large volumes of good-quality water that cannot be provided by groundwater. Some sources dry up at the end of the dry season forcing people, particularly those with livestock, to move to other places outside their localities in search of water (SLGP 2005: 67). Frequent problems with the system affect the users and it would appear that there is a deplorable failure of hand pumps due to inadequate provisions for maintenance. Although community management has become the leading

concept for implementing water-supply projects in most rural localities and poor neighbourhoods, such a concept faces several problems in sustaining services in the long term. Several communities cannot maintain their systems alone and require some form of external assistance. In addition, he cost-sharing arrangements of some water programme (based on community contribution) have not worked satisfactorily due to the poverty of the local people (SLGP 2005: 68).

Primary education

A large number of schools operate in the State of Khartoum compared to other states. However, not all the communities or individuals have equal access to them. In recent years, the State of Khartoum has grown both in terms of the numbers of schools and the number of pupils enrolled. The state has 1,528 primary schools and 106,500 pupils were enrolled in the 2000/2001 academic year. Girls represented 47.6% out of this number and the literacy rate for those over 15 years of age was 74.9% (UN-SUDAN 2003: 8). In other states, gender disparity in primary education is much higher, for example it was 39.4 for girls and 49.8 for boys in Blue Nile State (Abusin 2003: 19). Enrolment rates within the State of Khartoum and between the State of Khartoum and other states display considerable variation. The State of Khartoum has the highest enrolment rate for primary education compared to other states. For example 87% of all children aged between 6 and 13 in the State of Khartoum were enrolled in school in 2003. This rate is extremely high compared to only 8% in B. El Ghazal State (UNC-LDC 2003: 28). Although there is insufficient data on enrolment rates for children in poor neighbourhoods or for internally displaced children, it was believed that the vast majority of school-aged children of IDPs are not enrolled in school. A recent study shows that 48% of school-aged children in Khartoum camps were not enrolled in primary school in 2006 (IDMC 2006: 124).

The central government only finances teachers’ salaries and educational adminis- trators. Abusin (2003: 42) indicates that 90% of the expenditures of a locality in the State of Khartoum are allocated to teachers’ salaries. The budget allocated to education by the government is extremely low and it is the parents who usually pick up the slack. All of a school’s on-site costs (building construction, maintenance, furniture, textbooks and supplies) are covered by parental contributions in the form of school fees or other contributions. This is a significant factor in restricting poor children’s access to primary education.

Most public schools, particularly in poor neighbourhoods, lack water, sufficient numbers of toilets and desks, and recreational facilities. Many students sit on the ground unless they bring their own chairs (World Bank 2003a: 130) and teachers are badly paid, often under-qualified or/and over burdened with a much larger number of students than they should be catering for. In some rural localities, schools are located a long way from where pupils actually live, thus discouraging households from sending their children to school, particularly girls. Many schools in these communities are over- crowded, have inadequate facilities, inadequate classrooms in terms of size and capaci- ty, and have dilapidated buildings, forcing pupils to have their lessons under trees in some cases. In addition, they have problems adequately staffing classrooms with quali- fied teachers (SLGP 2005: 1).

Undue emphasis is placed on market mechanisms relying on across-the-board ser- fees for primary education. The major problem that poorer people face relates to the affordability of education as well as its quality.

Health

The State of Khartoum has the largest share of public health facilities and staff with far more medical specialists and technicians than any other state (WHO 2004: 29). There is a network of hospitals, health centres and dispensaries, thousands of staff and extensive training centres. Khartoum State has 35 general practitioners per 100,000 people, which is high compared with South Kurdofan State that has only 1.7 general practitioners per 100,000 people (World Bank 2003a: 118).

However, such facilities have had only a modest impact on the health of the vast majority of Khartoum’s poorer population. Abusin (2004: 36-38) has noted the adequate availability of health facilities including mother-and-child centres in the city’s poor neighbourhoods but a large section of the population, particularly women, has limited or no access to these services at all due to the costs involved. As a result, women get sick and die needlessly from treatable diseases and pregnancy-related problems. For example, although the overall Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) in Sudan is high even by standards in other African countries (UNDAF 2002: 19), there are apparent variations between urban and rural areas and between different states. The World Bank (2003a: 142) indicates that Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) for Sudan, in 1999 was estimated at 514 cases per 100,000 births for rural areas and 496 for urban. However, among squat- ter settlements in Khartoum, the MMR was as high as 850 cases per 100,000 births (UNDAF 2002: 19). No study has been done specifically on poor neighbourhoods but the inaccessibility of health and antenatal care is expected to impact negatively on the health of women in these areas.

Many of the poor remain prone to preventable diseases such as malaria. Despite the existence of effective intervention measures, malaria is still endemic and the major health problem in the State of Khartoum. Between 1998 and 2001 Khartoum suffered an annual mean malaria incidence of more than 700,000 cases (WHO 2004: 29). Malaria causes significant morbidity and mortality, and represents the leading cause of absentee- ism in schools and the work place leading to a considerable drain on the city population and particularly those living on its fringes.

Until recently, the national prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS was relatively low but there are now signs of a significant rise in HIV infection rates in Khartoum (UNAIDS 2006: 59). In the absence of a massive prevention programme, treatment and care, it is expected that the spread of HIV will continue. The poor have a much greater chance of contracting the disease compared to the non-poor. For example, the Ministry of Health Sudan (2005, cited in UNAIDS 2006: 59) reveals that HIV prevalence among displaced pregnant women seeking antenatal care in Khartoum in 2004 was 1.6% compared to under 0.3% for other pregnant women in the city.

Conclusion

Greater Khartoum is the largest and most affluent city in Sudan. Its population has increased steadily since the colonial era, with most growth having occurred in the last two decades. Its population growth has been a result of an influx of people pushed out of their homes by civil strife, the collapse of the peasant farming economy and successive waves of drought and desertification. As in other cities affected by the crisis, the poor gravitated toward areas where there was some wealth. This massive urban migration has contributed to escalating unemployment rates and has fuelled poverty and congestion, and placed a huge strain on the city’s traditional infrastructure and service-

delivery system. The massive relocation to Khartoum took place in a context of de- clining employment opportunities in the formal sector and agriculture but where no industrial jobs were emerging to fill the gap. In addition, the cost of living for families in Khartoum is continuing to rise substantially, tightening conditions for workers whose incomes on average are only a fraction of the recognized cost of living. There are also problems relating to the poor provision of water, health and education services and an unequal access to those services especially for the poor and women.

There appears to be a disjuncture between urbanization and envisaged socio- economic policies. It is true that the current size and scope of the city is far beyond what was planned in the past and that the demand for municipal services and infrastructure development has far outpaced government plans to provide them. However, in compa- rison with other states, Khartoum has the highest concentration of many essential services that are perquisites for developing human capital, such as health and education. The people of Khartoum are presumed to have the highest chances of benefiting from those facilities but it would seem that the city’s poor have not been able to benefit from the available facilities, and in some cases have lower access to them than people in Sudan’s poorer states.

The following chapters discuss emerging themes and trends that are critical to understanding and responding to poverty. A study framework will be identified and used to guide the analysis of poverty in Khartoum.

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