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SPECIAL FOCUS: URBAN ISSUES
In this section:
Power and Water Supplied to Millions in Slum
Areas
Pooled Bonds Finance New Sanitation Systems
Clean Water Crucial to Improving Urban Health
Innovative Use of U.S. Food Aid Helps Mitigate
Conflict in Bolivia
South African Township Cleans Up, Recycles
Guatemalan Women Seek Safety, Jobs Through Casa
de la Mujer
Cooperative Expands Energy Use in South Asia
Romanian City Leaders Learn to Listen To Voices
of Growing Populations
ECONOMIC GROWTH, AGRICULTURE, AND TRADE
Power and Water Supplied to Millions in Slum Areas
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Slums in Ahmedabad, India, border the river Sabarmati
and modern apartment buildings and hotels. Services
such as water and electricity are not extended to the
slums.
Chari Kessler, The Community Group International |
ATYRAU, Kazakhstan—Water pressure is practically
nonexistent and cellars often fill with sludge and human waste
in this oil-rich city near the Caspian Sea. Meanwhile, the
high saline content in the local soil has eaten away at the
cement pipes, creating leaks in the water supply and sewage
systems
Almost a decade after plans were first sketched out by a
USAID municipal project—and after water supply company
improved its management systems, public hearings were held,
and new plastic piping was installed through a World Bank
loan—Atyrau’s residents can see tangible improvements
to the public water system.
Turning around cities grappling with huge gaps in infrastructure
and services requires involvement by many players: municipal
and national governments, private sector investors, and development
actors like the World Bank and USAID.
To support such partnerships, the Bureau for Economic Growth,
Agriculture, and Trade’s (EGAT) Urban Programs team serves
as a hub for sharing what works with missions and development
officers assisting urban areas.
The Agency aims to build local government capacity. A systematic
approach involves working intensively with cities from the
inside out. Starting with the mayor, city council, and staff,
the first order of business is generally to sort priorities
and improve municipal operations through technical assistance
and training. Getting cities to listen to citizens and conduct
business transparently is a priority.
If USAID is focused on a city, it may also work with electric
and water companies or sewage treatment plants to improve
basic services. In Ahmedabad, India, for instance, EGAT’s
Energy Team worked with the mission, Ahmedabad Electric Company
(AEC), and local NGOs to test how to legalize service connections
in poor slum communities.
The USAID-funded pilot worked closely with the city government,
which gave 3,000 slum households “no objection certificates”
to connect to the grid without having to produce deeds to
their homes. A survey by NGOs helped AEC figure out how much
to charge for the initial connection and service. Slum dwellers’
electric bills dropped almost 50 percent once the new system
short-circuited an illegal service provider charging inflated
fees. Based on what it learned from the pilot, AEC is establishing
service to an additional 230,000 households.
Moving a project from working intensively with a few cities
to reaching many is often the biggest challenge, said Alexi
Panehal, Urban Programs’ team leader.
Projects work with municipal associations, training academies,
and media to reach local officials with training and information.
In Ukraine, the mission worked with the Association of Ukrainian
Cities to persuade its members to try new things. As a result,
more than 230 cities introduced citizen advisory boards, 114
developed strategic plans, 157 adopted financial analysis
modeling, and 74 improved municipal services.
Once cities have strong revenue collection and budgeting
systems, they can better raise the capital to pave roads,
provide street lighting, and build other badly needed infrastructure.
To tap into private capital, the Agency has helped introduce
credit rating systems, pioneered municipal bonds and other
financial instruments, and guaranteed bank loans through its
Development Credit Authority.
A final piece of the puzzle is helping cities develop projects
that investors will want to finance. Bankable projects, such
as the one in Atyrau, demonstrate public support and financial
viability, such as the ability to pay a loan back with user
fees.
GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT ALLIANCE
Pooled Bonds Finance New Sanitation Systems
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Clean water runs in Kolhapur, India, where USAID has
helped the local government raise funds to finance water
infrastructure projects.
Chari Kessler, The Community Group International |
CHENNAI, India—To cope with the growing needs
of cities such as Chennai—formerly called Madras—new
ways are being adopted to fund costly water and sewage projects.
Some 13 poor urban municipalities in this southeast state
that lacked water and sewage services are having them installed,
while old and decrepit systems in other communities are being
repaired.
The municipalities, like many poor local governments around
the developing world, could not afford such services for their
communities. That changed a few months ago when the Tamil
Nadu Urban Development Fund floated the first domestic pooled
bond for about $6.4 million.
Pooled bonds are issued by a local financial institution
on behalf of many local governments that would not have had
the collateral to access bond financing individually. Revolving
funds make loans to many borrowers from an initial supply
of capital. Repayments are then used to make additional loans,
increasing the supply of money beyond the initial investment.
“Water and sewage are unique among infrastructure because
they are so expensive and require such a high initial fixed
amount of investment,” said Steven Thomas, executive
director of the International Association of Development Funds
(IADF), which, through a global development alliance, helps
poor communities access credit for infrastructure projects.
“Laying out the pipes might affect how the roads are
laid out—for instance, that means tearing them up and
repaving them. That kind of initial expense is not something
poor communities can handle. Even cities like New York have
trouble handling it on a consistent basis,” he added.
IADF works with more than 230 revolving funds and publishes
a monthly newsletter highlighting the work of local governments
around the world. This way, municipal fund managers in one
state in Brazil, for instance, can find out what some of their
neighbors are doing that might help them.
The newsletter educates local governments about financial
methods, such as pooled financing, or about state revolving
funds.
One billion people in poor countries lack access to an adequate
supply of water, many of them slum dwellers. Two billion people
live without adequate sanitation. The Millennium Development
Goals (MDG) call for these numbers to be halved by 2015, but
the costs far exceed what donors can offer.
“The MDGs cannot be achieved without catalyzing local
capital markets to finance municipal infrastructure improvements,”
said USAID’s Jason Girard. “The costs are far too
great to be financed through international donor assistance
alone.”
The alliance introduces municipal financial managers and
other local government officials to a network of sources that
can help them learn about raising funds for infrastructure
projects. Teaching communities to pool together when issuing
a bond helps make their debt more attractive to investors.
“This alliance will help local governments continue
to provide essential services, while ensuring the financial
viability of the service provider,” Thomas said.
IADF hosted a conference in September 2004 that brought
together some 300 mayors and other city officials, credit
rating agency representatives, bond banks, international bankers,
and municipal fund managers.
Attendees from the Philippines have since drafted financial
action plans that will help local and regional governments
access infrastructure financing.
USAID invested $175,000 in the alliance with IADF during
2004. Other partners have contributed some $225,000. The alliance
is tapping the expertise of officials from organizations such
as the World Bank, U.S. State Department, Inter-American Development
Bank, Fitch Ratings, and the International Private Water Association.
GLOBAL HEALTH
Clean Water Crucial to Improving Urban Health
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Without access to safe drinking water, families along
the river in Jolivert, a village about 20 miles south
of the Haitian city Port de Paix, dig holes in the dry
part of the riverbed and scoop the water out when the
holes fill. The CDC tested the Safe Water System here
in a pilot project during 2002 and 2003.
Walter Mur, USAID/Bolivia |
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti—In the last 50 years,
this city’s population has swelled from 200,000 people
to 2 million. Water services have not kept up, and only about
20-–30 percent of residents have access to clean water.
As a result, diarrhea is endemic here and throughout Haiti,
and a major killer of children under 5.
Throughout the world, some 2 million children in poor urban
areas die of preventable infectious diseases, such as diarrhea,
measles, and tuberculosis. That is a death rate 100 times
higher than in industrialized countries.
The main culprit is limited access to clean water, which
can lead to unsanitary living conditions and poor hygiene,
according to health data.
More than a billion people in the developing world have
no access to clean water, says the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC). Others get clean water, but store it
unsafely. Aside from serious health problems, limited access
to clean water can retard economic growth and social progress.
“Population shifts from rural to urban areas have stressed
existing water and sanitary infrastructure and exceeded the
capacity of most countries to keep up with demand,” says
the CDC, which works with USAID on Safe Water System (SWS),
an effort to bring safe drinking water to developing countries.
This environment is ripe for the emergence and spread of
infectious diseases, the World Health Organization says.
“As shocking and terrifying as the HIV/AIDS pandemic
is the lack of access to clean water and sanitation,”
said Dr. E. Anne Peterson, assistant administrator for Global
Health. “For those vulnerable populations, water disinfection
and safe storage at the household level is a critical part
of hygiene improvements to reduce the risks of diarrheal disease
and death for millions of children and families.”
Research shows that safe drinking water dramatically improves
the health of all poor people, including those who are HIV-positive.
USAID is supporting SWS and a second household-based water
treatment product from Procter & Gamble (P&G), called
PuR Purifier of Water, in several countries, including Haiti.
Both products disinfect unimproved surface water and improved
water with a chlorine solution. The SWS product comes bottled.
PuR is packaged in a sachet designed to treat 10 liters of
water.
USAID Environmental Team leader John Borrazzo said improvements
in infrastructure take years to put in place, while inexpensive,
safe-water solutions can be made available quickly.
“Both systems are not meant to replace a safe water
supply or foster product dependent behaviors, but in the absence
of access to safe water, it is absolutely necessary,”
he said.
SWS is distributed in Zambia, Tanzania, Rwanda, Malawi,
Madagascar, Kenya, and India. PuR is being used in several
countries, including Pakistan, where diarrheal disease has
been reduced during both normal periods and water-borne epidemics.
In December 2004, efforts kicked off in Haiti with PuR as
part of the Safe Drinking Water Alliance, a partnership including
USAID, P&G, Population Services International, Johns Hopkins
University Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center
for Communication Programs, and CARE.
DEMOCRACY, CONFLICT, AND HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE
Innovative Use of U.S. Food Aid Helps Mitigate Conflict
in Bolivia
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Women help rebuild a road in El Alto, Bolivia, as part
of a Food for Work program.
Walter Mur, USAID/Bolivia |
EL ALTO, Bolivia—After this city of 700,000
was hit by economic problems leading to weeks of rioting in
October 2003, U.S. deliveries of food have helped restore
stability—especially after the riots eliminated many
jobs and created food shortages.
“It was not your traditional hurricane, flood, or drought—the
typical things you would use food for,” said Walter Shepherd,
USAID’s Food for Peace (FFP) officer in Bolivia.
“It was a manmade political disaster, but it did have
some food dimensions to it.”
Food insecurity usually occurs in politically unstable countries
in Africa, and is linked to flooding and other natural disasters.
But lack of food can be found across the developing world,
and can erupt quickly as a byproduct of rebellion and social
unrest. Conflict breaks down normal production and delivery
of food.
Last year, more than 45 million people in developing countries
where there was conflict were in need of food and other emergency
aid, the United Nations said.
The International Food Policy Research Institute says that
violent conflicts in 43 developing countries between 1970
and 1990 led to hunger and reduced food production.
“Conflict prevention must…be a goal of development
and emergency assistance programs,” the group said in
a policy paper.
In El Alto, USAID, in coordination with CARE and Adventist
Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), responded with a program
to immediately improve food security in the city’s poorest
neighborhoods and to rebuild El Alto’s infrastructure
through a Food for Work program.
USAID had a food program running in this region, but had
had none in El Alto since 2001. Serving the people in the
city required organizers to shift gears quickly to work in
an urban setting.
“The toughest part was trying to make the resources
that were available match the situation,” Shepherd said,
citing the logistics of getting necessary money, food, and
equipment. “The actual mechanisms of food for work are
well known here.”
Moreover, residents in this impoverished region—the
unemployment rate is above 80 percent—were eager to work
in exchange for rations.
FFP hired new personnel and set up offices where they could
monitor and coordinate with local governments and village
committees. ADRA and CARE coordinated their activities with
the Agency’s Office of Transition Initiatives, which
was also involved in El Alto following the crisis.
FFP provided more than 1,000 tons of food and $1 million
in local currency from the USAID mission to finance the work
in El Alto. The Agency worked with local officials to create
a list of activities to address immediate food needs and promote
employment. Priority was given to unemployed women who were
heads of the poorest households.
Approximately 392 public works projects were completed between
January 1, 2004, and May 31, 2004. These programs included
paving cobblestone roads; building concrete curbs and walls
for hospitals and schools; developing public green spaces;
constructing tree nurseries; collecting trash; and cleaning
drainage canals, ditches, streams, and riverbeds.
The program created 17,000 temporary jobs, which supported
approximately 63,000 people in El Alto. The emergency program
is also credited with reducing political and social tensions
in the city, so much so that officials in Bolivia and the
U.S. State Department asked that the program be extended.
That should happen in March, said Shepherd, though on a
smaller scale than the emergency response effort.
“Using food for work to reduce unemployment is not
going to solve all the problems out there,” he added,
“but if you get a few folks working, if you give people
something to do, it does succeed in calming down the situation.”
AFRICA
South African Township Cleans Up, Recycles
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Eunice “Mama” Roro (right, wearing blue dress)
and a community neighbor sort through rubbish as part
of the recycling effort that Roro spearheads in South
Africa’s western Cape township of Khayelitsha.
USAID/South Africa |
PRETORIA, South Africa—Plastic bags, rotting
foods, paper, cloth, animal bones, cans, and glass are some
of the things that can be found in garbage piles in this country’s
overpopulated slums. Some of the trash is toxic, and much
of it won’t biodegrade.
At least half of South African communities don’t have
access to waste collection systems. Rubbish is dumped indiscriminately
on the ground. Receptacles are in short supply. Separation
containers for recyclable material are rarely seen.
So much garbage has piled up that local and international
development organizations—such as USAID—are carrying
out various cleanup and recycling programs throughout South
Africa, particularly in townships.
Most often located on the outskirts of a city, townships
were designed during apartheid to house South Africans of
color. Today, they are still home to impoverished blacks,
who lack access to municipal services, such as clean water
and sanitation services.
During apartheid, municipal governments provided garbage
collection only to white areas, while townships were ignored.
Later, municipalities introduced country-wide services, but
the process has taken time. Today, the Cape Town municipality
is extending its services and trying to clean up nearby townships
like Khayelitsha.
USAID is funding a recycling project and sponsoring Cape
Town’s first-ever Integrated Waste Management Plan, which
will guide the way forward in this sector for the next 20–30
years. Highlights of the plan include a focus on waste minimization
and waste education and training.
Cape Town disposes of some 1.6 million tons of waste per
year, a mass that grows annually by about 6 percent. Landfill
space is in short supply, and disposal is becoming costlier
as a result of increasing environmental and other legislative
requirements. The city faces large-scale illegal dumping and
littering.
Local partners are taking to heart the task of cleaning
up their township.
“I’m recruiting soldiers to wage war against waste,
poverty, and disease in Khayelitsha,” said Eunice Roro,
a recycling champion who heads the local USAID-funded project.
Roro, known as “Mama Roro,” has spearheaded the
collection of cardboard, plastics, bottles, scrap, white paper,
and cans for recycling since 2002. Using profits from the
sale of recyclables, she bought a pickup truck and second-hand
trailer that have reduced the number of delivery trips required
daily and doubled the volume of recyclables delivered to buyers.
As poor people in the community have seen the value of collecting
waste and recycling it, they have changed their attitudes.
“I didn’t know that what we used to consider as
useless waste and rubbish can turn to be a source of income,”
said one resident.
Today, Roro has 15 full-time workers. Another 10 people
work part-time. Roro has trained several community members
to become recyclers. She also works with more than 25 schools,
teaching students about recycling and showing them samples
of what is recyclable.
The project has been particularly successful in reaching
women, who are now recycling household waste and selling their
recyclables to Roro’s project. One woman opened her own
business, training other women how to recycle paper and make
beads from the recycled material.
Reverie Zurba contributed to this article.
LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN
Guatemalan Women Seek Safety, Jobs Through Casa de la Mujer
Tecún Umán, Guatemala—For Central
American women trying to escape illegal trafficking, Casa
de la Mujer, meaning “house of the woman,” has provided
refuge and transformation.
Funded by USAID, the shelter provides a temporary home,
vocational training, and direction for women who find themselves
homeless or without options.
Worldwide, between 600,000 and 800,000 people—almost
always young women and children—are trafficked across
country borders, and a number thought to be in the millions
are trafficked within their countries, the State Department
says. A common theme among victims is that they are economic
migrants, moving from rural to urban areas in search of a
better life.
That was the case for Rina, who left her home in El Salvador
to search for her mother in Guatemala. En route, she was lured
into a life on the street by another woman. Shortly after,
at age 16, she was arrested for prostitution and spent the
next five years in jail.
When she was released, Rina had no employable skills and
quickly resumed prostitution. Four years later, she got pregnant
and found herself jobless again.
That is when Rina went to the shelter, where she received
a place to stay, medical care, and vocational training in
how to make, package, and sell beauty products. She now sells
beauty products for a living.
The shelter is run by two Oblate Sisters of the Holy Redeemer,
who work with prostitutes and other women in the Guatemala-Mexico
border town of Tecún Umán and the surrounding
department of San Marcos.
USAID’s role is part of a Central America regional
program that has established a Trafficking in Persons division.
Through a partner—the PASCA Project—the Agency has
helped the shelter incorporate community volunteers, who provide
everything from financial donations to neighborhood security,
and have been instrumental in expanding the center’s
role as a significant training institution.
“The Casa de la Mujer has grown to become a resource
and support system for any number of women and their children
who are victims of trafficking, as well as women who became
prostitutes to keep their children off the street,” said
Dr. Lucrecia Castillo, USAID project officer.
“More and more, it is a refuge for women and their
children—providing them with legal aid services, psychosocial
support, medical attention, vocational training, and—most
importantly—hope, self-respect, and potential avenues
to escape from their status as victims,” she added.
Since USAID’s involvement began in November 2002, Casa
has trained 150 women to make and sell cleaning products,
style hair, sew, and produce other goods or services. Of the
women, nearly one-third were victims of trafficking and the
rest were prostitutes, daughters of prostitutes, or victims
of gangs and narcotraffickers.
“Casa de la Mujer offers an opportunity for women at
risk of prostitution and trafficking to break the cycle in
Tecún Umán and elsewhere, in countries like
Guatemala, and to vastly improve their lives—restoring
their dignity as women,” Castillo said.
ASIA AND THE NEAR EAST
Cooperative Expands Energy Use in South Asia
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Andhra Pradesh Central Power Distribution Company representatives
discusses operations and maintenance procedures with
SARI/Energy executives from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India,
Nepal, and Sri Lanka.
U.S. Energy Association |
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the latest additions to the
South Asia Regional Initiative for Energy Cooperation and
Development (SARI/Energy), a program that promotes collaboration
and improvements in energy use among South Asian nations.
The two join Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal,
and Sri Lanka in the USAID-backed effort.
Energy is one of the cornerstones of development, fueling
economic growth and social progress. Yet USAID estimates that
today 40 percent of poor people who live in urban areas have
no access to electricity. Instead, they rely on batteries,
wood, charcoal, or kerosene for heat and cooking, or get electricity
illegally.
The few people who have electricity in developing countries
often find it unreliable—subject to rolling blackouts
or out of service.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) says demand will double
in developing countries between now and 2030. City residents
will have an easier time getting electricity than rural residents
as development happens, but “the absolute number of people
without electricity will increase slightly in towns and cities,”
according to an IEA report.
In Afghanistan, about 6 percent of the population is connected
to the public grid, according to the World Bank, which provided
a $105 million line of credit in 2004 to improve power supply
in the country. The situation in Pakistan is marginally better:
about half the population is connected to the public grid.
SARI/Energy considered it a watershed event in October when
Afghan and Pakistani energy officials traveled to India to
participate in the program’s semiannual review.
“The fact that India and Pakistan are now talking to
each other on energy issues in the context of our regional
effort is what makes this special,” said Bob Beckman,
regional coordinator and program manager for SARI/Energy.
With energy cooperation in South Asia, “there are no
losers, only gainers, as trade in hydropower and natural gas
will even trade balances, boost government budgets, and provide
increased security of supply.”
Since its start in 2000, SARI/Energy has focused on four
broad areas: energy security, regulatory reform, distribution
improvements, and efficiency. It has brought 3,500 energy
sector professionals together. These exchanges, said Beckman,
have spurred reform in countries “because seeing is believing,
and decisionmakers went home believing they could do the same
or better.”
SARI/Energy’s efforts build the framework that allows
developing countries to move forward with power projects.
In Sri Lanka, for example, SARI/Energy helped establish a
fund for energy efficiency investments and helped the country
map renewable energy sources on the island for the first time.
Pakistan and Afghanistan will gradually increase their participation
with SARI/Energy. Pakistani efforts, for instance, will likely
feature regulatory reform and development of renewable energy.
Electricity generation and transmission, as well as renewable
energy, are being emphasized in Afghanistan. “We’re
going to complement bilateral efforts to keep the lights on
by drawing on regional resources that can efficiently address
Afghan needs,” Beckman said, who visited Kabul recently
to prepare an initial work plan.
EUROPE AND EURASIA
Romanian City Leaders Learn to Listen To Voices of Growing
Populations
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Multiyear budget planning has helped Romanian municipalities
such as Caracal to plan for infrastructure projects
such as road repair.
Costel Todor, DAI |
IASI, Romania—Because cities such as Iasi provide
roads, electricity, jobs, good schools, and a responsive local
government while villages just a few miles away lack them,
thousands of people each year move to the cities.
To help municipalities maintain existing services as their
populations swell, USAID began helping 13 local governments
in July 2003 to hold public hearings so that residents could
express their needs, and to train officials to respond to
those needs.
Public hearings on capital improvement projects, such as
the construction and maintenance of roads, drainage systems,
streets, and parks, are new to Romania.
At the first such hearing in the municipality of Craiova
in March 2004 supported by USAID, 72 citizens ranked proposed
investment projects on their importance and necessity.
In seven public debates that followed, 585 citizens voiced
opinions and filled out questionnaires about their priorities.
Plans for roads, water systems, and other infrastructure
projects were presented, public hearings were held, and final
decisions were made reflecting the public’s desires.
In Iasi, this project led to the design of an electrical grid
that will provide power to a nearby village, Holboca.
Iasi officials are also working to create new sewer systems
and clean water supply networks for the small nearby rural
communities of Rediu and Tomesti.
The city now has, “in just one document, a multiannual
plan for the next five years, a forecasted budget, municipal
debt scenario, investment regulations and procedures, and
an investment portfolio that fulfills everybody’s wishes,”
said Octavian Traian Rusu, the executive director of the Sibiu
County Council Regional Development and European Integration
Office.
To support transparency, local governments that completed
capital improvement plans were encouraged to post the plans
on their websites.
The Agency also helps municipalities access credit. One
municipality—Medias, in Sibiu County—negotiated
a public loan of about $3 million for 2005–07 and another
for $1 million each year for capital investments in infrastructure
and housing.The public loan for Medias was invested in modernizing
the water and sewer systems.
Improvement plans for the participating local governments
amount to $118 million, which will fund 293 investment projects
in education, health, and other public services.
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