Books Urban Poverty in the Global South ... Scale and Nature

Review by IRIN ... GLOBAL: Rethinking urban poverty

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

GLOBAL: Rethinking urban poverty
Photo: Tommy Trenchard/IRIN Overcrowded slums epitomizes urban poverty

NAIROBI, 17 December 2012 (IRIN) - Efforts to end urban poverty are failing because policymakers at aid agencies and in governments do not always understand it, asserts a new book by experts from the International Institute for Environment and Development.

Drawing on 20 years of research, Urban Poverty in the Global South: Scale and Nature documents how the scale and depth of urban poverty in Africa, and much of Asia and Latin America, is greatly underestimated due to “inappropriate” definitions and measurements.

“The use of inappropriate poverty definitions that understate and misrepresent urban poverty helps explain why so little attention has been given to urban poverty reduction by aid agencies and development banks,” say the book’s authors.

Redrawing poverty lines

One of every seven people on earth lives in urban poverty; many of them reside in overcrowded informal settlements with inadequate water, sanitation, healthcare and social amenities.

But simplistic income-based and nutrition-based poverty lines - including the widely used US$1 per day poverty line - yield a poor understanding of this issue, according to authors Diana Mitlin and David Satterthwaite

“If we are to use a monetary measure for defining and measuring whose income or consumption is insufficient… this measure has to reflect the cost of food and of non-food needs,” Mitlin told IRIN via email.

The authors also criticize the emphasis on “income poverty”.

“A focus only on income poverty can mean that a low-income household with a secure home with good quality provision for water, sanitation and drainage and with their children at school and access to health care is considered just as poor as a low-income household with none of these,” they write in a book summary.

Dialogue needed

“Almost all official measurements of urban poverty are also made with no dialogue with those who live in poverty and who struggle to live with inadequate incomes,” the summary states.

“It is always experts’ judgment that identifies those who are ‘poor’ who may then ‘targeted’ by some program; at best, they become ‘objects’ of government policy, which may bring some improvement in conditions, but they are rarely seen as citizens with rights and legitimate demands who also have resources and capabilities that can contribute much to more effective poverty reduction programs.”

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One in seven of the world’s population live in poverty in urban areas, and the vast majority of these live in the Global South – mostly in overcrowded informal settlements with inadequate water, sanitation, health care and schools provision. This book explains how and why the scale and depth of urban poverty is so frequently under-estimated by governments and international agencies worldwide. The authors also consider whether economic growth does in fact reduce poverty, exploring the paradox of successful economies that show little evidence of decreasing poverty.

Many official figures on urban poverty, including those based on the US $1 per day poverty line, present a very misleading picture of urban poverty’s scale. These common errors in definition and measurement by governments and international agencies lead to poor understanding of urban poverty and inadequate policy provision. This is compounded by the lack of voice and influence that low income groups have in these official spheres. This book explores many different aspects of urban poverty including the associated health burden, inadequate food intake, inadequate incomes, assets and livelihood security, poor living and working conditions and the absence of any rule of law.

Urban Poverty in the Global South: Scale and Nature fills the gap for a much needed systematic overview of the historical and contemporary state of urban poverty in the Global South. This comprehensive and detailed book is a unique resource for students and lecturers in development studies, urban development, development geography, social policy, urban planning and design, and poverty reduction.