There has been progress on a broad range of issues, commitments and quality of life indicators arising out of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. Over the last twenty to thirty years, local governments and communities have been involved in numerous environmental sustainability initiatives, such as rehabilitating natural ecosystems, recycling and better solid and liquid waste management, increasing public transport systems, improving pedestrian and bicycle access, and mitigation of greenhouse gases. Numerous initiatives and projects from both governments and civil society also targeted social and economic inequity. However, most initiatives lacked a holistic approach that integrated gender and equality analysis, and failed to engage low-income women and men as decision makers.
According to an assessment by UN-HABITAT, the Millennium Development Goals’ target to improve the lives of 100 million slum dwellers by 2020 has already been surpassed by more than twice that number. Notwithstanding the importance of these improvements, UN-HABITAT concedes that the target of 100 million slum dwellers was too low and represented only 10 percent of the global population of slum dwellers. Furthermore, UN-HABITAT acknowledges that in absolute terms the number of slum dwellers has actually grown and will continue to rise in the future at a rate of at least six million people per year. (UN-HABITAT 2008b.)
UN-Habitat’s assessment adds weight to many women’s groups’ critiques that the Millennium Development Goals were insufficient, missed intersecting links and had inappropriate targets for women’s empowerment. For example, there was no target on violence against women and girls, a key area of concern for women and for poverty reduction in cities. Furthermore, to truly reduce poverty, gender considerations should have been cross-cutting to all the Goals.
It is important to examine the changes in the living conditions of the now more than 227 million slum dwellers who no longer live in slums—particularly since low-income women and children spend a lot of time in slums. Key questions include: How many low- income women and men were active participants in processes to reduce or upgrade slums? How many people were evicted against their will and re-settled in inadequately serviced areas, far from their original homes and work? How many low-income women lost homes, communities and livelihoods in the process? Is it possible to measure the impoverishment of dislocation against the new non-slum settlements? How safe and gender-sensitive are the services, facilities and infrastructure in these new settlements? Do conditions in the new settlements measure up to UN-HABITAT’s own slum indicators? Considering that many low-income communities in cities are living in environmentally sensitive areas (e.g. slopes, wetlands, river channels or fragile coastal zones), is there a parallel process to reha- bilitate these areas as the slums are being upgraded or removed? Analyzing these (and
other) questions would provide insights for a more robust gender-sensitive, pro-poor and environmentally sensitive approach to reducing poverty in cities.
This interrogation creates an opportunity to reconsider how we build, manage, and govern urban centres, and to carry co-responsibility for the areas in which people live in poverty. A good place to begin is the Human Development Report 2011, specifically its focus on sustainability and equity. A key argument advanced by the UNDP’s flagship report related to the direct link between expanding women’s effective freedoms and women’s engagement in decision-making in addressing equity and environmental quality, and how both of these are tied to poverty reduction.
susTAinABiliTy AnD eQuiTy
The Human Development Report 2011 explores the commonly accepted Brundtland Commission definition of sustainable development: “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. The report refers to Sudhir Anand and Amartya Sen’s argument that, “it would be a gross violation of the universalist principle if we were to be obsessed about
intergenerational equity without at the same seizing the problem of intragenerational
equity” (UNWCED 1987).
Sustainability and equity provide an excellent frame to revisit city planning, manage- ment and governance from the perspectives of low-income urban residents. Low-income women and their families and communities have the right to live in the city with dignity and self-respect. They have the right to food, proper housing, decent work and gender- sensitive infrastructure and services that facilitate easier, safer, and improved navigation in the infrastructure of everyday life.
TowArDs genDer-inClusiVe,
Pro-Poor AnD enVironMenTAlly
susTAinABle CiTies
There are many possibilities for creating gender-inclusive and pro-poor cities. For example, governments can support the work of non-governmental and community- based organizations on women’s rights and gender equality. Other possibilities include implementing the Convention on the Eliminations of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) at the municipal level, considering the initiatives of GenderLinks7 on local governance in southern Africa; the work of Shack/Slum Dwellers International8 and their national federations of slum dwellers, the Women in Informal Employment:
Globalizing and Organizing’s recommendations on the informal economy and cities;9 and implementing municipal-level gender-responsive budget Initiatives.
Some interesting guides specifically geared towards gender mainstreaming urban planning include the Royal Town Planning Institute’s Gender and Spatial Policy: Good Practice Note’ (RTPI 2007), Gender Equality and Plan Making: The
Gender Mainstreaming Toolkit (RTPI 2001) and Clara Greed-edited Report
on Gender Auditing and Mainstreaming: Incorporating Case Studies and Pilots (Greed 2003).
Also see UN-HABITAT’s publications, Gender and the Involvement of Women in Local
Governance (2006a) and Gender in Local Government: A Sourcebook for Trainers (2008a).
The Global Land Tools Network has numerous publications and resources on women, communities and urban land management. The United Nations Development Fund for Women (now UN Women) has an excellent record of supporting and promoting gender-responsive budget initiatives.
reCoMMenDATions
City building—including a city’s institutional, policy and governance frameworks— should be informed by an intersectional analysis.
A sustainable urban economy would need to be anchored in a gender-inclusive pro-poor city strategy. Focusing on the livelihoods of low-income women and men, and on upgrading and climate-proofing their living and working environments, will enhance cities’ sustainability.