Third ACCA Program Committee Meeting • • •

Held in Surabaya, Indonesia Hosted by UPC / Stren Kali Riverside Community Network October 24-26, 2009

This is a report which summarizes the new proposals presented, the on-going projects reported on, the decisions taken and the project and budget approvals made during the third ACCA / ACHR committee meeting that was held in Surabaya, Indonesia, October 24-26, 2009. The Surabaya meeting marked the end the first year's implementation of the ACCA (Asian Coalition for Community Action) Program. The meeting was attended by about 50 people from 13 countries (participant list at end of this report). Several new ACCA projects were proposed during the meeting, and after reviewing and discussing them, a total budget of US$450,000 was approved to support these new projects in 22 cities and districts in 10 Asian countries (which include 79 small upgrading projects and 3 big housing projects). The two-day meeting was preceded by a day of field visits in Surabaya - first to community upgrading projects being undertaken in river-side settlements that are part of the Stren Kali Community Network, and later to a meeting with faculty and students at the Surabaya Institute of Technology and a field visit to a community that has been upgraded under the Kampung Improvement Program (KIP). A more detailed report on the field visits to upgrading projects in the riverside communities that are part of the Stren Kali Network will follow this report (see separate report, "Revisiting Citywide Upgrading in Surabaya").

• • • • • •

PART 1 : PART 2 : PART 3 : PART 4 : PART 5 : PART 6 :

Summary of ACCA-related activities undertaken in last six months Summary of key decisions made in the meeting Chart summary of new ACCA budget approved on October 26, 2009 Chart summary of first year's approved ACCA budget, as of Oct. 26 2009 Country-by-country review of on-going work and new ACCA proposals Who attended?

An opening word from Sonia on UPGRADING . . . The upgrading that only changes physical conditions or the upgrading that changes people, changes relationships and changes cities? When we started the city-wide upgrading in Iloilo, I totally didn't understand the whole people process, even though we were doing it on the ground already! In the Philippines, we always think of the "real" people's process is what happens when communities want to do things themselves, without the outside world telling them, "Do this, do that! Don't do this, don't do that!" In desperate times, like after a big typhoon or mud-slide, people in poor communities may follow all these outside orders, and it may look like the process moving very fast. But in the federation, we see that kind of process as being only "half-cooked," and we believe it can't make any real change within the people. It was only after we began implementing the first upgrading projects in Iloilo that we realized that this time, nobody was pushing us from outside to do this or that, but it was a real people's process of communities being able to decide what improvements they really needed and then to make those improvements, using a very little bit of money and all the resources of their own energy and ingenuity and togetherness. Then when they looked back at what they had done, they realized how much they had accomplished, how much they had disproved the city's impression of their being poor and helpless and dirty and lazy, how much they had been able to show their peers in other poor communities that they can do the same thing. In that way, the process spreads to other communities and multiplies all by itself, without anybody having to tell them to do that - it's so natural! Now that is the real result of a real people's process, through the implementation of small upgrading projects! It's hard to explain this transformation in words, but you can see it and feel it in the real action that is happening on the ground, and when the community tell you the stories of all the mistakes they made and the conflicts they worked through to make this small project happen! It is learning by action, not by words. We poor people also have the right to make mistakes, to do wrong things, and to learn from those mistakes. In fact, some of the best learning comes not from smooth successes, but from the mistakes that communities make in the process of doing things themselves. For me, that is the essence of the ACCA Program.

This is EXACTLY the idea behind the design of the ACCA Program . . . (Somsook adds) We want people to be empowered by designing and delivering these concrete improvements themselves. Because normally, poor people are not in control of these things - it is government organizations or NGOs or aid agencies are the ones who usually assess the problems, set the priorities, do the planning, prescribe the solution, decide what the steps are and even control the money! Not people. This is something that we want to change, so that people have to freedom to do all these things themselves. But not just projects for the sake of doing projects. We want these ACCA projects to strengthen the people's movement, to get land and housing, to get the rights of poor people to determine what they need and then to do things, together. This is part of the design of the ACCA Program, to allow people on the ground to make their own move, to implement their own projects which answer whatever development needs they have - and ultimately to legalize their tenure and legitimize their status in the city. Different countries will have to develop in their own ways, but we need to be very clear that it's crucial that there be a strong process on the ground. This is not just a process of delivering projects - a nice walkway here, a drainage system or block of toilets there. We are using these much-needed development goods as potent objects to organize the people through concrete action, and to get these upgrading projects to lead to structural change. It's a strategic change of the urban poor movement. It's not a small thing at all.

PART 1 : Summary of ACCA-related news and activities in recent months

(Somsook reports)

The ACCA Program's first year ends October 2009: This is the third ACCA/ACHR committee meeting, and the last to be held during the first year of the ACCA Program implementation. The first ACCA/ACHR committee meeting was held in Kathmandu, Nepal and the second was held in Rayong, Thailand. Because we weren't able to organize the third meeting in Sri Lanka, as planned, in July 2009, an intermediate round of project considerations and approvals was carried out by e-mail, without a meeting. We still have two years to go in the three-year ACCA Program, so after this meeting, we will be coming up with an overall picture of the program's overall performance, and use that analysis to see how to fine-tune the program to better support the processes in the fifteen different countries where ACCA is already being implemented, as much as possible. ACCA Projects are now underway in 42 cities across Asia : There are now ACCA-supported projects underway in 42 cities and districts in 13 Asian countries (including 213 small upgrading projects and 29 big housing projects). To support these projects, a total budget of US$ $2,054,841 has been approved. In this process, communities themselves are starting their savings activities, linking with their cities, setting up their community funds, developing their small upgrading projects and their big housing projects - all in different ways. Different cities and different countries are planning these activities and these community funds in many different ways. As you know, the ACCA Program offers a maximum of only $40,000 for these pilot housing projects : it's a very small amount of money and never enough, but this small money is good enough for good strong groups of people to use it to leverage other funds from government and other sources. There is already a very big range of interesting ways these groups are making use of these small funds to strengthen the processes they have already begun. In fact, when the resources are not too much like this, it brings out the creativity and allows the capacities of these groups to grow, to fill that gap. That is part of the ACCA Program's design. The 29 big housing projects approved so far represent more than half of the total 50 projects we originally budgeted for in the three-year ACCA Program. We will see what we are going to do after this meeting, and how we are going to assess the program's progress so far. Third round of ACCA project proposals considered by e-mail, August 2009 : Because the calendar of events, trips and meetings got so crowded, it wasn't possible to organize the third ACCA / ACHR Committee meeting in July, as planned, and a decision was taken collectively to postpone the meeting until October 2009. But since several groups had urgent new proposals to submit, we asked them to submit them by e-mail by July 31, and then circulated them to ACCA/ACHR committee members to review and comment on - this was the first-ever ACCA e-mail committee meeting! This process was coordinated by the ACHR secretariat during the month of August. East-Asian "Caravan" to Hong Kong, Korea and Mongolia, June 4-14, 2009 : In the April ACCA meeting in Rayong, a decision was made to send a team to Mongolia, to support the emerging city-wide and national savings and upgrading processes there. When stops along the way were planned in Hong Kong and Korea, the trip became a proper East-Asia caravan, with a mixed team of about 15 community leaders, community architects and professionals from Thailand, Japan, Korea and Philippines (plus Gregor). The ten-day trip was partly a very rich exchange visit, partly an ambitious ACCA Program advisory tour and partly a big chance to help build stronger links between these eastern-Asian countries to work together as a sub-regional group for mutual learning and mutual support. This trip was a very, very rich learning experience for everyone - and an important chance to open up the region to the situation especially in Korea, where ACHR was born twenty years ago. Back then, we saw terrible evictions happening, in preparation for the 1998 Olympic games in Seoul, but after some time, with political change, we thought the situation might have been taken care of. But on this visit in June, we found that the situation was not much improved: thousands of urban poor are still living in tents in squatter settlements around the city, and the country's developer-driven redevelopment process is still going on in a big way, still evicting low-income tenants from their houses and communities to put up huge high-rises for the rich. Then in Mongolia, suddenly we were faced with an entirely different situation, because here is a country with endless land, where people can build their houses anywhere they like! This kind of trip, which allows us to compare different countries and link the key groups in those countries together, is a very important learning opportunity. (A brief report on this trip was presented in the April - June 2009 issue of the ACHR E-News, and a more detailed report on the Korea portion of the visit is now being prepared, and will soon be available for downloading on he ACHR website).

20th Anniversary of Women's Bank in Sri Lanka, July 4-5, 2009 : In the first week in July, 2009, the Women's Bank (now called "Women's CO-OP") in Sri Lanka celebrated its 20th anniversary with a big national event and exhibition in Colombo. The Women's CO-OP is a national movement of 6,000 small savings groups in 20 out of the country's 25 districts, with 61,000 members and US$ 10.43 million in collective savings, giving loans for all kinds of purposes to its members. This important milestone in Asia's community savings and credit movement was attended by some 100,000 Women's CO-OP members from all over Sri Lanka, as well as visiting teams from several other Asian countries. :

Other ACCA-related workshops : • Annual meeting of Associated Cities of Viet Nam (ACVN), in Nha Trang, Viet Nam (May 9-20, 2009) As one of the key partners in implementing the ACCA program in cities around Viet Nam, ACVN used this meeting as a chance to report to some 100 member municipal governments about the good progress so far on ACCA-supported city-wide upgrading in several Vietnamese cities. Teams from Cambodia and Thailand attended this meeting • Community block-making training workshop in Viet Tri, Viet Nam (July 17-22, 2009) Community groups which are in the process of planning their ACCA-supported housing projects in Viet Tri, Viet Nam, got some help learning to make their own lower-cost concrete blocks and building elements from a team of skilled community builders from Chantaburi, Thailand, where the communities produce all their own building materials to reduce the cost of their new houses. The Thai team brought along with them a concrete block making machine and the training included two community architects from CODI in Thailand. The visiting Thai team also participated in the pilot housing projects in Viet Tri, working closely with local YPs and staying on until 17 August. • Meeting with the National Slum Upgrading Forum in Nepal (July 26-28, 2009) : During this meeting, we were able to meet with the key national organization that is promoting community upgrading in Nepal and to share with them the new upgrading possibilities being piloted in Bharatpur and other cities, which are being explored and piloted around Asia through the ACCA Program. • National City-wide Upgrading Workshop in Siem Reap, Cambodia (August 17-18, 2009) : This was an important workshop organized by UPDF in the northern Cambodian city of Siem Reap on "Capacity Building for City-wide Upgrading." The 250 participants included community members from cities with active savings groups and CDFs, municipal officials from 20 Cambodian cities, representatives from the National Committee for Population and Development (NCPD) and visiting community groups from Lao PDR and Thailand. The workshop looked at experiences and lessons learned in city-wide upgrading so far in Cambodia, and offered a chance for many new cities (with teams of community leaders and municipal officials) to learn about and join in the new model of community-driven slum upgrading, through community savings groups and networks. A national community upgrading action plan for 2009 - 2010 was set at the meeting, and a sub-regional Indonchinese Community Network was consolidated. ACCA, UPDF and DIG co-financed this workshop. Regional Community Video Workshop in Bangkok, August 26-28, 2009 : (Maurice reports). This workshop, which brought together about 25 video film makers who work on issues of urban poverty and housing in 10 Asian countries, was supported by the new ACHR/Rockefeller Foundation project to boost the role of video documentation as a dynamic outreach tool for the growing community processes around Asia, as a supplement to the ACCA Program. The workshop was dedicated to the memory of film-maker and old ACHR friend Peter Swan, who was helping to plan this regional video project when he died in November 2008. The workshop was a good opportunity for all these people to show their video films, compare notes and learn from each other's techniques and work. Because only a few people can actually go on exposure visits to see what communities in other cities and countries are doing, video is a way of bringing all the details and richness about what people elsewhere are doing to a very wide audience of community people, activists, NGOs, government people, or the general public in the region. • Making a package of 8-12 video films as tools for the regional process : We used this meeting to set plans to create a package of 8 - 12 videos on some of the key community-driven processes around Asia, to explain what these groups are doing, in either the ACCA Program or other work. The videos will be made using both professionally-made and community-made "participatory" video footage, and both new and already existing footage. The first package of videos (which will be in English and local languages, with the potential for subtitling in other languages) is now in the process of being made, and when the set is finished (hopefully by December 2009), copies will be distributed to all the key groups in the region, and a second set will follow in 2010. • Promoting joint-ventures with various public media to show what people are doing : In several countries, the groups are now linking with public media to bring the work that communities are doing to a much wider general audience. The workshop also looked at ways to increase these groups access to public media like television, radio, internet and newspapers. Groups around the region can propose to ACHR whatever media projects they would like to implement, and we now have some budget to support these initiatives. (A report on this workshop is available with Maurice, who is helping to coordinate the video project)

Asian Community Architects Network Update :

(Nad and Tee report)

Two young Thai architects, Chawanad ("Nad") and Supawut ("Tee") have now joined ACHR and are helping to link with, coordinate and support the work of the growing network of community architects around Asia. During the past few months, the community architect process in countries such as Lao PDR, the Philippines and Cambodia has seen some important developments. Here is a brief summary of their report on recent activities involving the growing network of community architects in Asia : 1. Building a community architects network in Asia : How can we link architects who are working to support poor community redevelopment projects - in countries involved in the ACCA program and in other Asian community processes - so that they can learn from each other and support each other's work? Several groups have been working already for a long time, including groups in Pakistan, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Japan and Tibet. There are also newer groups (including professionals, students and academics) in countries which have started ACCA projects and have a possibility to develop a good community architecture processes, including countries like Lao PDR, Viet Nam, Nepal, Mongolia, Burma and Sri Lanka. The role of architects and planners in developing good housing and upgrading project is so important. But the skills and sensitivities professionals need to work with poor communities to help them develop housing and settlement upgrading projects which reflect their own real needs and aspirations and limitations are not skills which are generally taught in architecture schools! And once young people do get involved in community work, they often find themselves isolated and without guidance. But there are several ways we are already experimenting with helping young idealistic planners and architects and students to be part of the growing community-driven development processes in Asia - both as ACHR and as part of the ACCA process : • Organizing participatory design processes : housing, community planning, city planning, rural planning, heritage, media, documentary films. • Linking with universities and academics through lectures, seminars, courses for students to encourage young students to know that they have an option to understand and work with communities and help transform their cities by working with the people. • Organizing training and community development courses and workshops for YPs, students, and people in communities, government people - or to link all these groups to work together. • Building loose, multidisciplinary networks of various professionals interested in working with communities in each city. • Using media and documentation, such as websites, blogs, articles, publications, handbooks, documentary films and exhibitions to expand awareness of opportunities for young people to get involved in community work, and to help other countries to understand techniques of participatory design processes and low cost house design. 2. Young Professional Workshop in Vientiane, Lao PDR (September 8-22, 2009) : Our strategy in Lao was not just to do a training for training's sake, but to use the design of the pilot ACCA housing project in Vientiane (at the Nong Duang Thung community) as the subject of a participatory community design workshop which would create a platform for all the stakeholders in the city to work together. (for more details, please see Lao PDR report below) 3. "Design with people" film : Nad is making a film about five community design projects he has been involved with, including a 2004 tsunami reconstruction project in a fisherfolk island community, a relocation project in the strife-torn southern Thai province of Pattani, and an upgrading project. 4. Community Architects planning meeting in Bali (October 20-23, 2009) The meeting in Bali was organized by UPC with a small group of about 15 community architects from around Asia. The main point of the meeting was to prepare for the big regional community architect's gathering we are planning for next year (tentatively scheduled for the last week in February 2010). We started the meeting with an overview by some senior people of Asia's community architecture movement over the past 30 years. Then the participants presented detailed case studies of the kind of work they have done with communities in various countries, involving work of participatory mapping, surveying, house design, settlement layout, low-cost materials production and community organizing. Finally, we discussed the objectives and plans for the big upcoming community architects meeting. What is the purpose of this big meeting? To share experiences among community architects and enable them to learn from each other, to develop national and regional networks of community architects, to identify the kinds of support needed by each country's community architect groups need, and to develop an action plan for regional support to each country. The meeting ended with a field trip to see some traditional houses in Bali, and to spend an afternoon at a local foundation which promotes the use of bamboo as a strong, adaptable, cheap and eco-friendly building material. (for more details on this workshop, contact Nad at ACHR) • The 5-day Regional Community Architects Meeting in Thailand has been tentatively scheduled to take place in Thailand in the last week of February 2010. The theme for the meeting will be "Community Architects in a People-driven change process."

•

•

Preparation in each country for this regional meeting : (Somsook adds) We'd like this to be an event of getting together all the different countries to present their work and show each other the performance of community architects in using participatory planning to in supporting and working with people - or people themselves who become architects and surveyors in the process - to make a transformation together. But before this regional workshop happens, we would like the groups in each country to identify each other, gather them together and let them sit down and show each other what the different community architects groups have been doing within the country. And learn from that, and use that as a preparation for the big meeting. Showing the range of experiences : In the big regional meeting, we would like to show the possibilities of different cases, as much as possible. And it may go for three days, only presentations: how to do, how to work, what has happened, etc. Then perhaps two days of discussion and field visits.

Plugging people-driven, city-wide upgrading on the three international fronts : (Somsook reports) ACHR has also been negotiating with several international development organizations in recent months, to try to change their way of doing things. And believe me when I say that all the slums we are working with on the ground are much, much easier to deal with. But we have to keep working, keep the channels of communication open, and keep linking the important work we're doing with their possible programs. I think that we have a good chance to change them, because what we are doing with city-wide upgrading in ACCA shows clearly that when poor people have the space and a little money, they can make a great deal of change. 1. Working on Cities Alliance in Berlin, July 13-14, 2009 : Cities Alliance is a joint venture of several multilateral development institutions which came together with the idea of joining forces to solve the big problems of slums, urban poverty and inequitable city development around the world and promoting their concept of "Cities without slums". So far, their efforts have mostly funded a series of conventional, UN-style development projects which cost a lot of money but may have little to do with "Cities without slums." In July, Cities Alliance organized a meeting in Berlin to gather new ideas about how to implement its "Cities without slums" concept and to set a new course for the next stage of the organization's work. Only two presentations were made during the meeting: the first was a typical World Bank presentation on cities and their place as "economic engines in the new global economic geography," and the second was a presentation we made on the new city-wide slum upgrading by people being implemented under the ACCA Program. Besides presenting the key concepts of the ACCA Program (people do it, city-wide, working with cities, etc.) we were able to present the upgrading progress already taking place in five ACCA cities (Erdenet, Bharatpur, Nuwara Eliya, Serey Sophoan and Bang Khen District). These five examples showed how very small budget allows the people in these cities the chance to link together, to survey, to negotiate, to start their upgrading program, etc. What this means is that the work we are doing together in ACCA is already creating a vibration and making some good impacts. They are watching what we are doing. We can't be sure whether these organizations will learn and change, or not, but they can no longer deny the evidence that there is a new possibility now, a new process, and that real change is possible. 2. Proposing to UN-Habitat to launch city-wide upgrading in "300 Asian Cities" : In March, 2009, several people from the ACHR spent two days with the full senior team at the UN-Habitat's Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific in Fukuoka. We proposed at this meeting that instead of doing a lot of small, free-standing projects in Asia (touching a grab-bag of issues like sanitation, water supply, gender, upgrading in a scattered fashion), why not take a larger look across Asia and see how to support a real change process across the region, and combine the power of Asia's growing people's process, the already-established network of ACHR groups involved in city-wide upgrading, and the prestige and flag of the UN to create a new, region-wide alternative change process. We proposed that the UN-Habitat could link with the ACCA Program and jointly support a city-wide upgrading process in Asia - in 300 cities - to build an alternative change process. If city-wide upgrading could be launched in these 300 cities, it could be done with a budget of about US$ 50 million - which is very little for covering 300 cities! This budget would provide a revolving seed fund of about $100,000 per city, to support the city-wide upgrading process, and another $20 million for different kinds of activities. Many countries around the world now have started economic stimulus programs and a great amount of money is being pumped to the rich - if we could get just $50 million from these stimulus packages, we could make change in 300 Asian cities! It's possible. (We've sent this "300 Cities" concept note to many of you already. For more info contact ACHR) 3. CITYNET Congress in Yokohama in September, 2009 : CITYNET is an organization which promotes mutual understanding and technical cooperation between cities in the Asia-Pacific region. In September, they organized an important meeting in Yokohama to elect the new office bearers for CITYNET's 2010-13 term. ACHR took part in that meeting (along with Sonia, Ruby, Kirtee, Hosaka and Sheela), and Kirtee represented ACHR on the executive committee. It was not a very exciting meeting, but there was an unexpected opportunity to use the CITYNET process to influence the urban poor housing situation in Korea, when it was agreed that Seoul would take over the chairmanship of CITYNET in 2014. ACHR is one of the few voices in CITYNET talking about poor people and housing issues, so in the congress, we proposed to the Seoul municipal officials that it would be very good to spend the coming four years managing their city in such a way that poor people who are now living in squatter settlements and being evicted from their low-income rental housing can have a chance to have proper housing. Because Seoul is so keen on being accepted by the all the cities, they agreed to do this and welcomed any suggestions! So we are now proposing to the representatives of the Seoul Municipality that we visit the city soon, and will offer our support to help them in solving the city's serious urban poor housing situation in Seoul and in Korea. ACHR is now finalizing a report on the situation of the urban poor in Seoul, and as soon as this is finished, we will send it to the Seoul Municipal Government and then go to Korea. (This report, "ACHR visits South Korea after 20 years", will be on the ACHR website shortly)

PART 2 : Summary of key decisions made during the meeting •

•

•

•

Agreement about planning a regional disaster workshop to build up the community-driven disaster rehabilitation approach into an active, regional movement. (Somsook will coordinate, with Dieu Anh from Viet Nam, Ruby from the Philippines, and Wardah from Indonesia) We will start with a small group meeting of 10-15 people within the next few months to discuss the issues, developments and set proper plans for the larger meeting. Agreement on the need to establish an assessment process for ACCA program at three levels: assessment of the process on the ground that is happening in each city, assessment of the overall national process, and assessment of the larger regional process, beginning with the program's first year. Some groups have already begun their own assessment processes in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Philippines. The ACHR secretariat will prepare a note on this, with suggestions and circulate it, but different countries may do it in their own way. Agreement on developing a good ACCA information system, and to set up a team to work on this, starting with the information that we have now from the survey information the cities are all generating. The team will include Wardah, Anh, Jaya, Nad and Maurice, who will coordinate with the secretariat and Diana at IIED to organize a workshop on this. Agreement to organize the next ACHR regional meeting alongside the Regional Community Architects meeting. When? Last week of February 2010, somewhere in Thailand. The regional ACHR meeting will be two days, and then the Community Architects meeting will be four or five days. The community architects process will be coordinated by Nad and Tee at the ACHR secretariat.

Informal Savings Session with Community leaders (October 25 evening) Because we had some savings experts here with us in the meeting (Rupa from Women's Bank in Sri Lanka, Sonia and Ruby from the Homeless People's Federation in the Philippines, several Thai community network members, Enhe and Bayarmemekh from Mongolia, Lajana from Lumanti in Nepal), the big group of community people from Indonesia in the meeting invited these visiting experts to a special evening session to talk about community saving: how the different groups do it, how they deal with various problems, how do they use saving to link people in communities and in cities together into some kind of communal system?

PART 3 :

New ACCA Project budgets approved October 26, 2009

Country

City / District

Total budget approved

1. Cambodia

Pailin Sen Monorom Siem Reap Jakarta National survey / mapping Birgunj Dadeye Township Talisay (HPFP) Muntinlupa (HPFP) Quezon City (Tyhpoon) Ben Tre Hung Yen Thai Nguyen Hai Duong Ha Tinh Ca Mau Matale Baganuur District, UB Bulgan District Sukhbaatar Province Tsenkher Mandal District Bayandalai, South Gobi National S&C support Muang Khong, Champsak Rawalpindi 22 new cities

18,000 18,000 18,000 18,000 10,000 58,000 30,000 18,000 18,000 50,000 18,000 18,000 18,000 18,000 18,000 3,000 58,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 5,000 18,000 5,000 450,000

2. Indonesia 3. Nepal 4. Burma 5. Philippines 6. Viet Nam

7. Sri Lanka 8. Mongolia

9. Lao PDR 10. Pakistan TOTAL (10 countries)

Big projects - max $40,000 / project -----

Small projects (max $3,0000 per project) 15,000 (6) 15,000 (9) 15,000 (8) 15,000 (5)

City process (max $3,000)

40,000 ---20,000 ------40,000 ------

15,000 (5) -15,000 (5) 15,000 (5) -15,000 (6) 15,000 (5) 15,000 (5) 15,000 (5) 15,000 (5) -15,000 (5) ------

3,000

--100,000 (3 projects)

15,000 (5) -210,000 (79 projects)

Underst anding cities

(all figures in US$) Other city and national processes

Disaster

Community savings and fund

3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 10,000 30,000 3,000 3,000 -3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000

30,000

5,000 3,000 -60,000

--

5,000 15,000

60,000

5,000

PART 4 :

Total first-year ACCA project budgets approved, as of October 26, 2009

Country

City / District

Total budget approved

Big projects

Small projects

City process

1. Cambodia - 10 cities - 5 big projects - 92 small projects

Serey Sophoan Samrong Sihanoukville Neak Leoung, Prey Veng Bavet City Koh Kong Kampong Cham Pailin Sen Monorom Siem Reap Country slum survey National process support Surabaya Makassar Jakarta National survey and map National process support Bharatpur Biratnagar Birgunj Country survey Federation building National process support Khawmu (SEM) Kungyangon (WW) Dadeye Township National process support Seoul National process support

58,000 58,000 58,000 58,000 58,000 18,000 18,000 18,000 18,000 18,000 10,000 10,000 58,000 43,000 18,000 10,000 10,000 58,000 58,000 58,000 16,100 5,000 10,000 83,800 65,000 30,000 10,000 58,000 10,000

40,000 40,000 40,000 40,000 40,000 ------

15,000 (12) 15,000 (11) 15,000 (8) 15,000 (8) 15,000 (13) 15,000 (11) 15,000 (6) 15,000 (6) 15,000 (9) 15,000 (8)

3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000

Quezon City (FDUP) Manila (UPA) Navotas (TAO) Iligan (SMMI) Quezon City Dist 1+2 (HPFP) Quezon City Dist 1+2 (HPFP) Typhone Ketsana Mandaue (HPFP) Davao (3-City Network) Digos (3-City Network) Kidapawan (3-City Ntwrk) Albay, Bicol Region (HPFP) Talisay (HPFP) Muntinlupa (HPFP) National Disaster survey + mapping + workshop (HPFP) National process support Viet Tri Vinh Lang Son 6 new cities prep:

63,000 25,500 65,500 46,000 68,000

40,000 10,000 40,000 40,000 --

15,000 (5) 6,000 (3) 15,000 (5) 3,000 (1) 15,000 (5)

3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000

50,000

20,000

--

--

43,000 18,300 18,300 18,400 18,000

40,000 -----

-10,000 (4) 10,000 (4) 10,000 (4) 15,000 (5)

3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000

18,000 18,000 35,000

---

15,000 (5) 15,000 (5)

3,000 3,000

10,000 60,000 60,000 20,000 23,321

40,000 40,000 ---

15,000 (5) 15,000 (5) 15,000 (5) --

3,000 3,000 3,000

Ben Tre Hung Yen Thai Nguyen

18,000 18,000 18,000

----

15,000 (6) 15,000 (5) 15,000 (5)

3,000 3,000 3,000

2. Indonesia - 3 cities - 2 big proj - 9 sm proj 3. Nepal - 3 cities - 3 big proj - 16 sm proj

4. Burma - 3 cities - 2 big proj - 9 sm proj 5. Korea - 1 city - 1 big proj - 5 sm proj 6. Philippines - 12 cities - 6 big proj - 46 sm proj

7. Viet Nam - 9 cities - 2 big proj - 41 sm proj

Underst anding cities

Other city and national processes

(in US$)

Disaster

Community savings and fund

22,800 8,000 30,000

3,000 2,000

10,000 10,000 40,000 40,000 --

15,000 (5) -15,000 (5)

3,000 3,000 3,000 10,000 10,000

40,000 40,000 40,000

15,000 (5) 15,000 (6) 15,000 (5)

3,000 3,000 3,000 16,100 5,000 10,000

40,000 40,000 --

15,000 (5) 12,000 (4) --

3,000 3,000 --

40,000

15,000 (5)

3,000 10,000 5,000 6,500 7,500

30,000 Typhoon 1,700 1,700 1,600

1,700 1,700 1,600

2,000 2,000 2,000

35,000 10,000 2,000 2,000 2,000 10,000 (2 worksho ps)

13,321 (survey 6 new cities)

8. Sri Lanka - 3 cities - 3 big proj - 15 sm proj 9. Mongolia - 12 cities - 3 big proj - 22 sm proj

10. Fiji - 1 city - no big proj - 5 sm proj 11. Thailand - 2 cities - 2 big proj - 4 sm proj 12. India - 2 cities - 2 big proj - 12 sm proj 13. Lao PDR - 2 cities - 1 big proj - 10 sm proj 14. Pakistan - 1 city - no sm proj - no big proj TOTAL (14 countries)

Hai Duong Ha Tinh Ca Mau National process support Nuwara Eliya Kalutara Matale National process support Erdenet City (UDRC) Tunkhel village (UDRC) Bayanchandmani (UDRC) Ulaanbaatar (UDRC) Ulaanbaatar (CHRD) Darkhan (CHRD + UDRC proposals combined) Uvorkhangai (CHRD) Baganuur District, UB (UDRC) Bulgan Dist (UDRC) Sukhbaatar Prov (UDRC) Tsenkher Mandal Dist (UDRC) Bayandalai Gobi (UDRC) Pollution study (UDRC) National process support National S&C process support to all groups Suva National process support

18,000 18,000 3,000 10,000 58,000 58,000 58,000 10,000 58,000 58,000 43,120 3,000 10,500 20,000

----

15,000 (5) 15,000 (5) not yet

3,000 3,000 3,000

40,000 40,000 40,000

15,000 (5) 15,000 (5) 15,000 (5)

3,000 3,000 3,000

40,000 40,000 25,120 ----

15,000 (5) 15,000 (5) 15,000 (5) -5,500 (2) 15,000 (5)

3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000

3,000 3,000

---

---

3,000 3,000

3,000 3,000 3,000

----

----

3,000 3,000 3,000

3,000 15,000 10,000 5,000

----

----

3,000 3,000

18,000 10,000

--

15,000 (5)

3,000

Chumpae City Bang Ken Dist. (Bangkok) National process support

33,000 43,000 10,000

30,000 30,000

-10,000 (4)

3,000 3,000

Bhuj Leh City (Ladakh)

58,000 63,000

40,000 40,000

15,000 (7) 15,000 (5)

3,000 3,000

Vientiane Muang Kong, Champasak National slum survey

58,000 18,000 10,000

40,000 --

15,000 (5) 15,000 (5)

3,000 3,000

Rawalpindi (OPP)

5,000

--

--

64 Cities / Districts

2,489,841

1,195,1 20 (32 big projects)

718,500 (286 small projects)

10,000

2,000 2,000

15,000 10,000 5,000

10,000

5,000 (historic cities) 10,000 5,000

186,000

47,500 (8 projects)

185,921

130,800 (6 projects)

26,000

NOTE : The table above includes only activity budgets that were discussed and approved by the ACCA / ACHR Committee in the first three meetings. There have also been some especially urgent, timely or strategic supplementary activities (such as workshops, seminars, etc.) that have been proposed in the interim periods between the ACCA meetings, and budgets to support some of these activities have been approved and disbursed by the secretariat. Most of these extra activities fall under the "Other city and national processes" or "Community savings and fund" categories, and will be reflected in the budget totals described in the first ACCA Yearly Report, which is now being prepared.

PART 5 : Country-by-country review of ongoing projects and presentation of new ACCA proposals Because our ACCA Program emphasizes on real action by communities, in collaboration with their cities, we are already beginning to see many possibilities in these presentations. So in the presentations, we'd like all the groups to briefly describe their ways of linking and managing their local process, explain how the ACCA support so far have been made use of helped strengthen that process, and then present any proposed new projects. In this way, the whole set of ongoing project reports and new project proposals within a country will go together.

1. CAMBODIA • •

7 cities approved already 3 new cities proposed

(Dara and Somsak report)

1. CITY IN PROCESS : Serey Sophoan, Banteay Meanchey Province The provincial savings network in this province is now linked with many communities in 4 districts of Banteay Meanchey Province – some in the provincial capitol of Serey Sophoan and in the border town of Poipet, and some in rural areas. There are big eviction problems for the province’s urban poor, living along rivers, roadsides and railway lines and on land under unclear ownership, where they survive as push-cart vendors, casino workers, motorcycle taxi drivers and trash recyclers. The province’s new community development fund was set up in 2006 with support from the provincial governor and the Ministry of Women’s affairs. One recent loan from the new CDF went to the women’s savings group in the rural District of Phnom Srok, to expand their silk-weaving enterprises. In the Serey Sophoan Municipality, there has been an extraordinarily close working relationship between the local communities, the UPDF and the local government. Small projects : ($15,000 ACCA budget is being used to cover 12 small projects, just two so far) • Tree planting along the national road in the city (total 276 trees) (ACCA support = $500) This was a joint project of the entire CDF Network and the local authority. • Road improvement in the Ang Tropaing Thmor Community (327 households) 248 meters long road (4 meters wide). Total cost of the project was $1,798, to which the community contributed $798 and ACCA supported $1,000. Big Project at the Monorom Community (30 households, nearby relocation to land provided free by the Municipality, under it's “Social Land Concession” program). This riverside squatter community in the center of Serey Sophoan has for years experienced serious flooding, and the people's houses have several times been washed away by floods. So with support from the Municipality, they have relocated to land just 1.5 kms away which was provided free by the local government, with community land title. • Planning the new community : The new land size is • 30,000 square meters. After a considerable process of community designing, the people developed a layout plan in which 30% of the land is used for infrastructure, roads and public open spaces (16,500 sm) and 60% is used for their housing plots (13,500 sm). Each family gets a big "self sufficiency" plot of 450 sm (15m x 30m) which is enough land for each family to build a house, and have enough space for a vegetable garden, a fish pond, animal rearing areas, fruit trees, and space for small businesses. • Project costs supported by the Municipality (or Provincial Government?) : The municipality (or Provincial Government?) provided the land free (Cost $150,000), partially supported the installation of infrastructure ($4,000) and paid for the new land (which was low-lying rice paddy) to be cleared and filled by 2 meters ($5,000). • Project costs supported by UPDF + CDF + ACCA : House design workshop support from UPDF architects ($300), housing loans ($1,500 x 30 families = $30,000), grant for building toilets ($150 x 30 houses = $4,500), and income generation loans to help families resume their earning at the new site ($125 loan from CDF x 30 families = $3,750).

2. CITY IN PROCESS : Samrong, Oddor Meanchey Province Samrong is provincial capital of Oddar Meanchey Province, in the extreme north of the country. The savings network there now includes 8 informal settlements, mostly in the peripheral areas, where people live in squalid conditions under the threat of floods and eviction for road expansion and stadium construction projects. With modest grants from ACHR, the people have undertaken several upgrading projects to build walkways, pave roads and lay drainage lines, all with good support from the provincial governor, the sub-district and district authorities and the Ministry of Women’s Affairs.

Small projects : ($15,000 ACCA budget is being used to cover 11 small projects - four completed so far) • Samrong Thmey (442 households) Road improvement (795m x 3m) project in a community of market vendors at the center of the city. Community contributed drainage system 267 rings and ACCA supported $3,532. • Community name? (218 families) Road improvement, ACCA budget support? Community contribution? • O’Kansaeng Community-1 (121 households, mostly farmers) Road paving, Total cost: $1,900 (Community Contributed: $200, ACCA supported: $1,700) • O’ Kansaeng Community-2 (43 households) Communal water pump and water supply system. Total cost $500 from ACCA

3. CITY IN PROCESS : Neak Leung Municipality, Peam Ro District, Prey Veng Province The community savings network in Prey Veng Province (the country’s poorest province, just 70 kms east of Phnom Penh), is now active in one urban and two very poor rural districts, with good help from some local NGOs working on the issue of eviction of communities to make way for the construction of National Road No. 1 to Saigon. The town of Neak Leung, on the Mekong River, has been declared a special economic zone, and many of the city’s poor make their living working on the river ferries, as motorcycle taxi drivers and as market and push-cart vendors. Besides running strong savings and credit groups, these communities have used small ACHR grants to do several pilot upgrading projects to build paved walkways, water pumps and waste-water management systems. Small projects : ($15,000 ACCA budget is being used to cover 8 small projects - two completed so far) • Prei Sny Community (# households?) Communal water pump, total cost $372 (How much $ from ACCA and how much $ from people?) • Beung Krotep Community (# households?) Road improvement. Total cost = $4,237 (How much $ from ACCA and how much $ from people?) Big Project at the Pro Lay Community (53 families) This canal-wide squatter community will upgrade on the same site, with land-filling. Government will give the land free. Project in process.

4. CITY IN PROCESS : Sihanoukville Sihanoukville is Cambodia’s main port and another fast-growing tourist area. Projects to construct a new port, expand roads and build hotels and tourism facilities are causing increasing land conflicts between the local authorities, private sector investors and poor settlements and coastal fishing communities. The community savings groups, which are now active in one of the city’s three districts, have undertaken several small upgrading projects to build bridges, toilets and wells, and continue to struggle to engage with the local authorities around the serious land issues. Small projects : ($15,000 ACCA budget is being used to cover 8 small projects - two so far) • Phum 1 community, Sangkat Lek 2 (# households?) Road improvement (230m x 2.80m x 0.20m) Total cost: $3,200 (Communities contributed $500 in cash and materials, and ACCA supported $2,700) • Mlob Dong Community (182 households) Road improvement (215m x 2.5m) ACCA supported $1,500 Big Project : ($40,000) No report on this project (Community name? Number of families? Type of upgrading?) 5. CITY IN PROCESS : Koh Kong (Khemara Phuminh Municipality) The poor communities in the beautiful coastal province of Koh Kong are facing some very serious land conflicts, as sleepy fishing villages and towns like Khemara Phuminh are being transformed by international capital into booming tourist traps. The community network here is active in 9 poor communities of fishermen, vendors and factory laborers. The community savings process, with mostly women leaders, is using the tool of savings to increase their incomes, to

start small upgrading projects, to launch their own welfare program and to bolster their negotiations with the authorities for secure land tenure. Small projects : ($15,000 ACCA budget is being used to cover 11 small projects - 9 completed so far) • Spean Yol (82 households) Bridge, ACCA supports $1,000 • Phsa Depo (80 households) Toilets, ACCA supports $450 • Sonsom Prak (100 households) Street lighting poles, ACCA supports $1,300 • Nesarth 4 (70 households) Road improvement, ACCA supports $2,200 • Songkhom (30 households) Drainage, ACCA supports $500 • Srey Apivath (211 households) Street lighting poles, ACCA supports $900 • Andong Tek (372 households) Road improvement, ACCA supports $2,700 • Peam Krasob (154 households) Road improvement, ACCA supports $3,000 • Mouy U–Spea (105 households) Project? ACCA supports $450 No big project yet. 6. CITY IN PROCESS : Kampong Cham Kampong Cham is Cambodia’s second-largest city and the home of many of the country’s key political leaders and big businessmen. After nine years of work, 49 community savings groups in the province – urban and rural – are now linked to the national community savings network. Conflict for land between poor villagers and riverside slum dwellers and big corporate farming and real-estate interests is a serious issue, and the community savings process has been a more proactive way to strengthen people’s negotiations with the local authorities than protest. The province’s new community development fund has also become an important collaboration between the community network and the local authorities to find win-win solutions to these problems. Small projects : ($15,000 ACCA budget has been used to cover 6 small projects - all completed now) • Chong Thnol 1 (216 households) Road improvement, ACCA supports $2,938 • Veal Vong 1 (598 households) Road improvement, ACCA supports $3,000 • Samrong Khae Prae (206 households) Road improvement, ACCA supports $3,000 • Tamnob (# households?) Toilets, ACCA supports $725 • 42 Knong (42 households) Drainage, ACCA supports $3,000 • Ana Thip Ptey (126 households) Walkway improvement, ACCA supports $2,337 Big Projects (2) : (both in the process of planning and negotiation - not yet proposed to ACCA) • Sesib Pir Knong Community (42 households) Relocation of one of the poorest communities in the city to land nearby provided free by the government. New land will have 42 plots (each 4m x 7m). Housing design supported by architecture students. Housing construction will start in December 2009. • Sambok Chab Community (327 households) Relocation of a 12year old squatter community on land running between a river-bank and a road. Government provides alternative land, where people will build a new community. 7, CITY IN PROCESS : Baveth Municipality, Svay Raing Province Svay Raing is another very poor province where communities have faced eviction from their homes and farmland to make way for the new National Road No. 1 to Saigon. The savings process is now active in 4 rural communities in 2 urban districts of the Baveth Municipality (a big casino town), with good collaboration with local NGOs. Small Projects : ($15,000 ACCA budget has been used to cover 13 small projects - all completed now) • Walkway improvement projects in 7 communities • Well-digging projects in 5 communities • Toilet-construction projects (20 units total) TOTAL Small Project Cost • Contribution from communities

$14,000 $500). $2,500 $17,000 $2,000

•

Budget from ACCA

$15,000

Big Project at Beung Kamsoth and Baveth Communities (114 households) Type of housing project? On-site or relocation? Land provided free by municipal government (or by provincial government?), details still being negotiated. 8. PROPOSED NEW CITY : Pailin Municipality Proposed budget : $15,000 for 6 small projects + $3,000 city process support = Total $18,000. (No big project proposed yet) Pailin city is a small town on the Thai-Cambodian border in the West of Cambodia, in Battambang Province. In the recent past this was the special zone where the last Khmer Rouge hold-outs lived in jungle encampments, surrounded by mine-fields. Most of the people in the area are farmers and fruit growers, but many of the poorest in the province migrate to the bustling border town of Pailin, where there are markets for goods and labor and a lively cross-trade with Thailand. Pailin was one of the 27 cities included in the 2009 national slum survey undertaken by the National Community Savings Network and UPDF. In Pailin, the surveying team spent three days, and found 45 urban poor settlements, with 6,048 houses and 6,574 households (29,515 people). UPDF-supported savings groups are already active in many of these settlements, and a provincial Community Development Fund has already been established, as a joint effort of the community network, the Pailin Municipality, the Pailin Provincial Authority, the UPDF and the NCPD. The city-wide upgrading process in Pailin will be managed by the 12-member CDF-Pailin Committee, which comprises representatives from the local authority, community saving network, local NGOs and UPDF. Proposed small project (total 6 projects) : Community (numbered according to city survey data)

Type of small project

# households

Budget From ACCA

Budget from communities

Total project cost

Community No. 11 Community No. 29 Community No. 39 Community No. 4 Community No. 23 Community No. 15 TOTAL

Road, wells, toilets, drainage, clean water and electricity Wells, toilets, community center Road, wells, electricity Community center Community forestry and environment Community EM organic fertilizer making center

102 296 155 500 131 107 1,291

2,180 3,200 2,790 3,200 1,350 1,600 $14,140

100 300 200 240 100 100 $1,040

2,280 3,500 2,990 3,440 1,450 1,700 $15,180

9. PROPOSED NEW CITY : Sen Monorom Proposed budget : ($15,000 for 9 small projects + $3,000 city process support = Total $18,000. (No big project proposed yet) Sen Monorom is a small provincial town on the eastern edge of Cambodia, in the mountainous province of Mondulkiri, close to the Viet Nam border. For tourists, the remote town is known as the "Switzerland of Cambodia", famous for its cool weather, hill-tribe people, elephants, jungle treks and waterfalls. But the area is also becoming a magnet for poor and landless rural people looking for work in the growing tourism sector. Sen Monorom was one of the 27 cities included in the 2009 national slum survey undertaken by the National Community Savings Network and UPDF. In Sen Monorom, the surveying team spent three days, and found 20 urban poor settlements, with 1,606 houses and 2,387 households (7,500 people many of them from ethnic hill tribe minority groups). UPDF-supported savings groups are already active in many of these settlements, and a provincial Community Development Fund has already been established, as a joint effort of the community network, the Sen Monorom Municipality, the Mondulkiri Provincial Governor, the UPDF and the NCPD. The city-wide upgrading process in Sen Monorom will be managed by the 12-member CDF-Mondulkiri Committee, which comprises representatives from the local authority, community saving network, local NGOs and UPDF. Proposed small projects (total 9) : Community

Type of small project

# households

Budget From ACCA

Budget from community

Total project cost

O’ Spean Chamka Tae Pulung Pu Trang Pu Trang 1 Doh Kramom Laov Ta Krom Tamnob Krom Damrey Chuon TOTAL (9 projects)

Road improvement 2 wells 1 well, 5 common toilets Walkway improvement, well 3 community toilets 5 wells Road improvement Road improvement, wells Road improvement, wells, toilets

152 154 147 35 34 120 1,010 70 34 1,756

2,600 800 400 1,300 1,200 1,590 2,900 2,400 1,750 15,040

500 80 50 130 123 220 600 200 100 2,003

3,100 882 450 1,430 1,323 1,810 3,500 3,100 1,850 17,043

10. PROPOSED NEW CITY : Siem Reap Proposed budget : $15,000 for 8 small projects + $3,000 city process support = Total $18,000. (No big project proposed yet) For tourists and visitors, the town of Siem Reap, is a pleasant stop on the way to Angkor Wat. But behind the cafes and hotels, there are some of Cambodia’s poorest communities, many living along the river, on the temple sites and in the cracks behind big buildings. Besides bad problems of flooding, these settlements face the threat of eviction from their increasingly valuable land, as competition between the needs of the city's own citizens, and it's visiting tourists heats up. The community process began in 2 communities with savings groups and some pilot community toiletbuilding and settlement-upgrading projects, quickly spread to 8 communities and continues to be strong. Although the community savings process in Siem Reap has been going on for many years, the city was among the 27 cities included in the 2009 national slum survey undertaken by the National Community Savings Network and UPDF. In Siem Reap, the surveying team spent three days doing the survey with the local savings groups, and found 68 urban poor settlements, with 6,216 houses and 6,519 households (30,291 people). UPDF-supported savings groups have been active in many of these settlements for years, and many small upgrading projects have already been undertaken, with support from the Selavip Project. A provincial Community Development Fund has already been established, as a joint effort of the community network, the Siem Reap Municipality, the Siem Reap Provincial Authority, the UPDF and the NCPD. The city-wide upgrading process in Siem Reap is being managed by the 12-member CDF-Siem Reap Committee, which comprises representatives from the local authority, community saving network, local NGOs and UPDF. Proposed small projects (total 8 projects) Community

Type of project

# of households

Budget From ACCA

Budget from community

Total project cost

Phlay Dokpov, Chong kao sue Benh Lan, Chong Kao sue Muath Steung, Beung Daunpha Muk Wat lue Kang letch Stueng, Trang Ta kong Tropeing Run Chong Kneah Kok neung Tek, Phum 5 Khla Thmey 1 TOTAL (8 projects)

Road improvement, drainage 2 toilets Road improvement, drainage, toilets Road improvement Road, drainage, well, toilets Drainage, toilets Toilets, clean water supply Road improvement, drainage, toilets

213 14 814 672 685 720 450 225

1,000 300 3,418 2,798 3,647 1,600 ?? 2,834 14,907?

239 100 400 316 400 200 ?? 376 2,031?

1,239 310 3,818 3,114 4,047 1,800 ?? 3,210 16,938?

Nation Wide Settlement Survey in 27 cities, conducted in 2009 (Budget from ACCA = $10,000) Between March and September 2009, the National Community Savings Network and UPDF conducted an extraordinary national survey of urban poor communities. The survey included 27 cities (which included 206 Sangkats - urban sub-districts). The entire process was funded by a $10,000 grant from ACCA (which breaks down to just $370 per city!) What did information did they collect in these 27 city-wide slum surveys? Name and location of poor and informal settlements; number of houses and households and population; type of land, land-owner; available vacant land; living conditions and infrastructure and housing conditions in these settlements; types of jobs people have and their incomes (both men and women). 3 days per city: Training and surveying at the same time. The survey team (which included senior savings group leaders from the national and Phnom Penh Network + UPDF staff) spent about three days in each city, and during the course of each city survey, about 30 or 40 local community members and CDF partners were trained in surveying techniques. On the first day there would be a half-day meeting with the city-

level CDF Committee and representatives from the local authority. And on the second and third day, the settlement survey would be finished. During the afternoon of the third day, all the data would be collated and classified. Once the survey was finished and the data was finalized, the next step would be to organize a meeting with survey team to put all the surveyed slums on the city map. Next, meetings were organized in each city with the CDF and local authorities and NGOs, to present the data, and make it all "official." In most of these cities, this survey data represents the only existing information on the urban poor and their housing and land and living conditions! The next step was to organize a national workshop of CDF Committee members from all 27 cities to present the final survey report to the national government. National Survey results (27 provincial cities, NOT including Phnom Penh) • Total 831 poor and informal settlements • 78,072 houses • 132,396 poor households • Total urban poor population of 443,996 people. Discussion on Cambodia Process : (Somsook) I think we can see that the process of Cambodia is that they start with the survey of all the cities, so they begin with all the information about slums in each city and with an understanding of the scale of the problems in those cities. And they bring the communities into the process. The second thing is that they have the savings activities, and they link those savings groups together into networks within each city, and across the whole country. They have been doing this surveying and saving in Cambodia for the last 10 years now, through the UPDF. They also work quite a lot on the level of the city: they make links with the mayors from many of the cities where the community savings and upgrading activities are going on and they invite these mayors to meetings and on exchange visits. In this way, the relations in the city are softened, and the community people and local government work together with unusual smoothness and friendliness in Cambodia. With this saving, surveying and linking together into city-wide networks, they try to address all the problems. • More small projects of smaller budgets : You may have noticed that in many of the Cambodian cities in the ACCA Program so far, they propose eight or ten or even 12 small projects - instead of only five - and they really spread out that small resource to as many communities as possible, since the scale of problems is not limited to just five communities, but is spread out also. And with this small resource, they are able to attract good contributions from the city government and from the communities themselves. This is also a way to boost all the communities in the city to be actively involved in the process - not just sitting on the margin watching others implement projects! • All projects lead to the question of LAND : The other interesting thing in Cambodia is that most of the big and small projects lead explicitly to the question of land. And as we could see in the presentation, in so many of the cities they have used the ACCA project to negotiate successfully with the Municipality to provide the land - either the land people already occupy or land they can move to as close by as possible. So land is the strategic question in all these Cambodian cities, because most of the urban poor don't have secure land. And land is still available in these cities. In this way, the issue of land is being dealt with on a very big scale, but in small, localized ways, together with the survey of the 27 cities. • It has become a movement now in Cambodia, and the people doing the moving are the community people UPDF is just a kind of support organization for this people's movement. And with the UPDF's revolving fund and this ACCA Program support, they are able to open up many more negotiations for land in their cities. QUESTION : Why do the communities in Cambodia always relocate? Is the government forcing them to accept relocation? Why not upgrade the communities on the same site, as we are doing here in Surabaya? (A community woman from the riverside community network in Surabaya asks this question. Somsak answers) Relocation is only one strategy for the poor to get secure land - but there are many others, and on-site upgrading or land-sharing is very often the people's first choice. And the government used to have only the option of pushing the poor out of the center of the city, but now in Phnom Penh, we have many examples of how people have used on-site reblocking, or land-sharing or reconstruction to negotiate to secure their land and improve their housing in the same place. More on the strategy of using upgrading projects to get secure land in Cambodia (Somsook adds) In the past, when communities were being evicted everywhere to make way for the city's development, relocation to sites outside the city was the main development direction. But this is why we have tried to move to the different strategy of on-site upgrading. Five years ago, we were able to convince the government to announce a new policy of "100 slums upgrading", and the prime minister himself announced it to a big crowd at the UPDF's 5th anniversary celebration. After that, they used this announcement as a way to intervene, and ACHR has supported the UPDF with budget to allow communities to start on-site implementing small upgrading projects in their settlements - first in Phnom Penh and later in other provincial cities. People implemented these hundreds of upgrading projects (involving walkways, bridges, water supply systems, etc.) even though they didn't yet have land tenure security. The government doesn't have a clear policy what to do with these existing communities, but the people prove it by upgrading. From small improvement projects, they moved to housing improvement and housing reconstruction with loans from UPDF. And through this process, they start negotiating for land. In the film you just saw about the UPDF 10th Anniversary, the Governor of Phnom Penh granted land to some of the communities which had already started the upgrading, without land security. But after doing that upgrading, they negotiated for land tenure, and some of the communities got it (either land lease or land title). So all these small upgrading projects that communities are proposing to the ACCA Program - the walkways, drains, toilets are being used as a way for the community to start improving their situation and to get land.

•

•

Staying in the same place or relocating to new land : Some of these communities will be able to get the land they already occupy, on the same site. But others may not be able to stay in the same place - like squatters - but they may be able to negotiate with the government to get other land that is not too far away. And the negotiation in the smaller cities is much easier than in big cities like Phnom Penh, where you have to move ten kilometers to get available land! In these smaller cities, there is land everywhere! But the usual government mechanisms aren't working to use that land properly, so using the negotiation is a possible way to get that land. Relocation is not a problem if it is very close, and if people are moving to an area where they want to stay and can survive. It's not always necessary to stay in the same place - on the same riverbank or under the same traffic bridge!

QUESTION : We hear a lot about evictions in Cambodia. What is the UPDF doing about these evictions? (Question from Dian, from Surabaya Riverside Community Network. Somsak and Somsook respond) It is fair to accept that eviction is not a good thing, and that it happens. Because a city like Phnom Penh is developing in a big way, and the big money is flowing into the city like never before - the Koreans, the Chinese, the Malaysians, the Singaporeans, even the Europeans are all coming in to grab land for their various speculation, or real estate or development projects. But a lot of this land has people living on it, often poor people, so that means eviction happens. The key issue is that the only way to deal with this is to play the game of negotiation. These private sector investors want to go ahead with their development projects, and so they are often the more practical ones, the ones most willing to negotiate with the displaced communities on what to do, how much people will receive, what kind of alternatives are offered and who gets what. • And through these kinds of negotiations, many of the informal communities in Phnom Penh have received quite high compensation - on average US$5,000 per family, but in some cases as high as $20,000 per family! Some have also negotiated for alternative land and housing with full infrastructure, or free flats in mid-rise blocks of flats built on the same site. Providing these levels of compensation has become something of an established practice in the city, which are very high compared to other countries. These kinds of practical, negotiated resolutions to land conflict and eviction situations do not get much press, and are not paid much attention to by the human rights organizations, which have tended to focus their campaigns on a few land conflict cases. • But when it comes time to work out who will receive this compensation, it's not always very easy: there are different layers of people in these informal settlements, people who own structures, people who rent rooms, people who have lived there for a long time, and people who just arrived the day after the compensation package was announced!

2. INDONESIA • •

(Cakcak and UPC organizer reports) 2 cities approved already : Surabaya and Makassar 1 new city proposed : Jakarta

1. CITY IN PROCESS : Surabaya The ACCA project in Surabaya involves a network of five riverside squatter settlements (6,883 houses), which have been under threat of a plan to evict them and resettle them to blocks of government flats, to make way for a large floodcontrol project. These communities organized into a network in 2002 (which they call "Stren Kali"), and with support from the Jakarta-based NGO UPC, they have staged a long struggle against their eviction - a struggle which began defensively but has gradually become more proactive, with negotiations and increasingly productive dialogue with city, provincial and national governments. Finally, they have been able to persuade the city to allow them to stay, and demonstrate an alternative way to allow poor communities to improve their housing and living conditions and demonstrate that they are not polluters, but "guardians of the river." On October 5, 2007, the city council finally issued a bylaw that allows these communities to stay, with the condition that they upgrade their communities within five years. The Municipality has already agreed to help support parts of the upgrading. Other cities are reluctant to pass similar bylaws allowing riverside communities to stay - especially the poor - like here in Surabaya, so if this project can show a very good development model in this riverside network of communities, this city will set a precedent, and the model can be taken up to national level. Upgrading work done so far: Before the upgrading process began, many of the houses were built over the riverbanks, with their backs facing the river. The people in the 5 communities organized themselves to voluntarily move their houses 5m back from the river and reconstruct them facing the river, and built an "inspection" walkway along the river, with landscaping, nopolluting rules, innovative water treatment and solid waste composting systems. For the city it is an "inspection road" to facilitate dredging, but for the communities, this is a vital public open space.

• •

•

ACCA's support came in only recently : The ACCA Project in Surabaya, which has comes quite recently in the network's 8-year struggle, is bringing some additional resources and energy to the considerable upgrading work the communities have already begun - most of it using only their own funds. Using the small "G-Ten" group system for savings, planning and upgrading : In all the Stren Kali Network communities, the people have divided themselves into small groups of 10 neighboring households (which they call "G-Tens"), and these small groups manage their own collective savings and loan repayment, and they are also the main working unit of the highly-decentralized and participatory upgrading planning and financial management process in the communities. 78 of these "G-Tens" have been set up, and a Kampung Upgrading Committee has been set up in each settlement comprising one representative from each G-Ten. In the upgrading work, most Gtens get together on Sundays, when people have the day off, and do their construction work together on that day. No grants, only loans for ACCA funds : The Stren Kali Network members have decided that all the ACCA funds for small upgrading projects and the big project housing reconstruction and improvements will be given as loans to the communities, not as grants, and all are repaid to the network's community development fund, according to repayment terms set by each community. Their idea was to allow the limited ACCA funds to revolve and help other communities and other households with their upgrading projects.

Small Projects in Surabaya (some finished, some still in process) (Total ACCA = $15,000) Community (numbered according to city survey data)

Type of small project

# households

Budget From ACCA

Budget from communities

Total project value

Kebraon Gunungsari 2 Bratang Semampir TOTAL

Retaining wall construction, road leveling and paving Community center, toilet rebuilding Road leveling and paving, street lighting Retaining wall construction

54 258 433 155 900

3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 $ 12,000

3,600 2,220 3,000 6,800 $ 15,620

$ 6,600 $ 5,220 $ 6,000 $ 9,800 $ 27,620

Big housing project : The Stren Kali Network is using the $40,000 ACCA grant as a revolving community development fund (which is managed by the network) giving loans for housing construction and improvement to community members who agree move their houses away from the river, to make way for the public walkways all the network communities are building along the river, to comply with the city's riverdredging requirements. So far, about 14 households have taken house reconstruction loans from this fund and rebuilt their houses. It is expected that this pilot stage of the upgrading, supported by ACCA, will draw down more resources into the community’s own revolving fund and will build a stronger acceptance of the community-driven upgrading model in the city.

2. CITY IN PROCESS : Makassar The coastal city of Makassar, in south Sulawesi, is the biggest city in Eastern Indonesia, with a population of 1.3 million, of which 35% are urban poor. The city is a target for lots of local and foreign investment these days (especially for mining), and eviction of people living in poor and informal settlements which occupy economically valuable lands in the city (especially along the coast) are increasing. KPRM is a network of poor communities in 14 sub-districts of Makassar, which does savings 31 savings groups with 1,176 members), surveying, solid waste management and a variety of social and community programs. The network is currently advocating eviction cases involving about 1,200 households. Many of these cases are now in court, with a high possibility of the poor losing the cases and losing their land. "Political contract" with the new mayor of Makassar : Before last year's mayoral election, Uplink and KPRM mobilized 65,000 urban poor votes for their chosen candidate. With this 65,000 votes in their hands, they negotiated with him on several points: no eviction policy, a housing policy for the poor, education and health services for the poor, participatory and pro-poor city planning and budgeting. He agreed to this agenda and signed a "contract" with the city's poor in a big public meeting attended by 20,000 urban poor people. And he got elected! So now the organized poor communities in Makassar are following up on their contract with the new mayor, and are actively coming up with and proposing their own solutions and alternative housing policies. The ACCA pilot project in Makassar involves a collaboration between KPRM and the Municipality, in the city's 14 sub-districts, especially focusing on housing, infrastructure and public facilities. These 65,000 poor people also have to convince themselves that they are able to do that! And the way they convince themselves of their ability to do is by actually doing! By doing the pilot projects. And they gradually come to understand that this is a better way, and that they are able to deliver things by themselves. Once the people's understanding comes to that point, the whole negotiation with the whole city will come in a very big way. •

No small projects proposed yet, No big housing project started yet

3. PROPOSED NEW CITY : Jakarta Proposed budget : $12,000 ($3,000 x 4 small projects) + $3,000 city process support = Total $15,000. (No big project proposed yet) Jaringan Rakyat Miskin Kota (JRMK) is a Jakarta-based network of urban poor communities in the northern area of the city, along the Java Sea. The network works closely with its partner NGO the Urban Poor Consortium (UPC). The network's activities include surveying and mapping of kampungs, anti-eviction advocacy, infrastructure improvements, community savings groups, children's education and alternative health programs. City-wide kampong survey and mapping : In January 2009, the network carried out a city-wide process of surveying and mapping the poor communities in Jakarta a city of about 10 million people. Besides counting houses and getting basic demographic information, the survey looked at economic factors in the settlements, social and power relationships, history and issues of child security. The survey, which was carried out by 14 teams (which included community network members and UPC organizers) covered 4 districts 8 sub-districts in North Jakarta, 1 district 2 sub-districts in East Jakarta. The survey brought out a number of concerns which the city's poor communities have in common (including problems of land tenure security, flooding, lack of basic services, sanitation, access roads, garbage and clean water), and these concerns are the basis of the ACCA proposed projects. The ACCA-supported small projects will be used as models to develop horizontal networks and reach out to other poor kampungs in Jakarta for them to join the program. Proposed small projects ($3,000 x 5 projects = $15,000) • Kebon Bayem (50 households on railway land) communal toilets, tree planting and house improvements ($3,000) • Kebon Tebu (150 households on public riverbank) electricity system and community center ($3,000) • Marlina Kebon Tanah (300 households on mixed public/private land) community center and road improvement ($3,000) • Rawa Bengkel (60 households on land owned by the community people) community center ($3,000) • Fifth project, to be selected by community network

3. NEPAL • •

(Lajana reports) 2 cities approved already : Bharatpur and Biratnagar 1 new city proposed : Birgunj

1. CITY IN PROCESS : Biratnagar •

Although the savings, community meetings and meetings with the municipality have all started, the real work in with ACCA in this city hasn't started yet.

2. CITY IN PROCESS : Bharatpur Update on process in Bharatpur : Since the ACCA program began less than a year ago, there have been a lot of meetings, within and between communities and their federation and savings group cooperative, and with officials from the Municipality, the various political parties and the Forestry Department, on whose land most of the squatter settlements in Bharatpur are located. The already-strong savings process in the city has expanded to reach all the 18 targeted settlements in the city now, through exchange and community-run training, and all these communities are now linked to the women's savings cooperative. All 18 squatter communities have been surveyed and mapped, by the communities themselves, with support from the youth group. The ACCA program is managed by the community federation and savings cooperative, and supported by a city-level ACCA project management committee, which acts as a forum and collaborative mechanism and includes reps. from the community federation, the communities doing pilot projects, the Women's savings cooperative, the municipality and Lumanti. All ACCA funds are channeled through the women's savings cooperative. 5 small upgrading projects in five squatter communities (all funds channeled through the community federation as a grant) : • Gai Kharka (18 households) (toilets, community market, drainage - $3,500) Materials for construction of 12 toilets purchased and distributed. The people are negotiating with the Forestry Department to get free timber for doors.

• •

•

•

They also negotiated with the Forestry Dept. to be given land for setting up a weekend market. Shop structures have already been constructed on this land, using a small part of the ACCA small project grant. Lanku (17 households) (drainage - $2,500) The 105-meter stone-and-earthen drain in front of the settlement has been completed. Naurange (68 households) (water supply and toilets - $3,000) Construction of 24 toilets ongoing in this long, spread-out roadside community, with work completed up to the pan level, and a water supply system has been installed at the community school. The people are negotiating with the Forestry Department to get free timber for doors. Lama Tole (150 households) (water supply and toilets - $3,500) 15 of the 20 planned toilets have been built in this sprawling roadside squatter settlement up to the pan level, and community members are mobilizing a their own funds to set up a special fund to pay for the toilet enclosures. As has become common now in Bharatpur, the people are negotiating with the Forestry Department to get free timber for doors. Mobilization of community fund to construct the superstructure of the toilets. With the momentum from the small ACCA-supported projects, the community is now planning to build its own community center, with no outside funds, using a special portion of their collective savings (20 rupees per month per family) and money raised from road toll. Ganeshsthan (500 households) (toilets - $2,500) Work not yet started.

Big housing project at Salyani (30 households, on-site upgrading on public land where the squatter people have been given provisional land use rights) Total budget $40,000. Salyani is the first-ever community-led housing and settlement upgrading project in Bharatpur, and has been a vivid learning opportunity for the whole city. Early on in the process, Chawanad, a young community architect from Thailand, spent a few weeks in Bharatpur with Lumanti's young architect working with the communities - especially Salyani - to develop their housing reconstruction and community redevelopment plans (in workshops which included people from 12 other communities also, who came to learn). The people decided that the house construction will be funded by loans from the ACCA budget (which will be managed by the city-wide savings cooperative), but the infrastructure will come as a grant to the community (channeled through the community federation). Construction of the first 12 houses is now complete, and all the individual toilets have been repaired and renovated. The houses have been built entirely by the people, showing a variety of incremental building strategies and budgets, using a variety of materials and construction systems (purchased collectively in bulk by the community committee), with stone and concrete foundations, brick or bamboo-and-mud walls, timber or bamboo roof structures, zinc sheet roofing, and wooden doors and windows the people negotiated to get from the Forestry Department at subsidized rates. The Municipality supported the land filling and installation of 2 hand pumps. The community is now working very closely with the Forestry Dept. to develop the vacant forest land opposite the community for growing productive crops such as ginger and vegetables. The savings scheme is stronger than ever. What has changed in Bharatpur? • The pilot housing project at Salyani is the first time a squatter community has been provided a secure land and housing. The Lanku and Ramnagar communities (which have done small ACCA projects) have been identified by the federation and the municipality as potential communities for the next round of housing projects, and providing land tenure in these two communities is also possible. • As managers of the ACCA project, the Community Federation and Women’s Cooperative are in a stronger position to negotiate with the local government. • There is much better coordination and support from the Municipality for implementation of the projects. • The relationship between the squatter communities and the Forestry Department, under whose land most of the settlements in Bharatpur are located, has improved dramatically. The people used to fear being evicted, and now the Forestry Department is offering the communities free wood for their housing and toilet projects and the use of land for their community centers, markets and agro-forestry projects. • Communities are opting for negotiation and dialogue with government bodies instead of confronting them. • The many political parties which jointly run the city, in this political transition period, have a more positive attitude towards the poor in the city. • The Municipality has already started thinking about the next housing project in Bharatpur: Ram Nagar and Lanku squatter communities are potential communities for the next housing project. • The CEO of Bharatpur municipality has started influencing other donors and Town Development Fund to follow the ACCA approach or communities doing their own upgrading, which he says is the only sustainable community development approach.

What has changed in the communities? • The community savings process and network of settlements in the city is stronger than ever. • Total community participation and maximum involvement of the women in the upgrading process. • Learning to collaborate with the municipality, and other key stakeholders. • Project management team in the communities formed. • All the project finances of the implementation are managed by the project management team. • Implementation of the projects in the communities is happening with maximum participation of the members and good collaboration with other key stakeholders. • There is good and constant exchange of people and news and inspiration between communities in the city, creating a city-wide momentum for a physical change process which began in only a few communities. Discussion about Nepal process : This is just the beginning! (Somsook adds) In Bharatpur, the communities and Lumanti have used the ACCA program as an intervention to help their negotiations for land and to help create a new collaborative process between various groups within the city. Through their negotiations, the Forestry Department has already agreed to give the land for the first housing project at Salyani. The people in Bharatpur have been able to start this new partnership and collaboration, strength the links between the city's poor communities and start a city-wide community development fund. The ACCA project is being overseen by a city-level committee which acts as a forum and collaborative mechanism and includes reps. from the community federation, the communities, the Women's savings cooperative, the municipality and Lumanti. When I visited Bharatpur a few months ago, the municipality had already agreed to the possibility of giving land to another two communities so that they can also implement big housing projects (Lanku and Ramnagar) - both of them implementing the small projects! What this means is that if this city-level collaborative forum works well together, there are many, many possible resources and possible collaborations, which they can agree to together. We don't need to keep demanding that the central government provide this or that, but we see here in Bharatpur that this collaborative city team is very important and is able to deliver resources, land to people on the ground and develop their own real solutions to real problems they face as a city. How Nepal's Women's Savings Cooperatives work (Lajana clarifies) In Nepal, our women's savings groups are organized on the small group system: in small communities there may be only one savings group, but in larger ones there will generally be several savings groups with 10 - 15 members in each. These savings groups have for several years linked themselves together under a set of legally-registered cooperatives - usually one cooperative in each city, or several in Kathmandu. So when we speak of the cooperatives, we are talking about what is really a community savings network. These cooperatives act like a bank for their poor community members, and legally entitled to do all kinds of financial transactions, including saving, lending, receiving outside funds for grants and loans, etc. When the communities repay their ACCA housing loans, the money will go into the city-based cooperative, which will keep a special account and report to the joint city-level ACCA Project Management Committee - which includes representatives from the cooperative. Question about repayment of the ACCA loans : (Lajana answers) All the ACCA loans will be repaid into a special revolving fund that is in the city, not national. The cooperative in Bharatpur, for example, is only responsible for the loan repayments in Bharatpur. When the money is returned, it will be revolved in new loans only within Bharatpur city, according to projects agreed upon by the joint committee in the city. 3. PROPOSED NEW CITY : Birgunj Proposed budget : $15,000 ($3,000 x 5 small projects) + $40,000 (big project) + $3,000 city process support = Total $58,000. Birgunj is a bustling transport town in the southern plains ("terai") of Nepal, on the border of India (Bihar state), on the main road from Nepal to India. Because many of the poor communities in Birgunj are populated by people considered to be migrants from India, they haven't received much support and many didn't have Nepali identity cards until the very recent pro-democracy movement. The city is not poor, earning a lot of money on customs duties charged on goods coming and going over the Indian boarder, but the city has made almost no investments in improving the city's slums. For the past three years, Lumanti has helped to start women's savings groups and form a cooperative in Birgunj, and has fairly good links with the Municipality. The communities already have their own organization, called the Urban Poor Empowerment Society (UPES). An Urban Community Support Fund has already been established in Birgunj, as a collaboration between the municipality (which contributed 1 million Rupees), Lumanti and the community network, and the fund is managed by the community federation (UPES). • Plans for ACCA : Planned work under ACCA includes strengthening and expanding this network among the city's poor communities, carrying out a survey, etc. Plans also include setting up a local slum upgrading forum, to bring

together key stakeholders such as the municipality, the community network, the political parties, NGOs and development institutions to exchange ideas on tackling urban poverty and explore new alternatives of project development. Small projects (5 x $3,000 = $15,000) (all funds to be used as grants to the communities) 1. Bhagwati Tole-5 (35 Households) Enclosed drainage system and composting solid waste system ($3,000) This long-established community of beggars and waste-pickers is located next to an open sewer. 2. Naghawa Tole-19 (25 households) Waste water treatment system and playground/washing area on pond banks ($3,000). This community is located between a pond (in which municipal sewage is dumped) on one side, and land on the other side where waste from toilets is dumped. There are no communal bathing spaces for women. 3. Ram Tole 9 (80 households) Drainage, toilets, solid waste management system ($3,000). This community floods during the monsoons, with backflow from the municipal drains. Some houses have no toilets or water supply. 4. Gahawa-10 (120 households) Toilets and communal cow-rearing area ($3,000) This is a community where most households keep cattle. Only a few houses have toilets, and the drains are blocked. 5. Other possible small toilet and sanitation projects in : Sheetalpur, Nadi Tole, Shreepur and Bhedia communities. Big project : On-site housing reblocking at Shanti Tole (31 households) (Proposed budget = $40,000 - to be used as loans for housing) This community of extremely poor people from the sweeper caste (considered "untouchable") has been squatting on this private land for over 50 years. Lajana says "So it is not possible to evict them." Their shacks are made of mud and dung-plastered woven bamboo, most without windows or ventilation. Most work as laborers in the land-owner's fields. There is an active and well-established women's savings group. The land owner has agreed to transfer the land to the community, a rough mapping has been done, and the Municipality has expressed interest in collaborating with the project and providing technical assistance and municipal services in the upgraded community. When the ACCA proposal is approved, the Women's Cooperative will loan some money to the community to pay for the land transfer taxes.

4. BURMA • •

(reports from e-mails) 2 cities approved already : Khawmu Township, Kunchankone Township 1 new proposed city : Dadeye Township

It has been a year and a half since Cyclone Nargis hit Burma, on May 2, 2008, causing devastation and death across the country. But after all this time, there are still lots of areas in the country which have not been assisted by the 60 international development agencies which have been allowed to work in Burma. Of the 800,000 houses that have to be rebuilt (including 450,000 houses that were totally destroyed and another 350,000 that were damaged) only about 15,000 had been built by March 2009 - just 2 - 3% of the actual need. And it's not only housing, the storm wiped away everything - people's houses, their farms, their trees, their jobs, their food, their means of survival. The problems from the storm are still very serious, and the speed of the solutions is still very slow. The two projects already being supported by ACCA - and the new one proposed in this meeting - all involve efforts to make the affected communities in different areas the key actors in planning and carrying out their own post-disaster rehabilitation in different ways. CITY IN PROCESS : Khawmu Township, Yangon Division This project covers a cluster of 18 already-networked small villages (3,733 households, 15,345 people) surrounding the Aung Zabu Monastery (in Khawmu Township, Yangon Division). The project is being channeled through a Thailandbased organization, SEM (Spirit in Education Movement), which has links with the Aung Zabu Monastery, and with several other committed young people who are working in and around Yangon (both individuals or small local NGOs who link together) with cyclone-affected community people, within local village structures, to organize community saving groups, distribute development budgets and reconstruct houses together. (The new ACCA proposal described below comes from another one of these local Burmese groups) The communities in this large area were badly destroyed by Cyclone Nargis in May 2008 and lost their animals, houses, seed storage, livelihoods and community infrastructure during the cyclone. They are still experiencing serious problems

of clean water, shelter, food, housing, health and livelihood, but they have now formed a network, started savings, developed village-based management committees and are rebuilding their villages and lives in extremely modest ways, with support from local Buddhist monks at the Aung Zabu Foundation and other local voluntary organizations. The project is operating in a low-key way in an extremely difficult political situation, and the Aung Zabu Monastery acts as the center and meeting point for the project, with key support from the Buddhist monks there. The ACCA support to this project includes : • $40,000 for the network fund, for housing repair and reconstruction • $15,000 for small community projects • $25,800 to support more livelihood revival and welfare activities Progress on housing reconstruction : All 18 villages have many damaged houses - too many for the limited support from the project. So all the village committees began by prioritizing who needs what most urgently, and then agreeing as a whole village about who will get what house construction support. For both house repairs and new house construction, the people did all the work themselves, working in teams rather than individually, and buy all the materials collectively - the whole process managed by the village committee. They use extremely simple and quickly-constructed house types they developed themselves, using local materials of bamboo, timber and thatch. • 120 houses rebuilt so far (at $150 - $350 per house, as a grant) • 440 houses repaired so far (at $30 - $50 per house, as a grant) Progress on small projects : The communities have also implemented several small projects, including building bridges (in 2 villages), repairing water pump (in 8 villages), buying school materials (in 2 villages), repairing electric line (in 1 village), buying small boats for ferrying people across the water (in 3 villages) and repairing a temple (in 1 village). The funds to support these projects go to the village as a grant. Progress on village livelihood loans : Each of the 18 villages have made their own plans for livelihood projects, and the funds from ACCA have been used as revolving fund loans to each village to develop livelihood projects, which include animal raising, vegetable and rice cultivation, community rice shops and small market businesses. The loans range in size between $150 and $500 per village.

PROPOSED NEW CITY : Dadeye Township, Ayeyarwaddy Division Proposed budget : $37,140 (from the special disaster rehabilitation budget) This is another Cyclone Nargis rehabilitation project in a network of four badly-affected villages (with 758 households and 3,648 people) in the Dadeye Township, in Burma's Ayeyarwaddy Division. The project is being proposed by a small local voluntary organization called the Bedar Rural Development Program (BRD). As in the project described above, the project will be comprehensive, covering a variety of rehabilitation needs, and will use village committees, self-help strategies and village-driven implementation strategies to help these four badly-hit villages rebuild their lives and livelihoods. Activities to focus on livelihood and self-reliance : The activities the project supports will focus on reviving livelihoods and collective self reliance in the four villages. Activities will include starting community saving groups, promoting home gardening, promoting the use and preservation of local food crops, agriculture training, setting up rice banks, establishing community-based welfare programs, setting up youth programs, emphasizing the role of women in community activities, and organizing networking and exchange programs.

5. PHILIPPINES • •

(Ruby and Ana report) (US$ 1 = 47 pesos) 8 cities approved already 3 new cities proposed : Muntinlupa, Talisay, Special Disaster project in Quezon City

1. CITY IN PROCESS : Quezon City (HPFP) Strengthening the city network and demonstrating community-led upgrading in Quezon City. Over one million of the 2.68 million people who live in Quezon City (37%) live in slums. Most of these communities are in high-risk areas beside rivers and creeks, under traffic bridges, in small alleyways between high-rise buildings, on private land and in prime locations targeted for infrastructure development and eviction. ACCA support for building a city-wide network of urban poor organizations in Quezon City : As part of the ACCA-supported city-wide work in Quezon City, the Homeless People's Federation has been working to bring together the various poor community organizations in the city and create a platform for them to share strategies, support each other and build a common direction for tackling the problems of land, housing and livelihood which they have in common. In June 2009, the four big federations of people’s organizations in Quezon City (HPFP, ULR-TF, DAMPA and ULAP) came together to form the Integrated People’s Organization Network (IPON). The idea of the IPON network is to promote a genuine people’s process in the collaboration work with the government and other sectors, to provide a larger space or venue for the people’s organizations wherein they can tackle in depth issues affecting urban poor and to assist the creation of similar networks in other cities nationwide. IPON's first general assembly was held on September 5, 2009, with about 155 urban poor community members from the four federations. A good number of local government officials and national government agencies pledged their support to IPON. Two small ACCA-supported projects underway : — Paved walkway in the Bethlehem Community, Barangay Payatas (145 households) The project, which was designed and implemented by the community people themselves, was partly financed by a grant of US$ 1,075 from the ACCA Program, which like all the ACCA project funds are being used by the HPFP as loans to the community, which will be repaid to the UPDF within one year at 3% annual interest. The community has set up a collection committee to facilitate repayment of the loan, which is part of its regular community savings program. Although all 145 households in the community will benefit from the walkway, only the 35 savings group members are paying for the project! In the meetings with the community, many non-saving people said, "Show us your walkway first, and then we will help pay for it!" • Paved walkway and storm drainage in the Creekside Association Community, Barangay Batasan Hills (project in an area affecting 35 households) The sprawling Creekside Association is a big community built on steeply-sloping rocky land (which is otherwise undevelopable) and has been a member of HPFP since 2005. The project to build a concrete walkway with storm drains has been designed and built by the people themselves, after extensive surveying and mapping of the area (an activity which was done during a typhoon!) and covers a small portion of the community with 35 families. The project was assisted by May Domingo, the Filipina community architect working with the federation. The project was partly financed by the people themselves, and partly by a US$ 3,225 grant from the ACCA small project budget, which is being treated as a community loan and will be repaid within one year to the UPDF at 3% annual interest.

2. CITY IN PROCESS : Bikol Region 3-city network : Guinobatan, Camalig and Daraga

(HPFP)

Strengthening and promoting community-driven models of post-disaster interventions, building and expanding city network processes in the three municipalities in Albay Province, Philippines. These three municipalities are located along the periphery of Mount Mayon Volcano, and all three were devastated by a double disaster when the volcano erupted at the same time the area was hit by Typhoon Reming, with floods, landslides and hot lava flow destroying the towns and killing many. Since then, the Homeless People's Federation has been working with these communities especially those who have to relocate from their land which is now in the danger zone. • Post-disaster strategy : As elsewhere, the federation's strategy has been to build a network of the 23 affected communities in these three municipalities, and use the post-disaster rehabilitation and reconstruction, to unite the affected poor communities around a common goal, to strengthen their power to negotiate for a people-driven

reconstruction as a group, to gather support from other stakeholders including the local government and academics, and to ensure the sustainability of the projects of the organizations. One Small project underway : • A water supply project in the Masarawag community, in Guinobatan (853 households) This project is being implemented by the Masarawag Mayon Unit Homeless Association (MMUHA), which has 83 members, but the whole barangay with about 853 families will benefit from the project. The project involved laying a pipe network from a nearby natural spring to bring water to the community area, which works by natural gravity flow without any electrical pumps, so that residents will no longer have to carry heavy buckets of water from the spring. This community is already supplying water for the whole municipality of Guinobatan, from the spring located on its land, but they themselves had no potable water! 3. CITY IN PROCESS : Mandaue City

(HPFP)

Mandaue is a highly urbanized city and has been for many decades the industrial hub of Cebu Province. But as the industries decline, the city is reverting to commercial and residential uses. It has a shelter program, a Housing and Urban Development Office (HUDO) and a Housing Board (MCBOSH) Big Project in Mandaue : Continuing land-filling. The $40,000 ACCA budget is supporting the filling of the swampy land in the Malibu Matimco Village Homeowners Association (311 households), to enable the community to then implement their housing and infrastructure development (using other funding sources). This community occupies 1.5 hectares of land within the larger 9.2 hectare foreshore property that was donated by Mandaue City Government to its poor occupants. This community is one of the pioneer members of the HPFP and has been practicing and supporting the savings program since 1998. For years the communities on this donated land (which is swampy and lowlying) have experienced flooding during the rainy season because of lack of drainage system. The project is being managed by the community, in close collaboration with the national HPFP-PACSII alliance, academics and the local government. The land filling began in September 2009, and the community carried out structural mapping in October. • How the money is managed : The total ACCA grant for the project is US$ 40,000, and this amount is being given as a loan to the community at 6% annual interest, to be repaid in five years to the UPDF. • Community-based committees have been formed to manage the bookkeeping, receive landfill materials, collect savings, supervise the work and organize "food for work" for the community volunteers who provide all the labor. Progress of the city-wide process in Mandaue : Building a larger network of urban poor organizations in Mandaue : MMVHAI is a member of the 9.2-hectare Urban Poor Network, which consists of 11 active community associations from the 9.2-hectare government donated land in Mandaue City. Network members are active participants to the government’s 9.2 Task Force Committee which implements thrusts and programs relating to the development of the 9.2-hectare-donated land. The $3,000 ACCA funds for the city process are managed by the 9.2-hectare Urban Poor Network. The network has formulated policies to serve as guidelines on the utilization and allotment of funds for activities that support the development of their area. The 9.2 Urban Poor Network is actively involved in the city-wide Mandaue City Coalition of Urban Dwellers Association, Inc. (MCCUDA) composed of 162 associations from the three districts of Mandaue Cit. The MCCUDAI and Urban Poor Council of Leaders of the city met for the first time in April 2009 to identify urban poor issues and concerns city-wide and formulate an action plan for the year

4. CITY IN PROCESS : Mindanao 3-City Network : Davao, Digos and Kidapawan (HPFP) Mindanao 3-City Network : The HPFP is active in three cities in Southern Mindanao: Davao, Digos and Kidapawan. The HPFP's 3-City Network links 38 urban poor community associations in these three cities so far, through community savings and Urban Poor Development Fund activities. Davao and Digos are cities with serious problems of floods, storms and tidal waves. The urban poor in all three cities are usually found on coastal areas, roadsides, riverbanks and private lands. The 3-City Network focuses on organizing and mobilizing poor communities located in danger zones, coastal areas, riverbanks and roadsides. Davao and Kidapawan have shelter programs and functional housing boards, while Digos is setting up its housing board. • Building a more city-wide community driven development process in these cities : The ACCA project in Mindanao is aiming to strengthen and expand this network to include other urban poor federations, vulnerable groups and communities affected by disasters to promote community-led city development processes. The project

will also establish, strengthen and expand the 3-City Network UPDF to involve other urban poor federations, vulnerable groups and communities affected by disasters. Recent activities of the 3-city network : The goal of the 3-city network is to promote community-driven secure tenure, upgrading and urban infrastructure approaches in poor communities, and to help communities to implement their own small community-led upgrading initiatives to strengthen the network and the UPDF. The network held a regional assembly at the end of July 2009. to discuss network building, community-led upgrading and disaster rehabilitation. The network has formed a 3-City Network Management Committee, comprising 5 representatives from each city. They have forged working links with architecture faculty and students at the UP Mindanao College of Architecture, to assist the federation on its community-upgrading initiatives. Small projects in Mindanao : Five small ACCA projects have been selected and are in the process of being implemented. As in all the HPFP's ACCA small and big projects, the projects are being partly financed by the people themselves, and partly by grants from the ACCA budget, but these grants are being treated as community loans and will be repaid within one year to the city-based UPDF at 3% annual interest. No grants in the Homeless People's Federation! 1. Electricity supply system in a community that is rebuilding after being destroyed by fire, in Davao. 2. Water supply system for the Del Carmen Community, in Davao. 3. Land-filling in the flood-prone SJBBNAI Community, in Digos. 4. Communal toilets in the Purok isla B Community, in Digos. (Sonia adds) As everyone knows, the long civil conflict in parts of the island of Mindanao is between the indigenous Muslim and Christian communities. This community toilets project was started with a proposal to ACCA from the Christian community, but the Muslim community next-door will also share these toilets. So the project is a test of cooperation and jointly managed improvements involving two neighboring communities, and we think it's very exciting that the Christian and Muslim communities will share these community toilets. 5. Concrete footbridge for the elderly in the Freedom Village Community, in Kidapawan (this project was proposed by the elderly savings group in the community, who were the ones who most suffered by having to cross the rickety old bamboo bridge). Discussion on how the small projects are being managed in the Philippines (Somsook) • Isn't it too great a burden on the poor to ask them to pay for these small improvements as loans, with interest? There in the Philippines, in most of these cases, the federation has decided to not only use the ACCA grants as loans, but to charge 3% interest on those loans! When I listen to this from the point of view of the poor, I feel a little pain! Because this is supposed to be a public service - and when we look at other Asian countries where grant funds are used to finance public services (like Thailand, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Mongolia) they never charge it's a grant! Is it too much to ask the already-suffering urban poor of the Philippines to pay back their small improvement grants, with interest? • Are more resources being used in the preparation than in the actual implementation of the upgrading projects? The second thing is that in the presentation, we can see that all the activities are preceded with lots and lots of meetings, elections of committees, setting of rules and regulations, drafting of objectives, setting of procedures, prioritizing of projects, etc. Isn't it quite a lot of preparation, compared to the very concrete physical improvement activities that the ACCA Program is trying to help communities do? Are all these preparations consuming more resources than the actual implementation of the upgrading projects? (Ruby answers) Since the Homeless People's Federation began giving some loans for upgrading, it has been part of the federation's process that the community members understand why they must pay for the improvements, and why the 3% interest is added to the loans. Because we know that this interest helps make our revolving funds bigger, to support many more communities. So this agreement was already in place when we started ACCA. But some of the communities have decided to charge 6% interest, but 3% will go back to the communities' fund, the UPDF. So it's something people everywhere know and are used to, that we charge 3% interest on upgrading loans to communities. • Lots of meetings, yes! We do have a lot of meetings, because we have to process all these things, not just giving this project without understanding by the communities. We made all these meetings with the communities because we want that they are the ones to implement this project, the ones to deliver these improvements - to show our force and to demonstrate to the government that we can undertake this kind of development. This idea of using concrete actions to build our strength is a new idea in the communities. It's also a process in the federation that whatever we do, we have to discuss it amongst ourselves first. We don't want to just make a quick choice as national leaders, and then say to one community or another, "Surprise! You are going to implement this project!" • Giving it as a loan rather than a grant is our way of promoting an non-dole-out mentality. (Sonia adds) In the federation, all of us know that these funds can be used as a grant. But on our part, we give it as a loan. We know

that someday, some of the groups will not be able to pay. So we release the funds as a loan, not completely hoping for 100% repayment anyway. We are saying that this money you are using is not free money, you have to return it so it can help others - but in the process within the federation, usually they will pay half of the amount, and the rest may not be repaid. This is a very good example of how a project can be transformed into a process. (Gregor comments) And how we see the whole thing as a holistic approach, involving the environment, the elderly, other actors in the city, etc. I think this is exactly what ACCA is aiming to, and these projects by the Homeless People's Federation show in a very good way how things can be integrated into a holistic approach towards trying to do something within the city. 5. CITY IN PROCESS : Manila (UPA) Manila is another of the 16 cities that make up Metro Manila. The ACCA-support for the city is being managed by a partnership between the KABALIKAT People's Organization, Urban Poor Associates (UPA, an NGO), with technical Assistance from Freedom to Build. Big Project : Community drain in the Baseco Area has started (ACCA Budget $10,000) Baseco is a very large low-income area built on reclaimed land, which is a "Presidential Proclamation" housing area for the poor, near the Port of Manila. There are 8,449 families living in the Baseco area, but the big project supported by ACCA is directly benefiting 800 families living in the sites-and-services portion of the area. The big project has begun with the construction of 200 meters of storm drains in one lane. The ACCA funds were used to purchase the building materials, and all the labor was provided free by the community members. After finishing the drains, this lane was the only one in the area to remain dry when the series of severe typhoons hit the city recently. • Continuation of the drainage system to other lanes : There have already been requests for similar support in 9 other lanes. Further work will be less expensive, as people will be willing to pay some of the costs ($5 each household) and incidental expenses and will continue to provide all the labor. UPA and Freedom to Build will provide a supervisor and two skilled craftsmen plus materials. Small Projects : (one project so far) • Community center in (what name???) community (ACCA budget $2,000) The people have constructed a 2story concrete structure for use as a meeting room for different groups, with class rooms for tutoring children (including children of ages 12-10 who have never attended school) and a livelihood center. Besides the $2,000 ACCA funds (through UPA) contributions were also negotiated from 2 senators and other individuals. 6. CITY IN PROCESS : Quezon City, District 2 (FDUP) Quezon City is the city with the largest number and concentration of informal settlements, with at least 50% of the city's population living in informal squatter settlements, and Quezon City's District 2 is the most "slum-rich" district in the city. At the same time, there is an active and city-wide alliance of urban poor, the Quezon City Urban Poor Alliance (QC-UPAll), which brings together all the major urban poor groups of the city. There is also a consortium of NGOs, lawyers and academics doing work for the urban poor in Quezon City. This project is being implemented by FDUP, in partnership with QC-UP-All and the consortium of NGOs. The idea of this complex project is to strengthen and consolidate city-wide urban poor organizations and build their alliances with their local barangay (sub-district) authorities through the implementation of community-initiated and community-managed land tenure and community upgrading projects and the creation of a revolving fund for housing that will provide support for these community-driven tenure and upgrading projects and leverage additional funds from barangay and city funds and promote savings among the urban poor organization. CIty-process work so far includes : • An organizational development and advocacy committee has been created. • An organizational assessment and planning has been conducted, and a city-wide urban poor agenda has been developed (based on Quezon City's socio-ecological profile). This agenda has been reviewed and finalized. • An UP-All General Assembly has been organized, where two city-wide urban poor organizations (QC UP-All & UPAK) have agreed to work together for this common agenda. • A workshop on housing innovations abroad (with Fr. Anzorena) was conducted • A Credit Committee has been created, to deal with loans for small and big projects and other loans, and the committee has developed lending guidelines and processes. • More than 200 community members were mobilized to fight the demolition of a riverside community

•

Community surveys have been carried out in 9 out 14 barangays in District 2, and a workshop has been conducted on processing of this data.

Small and big projects : Although the process for selecting these projects has begun, no small or big projects have been implemented yet. Discussion on Quezon City : Two projects with the same actors in one city? (Gregor comments) In Quezon City, we have two networks running ACCA projects which involve the same actors. I think there is definitely a need to find out how to come to a more common understanding and follow a more common approach. (Anna responds) I agree!

7. CITY IN PROCESS : Iligan (SMMI sent a PowerPoint presentation with Anna Oliveros) The project in Iligan is being implemented by the NGO Sentro sa Maayong Magbalantay (SMMI, a local NGO) In Iligan City, there are 44 slums (with 62,179 households, 310,000 people) and in the nearby town of Kauswagan there are 33 slums ( 5,100 households, 23,087 people). Most of the people living in these informal settlements are "internallydisplaced persons" who have been forced off their rural land by the prolonged separatist civil conflict in Mindanao. At the same time, there are growing land-use conflicts in these two cities, as these inner-city poor communities find themselves facing eviction because of city development projects. SMMI estimates that 89% of these settlements are in immediate danger of eviction, 12,394 households are still homeless, 6,746 households have recently arrived from war and flood-affected villages, and 13,711 households need upgrading. The proposed project will build on the existing collaborative mechanisms in the two cities between the local government, the communities, civil society organizations, the church and the business sector. SMMI will take the lead in the implementation of the project but in collaboration with urban poor organizations and housing associations with the support of the local government units and key government agencies. The project seeks to promote stronger alliances among these urban poor communities in both cities, to provide opportunities for them to resolve their serious problems of land, housing, basic services and jobs, and to strengthen their confidence and their relationship with the local government in the process. City Process : An initiative to draft a City Shelter Code for Iligan was facilitated by SMMI beginning in 2006. Without money to mobilize the various urban poor federations in Iligan, however, initial progress was slow. The city process budget from ACCA helped revive this process of pushing for the passing of the Shelter Code, which will hopefully be passed soon. A city-wide urban poor consultation was conducted on October 31, 2009, and a livelihood skills training was conducted 24-26 October 2009 for women residents in the Good Shepherd Home and Eco-Village Note : It seems from the PowerPoint presentation that all the small and big projects being implemented in Iligan are in the same community - the Good Shepherd Home and Eco-Village (a SMMIorganized relocation project for "internally-displaces persons" from three Barangays in Iligan, with the land being provided free by the church.) Small projects (2 so far) : • Water supply system at the Good Shepherd Home and EcoVillage (survey completed) • Concrete paving slab-making operation : 35 members of the Good Shepherd Home and Eco-Village took part in a trainingworkshop on pre-fab paving slab making. Big project : The subdivision plan of the Good Shepherd Home and Eco-Village was finalised on September 20, 2009. The release of the final subdivision plan also allowed the building permits and documentation of the project site development to be processed, in partnership with the local government in Iligan City. Discussion on Iligan City : What is a "City Shelter Code"? (Jaya) You mention the city shelter code in Iligan City. What is that? A project? (Anna responds) The City Shelter Code is supposed to be a city law that will look at several aspects of how the city addresses problems of housing and homelessness in the city. It provides a mechanism by which the local stakeholders can participate in local governance, the city funds can be allocated for housing, and the local housing programs work. • In other cities also : This is something that is being advocated for by the community organizations and the NGOs in Iligan City. But this is not something that is only happening in Iligan City - a similar shelter code has also been passed by the city in Davao, and as part of the code, they have created a housing board, which is now functioning. The same thing is being attempted in other cities in the Philippines - including Quezon City. • (Sonia adds) The City Shelter Code is a law passed by the city government which deals with all the issues of shelter - housing, land use, identification of settlements. And it's not only the urban poor - the code covers also the developers, the private subdivisions. This is the code that guides the whole implementation of the program of shelter and housing in Davao City, including some of the infrastructure. This code also relates to the Comprehensive Land Use Plan of the city.

•

(Ana adds) The housing advocacy now in the Philippines is focussed on localizing the housing delivery and responding to poverty reduction - both things which have always been national government. The direction now is pushing the cities to respond to these issues and problems locally.

The Philippines is a country especially rich in codes and advocacy, but maybe we need more action in making real change on the ground as well! (Somsook adds) I feel that this is a country that is particularly rich in codes and advocacy and laws and bills. And many of the battles being fought and energy being spent there have to do with those codes and laws. But when we see the situation on the ground in Philippines cities, there are slums everywhere! And the illegality by which things happen is everywhere! What I'm wondering is whether it would be useful to use this ACCA program to do otherwise. Because by now, it's clear that trying to get the government system to work is not going to work. We can see that things need be fixed, on the ground, in a big way, and there has to be some new kind of eruption of a new workable system here and there. Now there are only unconnected, uncoordinated pockets of innovation and change - but it hasn't yet come into a well-connected joint force to make a stronger change in the country - from the ground up. What about cutting through all that stuff and seeing a new field for making change, by letting people start! •

•

(Ana responds) I agree - it should be a combination. Therefore the strategy of demonstrating and of piloting is very important. I think we are doing that in the Philippines now. The need to scale up - in fact one of the important things being done is to study what people have done on the ground, studying it and showing it to government and saying that these solutions can deliver. Making change by lobbying and advocacy or by action? (Lajana adds) In Nepal, everybody is involved in the constitution-writing process now. All the community organizations, all the NGOs, networks, trade unions are trying to push to make sure their voices are heard and their interests are clearly and explicitly addressed in the new constitution that is being drafted now. We are all being made to feel that if we are not a part of that process, we are left out. And everyone is asking, "What are you doing now to influence the constitution writing process?" So one is made to feel that one's duty is to be there, to be lobbying, to be attending meetings, doing advocacy, etc. And then the real physical construction and upgrading work - the visible work that actually brings real change into people's day to day lives of poor people - gets left out. Even the old donor organizations are telling us to go to the state and rally and shout and lobby to get our voice in the new constitution, and they are offering funds to do this! But they don't want to make any investments in community-built toilets or water supply systems! It's all so upside down in Nepal also! There has to be a better balance.

8. CITY IN PROCESS : Navotas (TAO-Pilipinas) Navotas is one of the 17 municipalities that make up Metro Manila. The ACCA project in Navotas, which is a flood-prone city, is being implemented by TAO-Pilipinas, an NGO made up mostly of young women community architects. The project aims to provide support for the development of a city-wide community-initiated housing process, form a network of community-based organizations in Navotas working toward security of tenure, map and survey all the informal settlements within the city, develop a database of informal settlements that will guide the city scale planning for housing (City Shelter Plan), form an advisory body that will support and guide the development of the resettlement project and the utilization of a City Development Fund. City process : Several activities have been organized, as part of the city process in Navotas : . • Savings and Credit Workshop conducted (July 11-12, 2009) with discussion and sharing on savings schemes in the community and some successful community-based savings mechanisms, such as HPFP, action planning pertaining to savings and other community needs. A city-wide Savings and Credit Policy was later finalized on October 31, 2009. • Community Mapping done with University of Philippines students and youths from the communities (August 14-29, 2009) Identified community services and facilities, number of houses, open spaces, etc. Maps will be generated by the students using the GPS system and the community youths will validate the maps they generate. • Rapid Damage Assessment after Typhoon Ketsana (October 1, 2009) and relief distribution was carried out in Tanza only (Oct 9) • A water and sanitation workshop was conducted (Oct 22-27, 2009) • A Participatory GIS Training for Community Youths was conducted (October 30, 2009) • A national ACCA Meeting was organized in Navotas, for all the organizations implementing ACCA (Nov 9, 2009) Small projects : No report of any activities on the small projects. Big Project : No report of any activities on the big project (House construction in the Masagana Community, in the Tanza area. This project is to be implemented in an "in-city" resettlement site of the local government, and people can stay here if they have housing construction budget. It was also proposed that the funds also be used for on-site development for privately-owned lots in the Bicol Area and Sitio Puting Bato.)

Discussion on Navotas : Why does an NGO have to act as intermediary between these people's organizations on the ground? (Gregor comments) In Navotas, in one of the PowerPoint slides, we see a situation where an NGO is trying to introduce the Homeless People's Federation's savings approach to the people of Navotas. But Navotas is part of the same city as Quezon City, and is not very far away - why do you need an NGO to act as an intermediary and to interpret and bridge these poor communities like this if people are already there on the ground, with their own organizations, their own ways of linking with each other? Why not use the people's organizations directly to communicate directly with their counterparts in other parts of the city? (Anna responds) I think the Homeless People's Federation's approach to saving and organizing is only one of many approaches that are being looked at by the communities in Navotas. 9. PROPOSED NEW CITY : Muntinlupa (HPFP) Proposed budget : $15,000 ($3,000 x 5 small projects) + $3,000 city process support = Total $18,000. (No big project proposed yet) Demonstrating community-led processes in post relocation upgrading initiatives in Muntinlupa City. Muntinlupa, which is one of the 16 cities that make up Metro Manila, has a population of about 460,000 people. About 10,000 poor households in Muntinlupa were "internally displaced" from their railway settlements by the Philippine National Railway’s modernization program in recent years. The Homeless People's Federation has been working with these and other relocated railway communities in pre and post-relocation initiatives in the cities of Makati, Taguig, and Muntinlupa. Southville 3 is the main relocation site for railway slum families displaced within Muntinlupa, and the HPFP has helped build a network of leaders called the United Leaders of Southville 3 (ULS-3). Proposed small ACCA projects : • Purified Water Refilling Station (in the Southville 3 Relocation Colony): The water supply from the tank in Southville 3 is not potable. Each family in Southville 3 consumes an estimated 4 gallons of water a day, for which they have to buy from vendors and water purification companies at the rate of 30 pesos per gallon - which adds up to a very heavy financial burden. The ACCA-supported project involves the construction of a water refilling structure, which will be built on a 36 sm lot which has been allocated by the National Housing Authority (NHA), under a 50-year landuse agreement. The ACCA funds will be used to purchase the building materials, and all the labor will be provided by the community. The new water-refilling station will be managed by the community themselves, without profit, and will sell the water to community members at cost of maintaining the system only (about 12 pesos per gallon - about one-third the cost of commercially available treated drinking water). • Four other small projects are now being discussed and selected

10. PROPOSED NEW CITY : Talisay

(HPFP)

Proposed budget : $15,000 ($3,000 x 5 small projects) + $3,000 city process support = Total $18,000 (No big project proposed yet) Talisay is a small city of about 205,000 people on the island province of Cebu, in the Visayas Region of Philippines. There are 14 slum communities (116 associations?) in Talisay with a population of about 8,825 households (44,125 people). There are active savings groups in 12 of these settlements, with about 1,095 members, all part of the HPFP. These active community savings groups have formed a federation which they call the Federation of Urban Dwellers Association (FETCUDA). Besides working to expand the community savings process, the federation in Talisay is helping communities to negotiate to acquire land for safe and secure onsite and offsite resettlement, strengthening the city-wide network urban poor network with meetings and assemblies, documenting community initiatives in the city and organizing community-to-community learning exchanges. ACCA Small Project Proposal: • Community communal toilets (12 seats) and 2 hand pumps (120 households) (US$3,000) The Salvador Urban Poor Association (SALUPA) community is a pioneer and active member association of HPFP - a slum with 120 households and big problems of lack of toilets and water supply. SALUPA is also one of the first communities of the federation in Talisay City managed to establish communal water as their project through community savings and loan program. The association is also a member of Talisay City Urban Poor Association Network. The ACCA

•

funds will come to the community in the form of a loan, to be repaid in one year, at 3% annual interest, to the UPDF in Talisay. Four other small projects are now being discussed and selected

PROPOSED SPECIAL NEW DISASTER PROJECT : Quezon City

(HPFP)

Proposed budget : $20,000 (big project) + $30,000 (special disaster support) = Total $50,000 Almost a month after Typhoon Ketsana brought devastation and widespread flooding in Metro Manila and nearby provinces, on September 26, 2009, a total of 153,505 houses were damaged (25,382 totally and 127,123 partially). The National Disaster Coordinating Council estimates the total cost of lost infrastructure is US$ 95 million. The Homeless People’s Federation is focusing its efforts to help urban poor communities that were badly affected by the typhoon in its priority areas in Quezon City (including the National Capital Region, Bulacan and Rizal). The federation conducted site visits in these areas - to provide initial relief support and to identify families that completely lost their homes during the disaster and will need immediate assistance to either rebuild their houses or relocate to safer places. Affected families in these communities have expressed their need for the following support, for which the HPFP is seeking funding from the ACCA disaster fund: • •

•

•

House Repair (US$20,000) Twenty seven families in Quezon City alone have already expressed their need for a house repair loan to make their homes habitable again. House repairs vary from fallen rooftops to collapsed walls or damaged floorings, kitchens, etc. Transit Housing (US$20,000) In Barangays North Fairview and Bagong Silangan, a transitory housing project is being worked out in coordination with local officials for the more than 800 families who have lost or damaged their homes dues to flooding and have been evacuated in cramped school rooms and gymnasiums. The transit housing will give families a safe and comfortable place to live while they recover from their losses and negotiate for a longterm solution to their land and housing problems. Relief and coordination costs (US$10,000) Despite the continuous relief operation for the affected communities, several evacuation centers and flooded areas especially in the outskirts of Metro Manila have not been reached by help and are still in dire need of basic supplies like food and clothing. To facilitate savings mobilization, networking and coordination work for the disaster intervention initiatives, the federation is also applying for an operational fund of US$5,000. Typhoon update from Ruby on November 7, 2009 : In a coregroup meeting of federation leaders on October 30, to discuss the ACCA support for Typhoon Ketsana-affected communities, the interest, enthusiasm and drive of the communities were sparked. Last Friday, community leaders from Bulacan and Southern Tagalog have already gathered and submitted information on the number of families which still need help after the typhoon destroyed their houses. We want to immediately respond to their needs as disaster victims especially since no other organization has helped them so far because their locations are far from the urban centers. Also a number of communities have already expressed their interest to apply for community upgrading loans. So we would like to request for the release of the disaster fund for the typhoon victims and the rest of the ACCA fund which was earlier approved as soon as it is possible on your end.

Discussion on the HPFP's disaster work : The types and numbers of disasters are really increasing. (Gregor comments) And development work is becoming more and more a disaster intervention. The experience from the ACHR network in the past few years is that even as bad as a disaster may be, it can still be an opportunity to start some new community-driven approaches within the development work. This is a very important aspect for the ACHR / ACCA network for the future: the whole question of disaster preparation and disaster intervention is becoming to see this from a development point of view, and how to get the communities more involved in every aspect of the disaster work. Most of the poor communities are living more-orless in dangerous areas, along creeks, canals, riversides, roads, hillsides, swamps, shorelines, etc. And then via floods, storms and mud-slides they are the first ones to suffer and be endangered when disasters happen. So I think this is also a good example of how communities can be prepared and try to work on a development approach within this context.

6. VIET NAM • •

(Anh from ENDA reports) 3 cities approved already : Viet Tri, Vinh and Lang Son 6 new cities proposed : Thai Nguyen, Hai Duong, Hung Yen, Ha Tinh, Ben Tre and Ca Mau

Although the ACCA Program has begun in only three cities so far, the program's key implementing partners in Viet Nam (ACVN, the Women's Union, the growing community savings/CDF network and ENDA-Viet Nam) are clearly thinking nation-wide and have set an ambitious target of bringing 100 cities into the community savings/CDF and upgrading movement by 2010. Through workshops and national meetings, the ACVN, which is a union of all the towns and cities in Viet Nam, is now promoting community savings and community-driven upgrading as a key aspect of its work in all these cities. And the work of expanding the national savings/CDF network continues: surveying new cities, starting savings groups and forming networks, inviting new cities to join workshops and milestone events in other cities, helping communities in new cities to prepare their small projects and building teams of community leaders experienced with their own housing and savings projects to visit other cities to help start savings, expand the CDF network and help other communities plan their ACCA projects.. • National workshop on community upgrading and savings held in July 2009, in Quy Nhon, with 1,000 participants from five cities THREE CITIES IN PROCESS : Viet Tri, Vinh and Lang Son Projects worth more than three times the original ACCA investment : The community savings networks in the three cities so far have decided to use their $15,000 ACCA budget for small projects to start special revolving funds for small infrastructure improvement loans, which are given to communities at 0.3 - 0.5% monthly interest. They originally estimated that this small $15,000 seed capital from ACCA would be matched by an additional US$ 20,000 contribution from communities and leverage another $5,000 - $10,000 from the local authorities. But in fact the contributions from both communities and local authorities in all three cities has far surpassed that target. In the 10 small projects completed so far in the three cities, the ACCA investment is only $45,000, but the full value of the projects is $136,163 or more than three times the original investment. Plus, since they use the ACCA funds as revolving fund loans, that $45,000 is already going on to help other communities make improvements and unlock more local and government funds. Small projects completed so far in the 3 cities : • 6 concrete road projects (3 in Viet Tri, 2 in Lang Son and 1 in Vinh) with 390 beneficiary households and a total budget US$ 84,923 (to which ACCA contributed 15%, communities contributed 42.6% and local government contributed 42.4%). • 3 sewerage projects (1 in Viet Tri and 2 in Vinh) with 86 beneficiary households and a total budget of US$ 42,409 (to which ACCA contributed 16.8%, communities contributed 67.7% and local government contributed 15.5%) • 1 water supply project (in Lang Son) with 50 beneficiary households and a total budget of US$ 8,831 (to which ACCA contributed 34%, communities contributed 59.4% in labor and supplies, and the local government contributed 6.6%) Big Projects in Viet Tri : Two big land and housing and breakthroughs : The ACCA big project funds are being used to partially support two important, alternative people-built housing demonstration projects in Viet Tri, both of which have been used to persuade government authorities to allow people to do it another way 1. Nong Trang Ward, Block 3 (337 households, on-site reconstruction) This large community of dilapidated row-houses, built originally to house workers at a state-run factory, has been waiting . When the government invited the Provincial Authority to make plans for redeveloping the community, which would require some people to be evicted and those who stayed to pay more than they can afford for the new, bigger, contractor-built houses, the people objected and began negotiating with the city. Now, with help from ACCA and a Selavip project, the people have finally persuaded

the government to allow them to redevelop their housing and community in their own way, and show the city a cheaper and better way to redevelop old, run-down neighborhoods like this one - not by developers but by the residents themselves. • In March 2009, the first batch of 56 families got their land-use certificates, in a big event to which the community network and ACVN invited as many community people and government officials as possible, to let the whole city see this happen, see this alternative planning process by people becoming something real! This is how we are beginning to build a momentum for change in the city. • In September 2009, the ground breaking ceremony was held to mark the start of the pilot house construction, and kicked off another workshop on cost-saving building techniques. • House costs almost half the price when people build : (Mrs. Vinh adds) The 60 square meter pilot house that the people in Viet Tri built (after the design workshop with the young CODI architects and ACVN, and using the community-manufactured blocks made with the Thai machine) cost just $1,600 to build, compared to the normal cost of the same house built by a contractor for at least $2,500. That means that if we do the work together, we can build ten houses for the price of six! It's much cheaper when people build. 2. Van Phu Commune, Block 5 (146 households, on-site reconstruction) This dilapidated community on the outskirts of Viet Tri, which for seven years has resisted eviction and resettlement to make way for a provincial universitybuilding project, has finally won government permission to stay on the same land and redevelop community. The community started savings in 2007, joined the national CDF network in 2008 and became the first case in Viet Nam where all the 15 savings groups in the commune put their savings together in a common loan fund for members. In April 2009, with support from the visiting Thai architects, the people divided themselves into five sub-groups and each subgroup planned its own zone and its own low-cost housing models, re-using old building materials, doors and windows as much as possible. In the newly planned community, all 146 members will have equal sized plots. • In April 2009, the city authority officially announced the cancellation of the university-building project and granted land certificates to the people, so they can now begin rebuilding their houses. With support from community architects from ACVN and CODI Technical support for these two housing projects in Viet Tri : A growing team of community architects from Viet Nam continues to work with communities in the ACCA process, with support from visiting teams of community architects and organizers from CODI in Thailand. • Community planning and house design workshops in July and August 2009, two more hands-on community planning and low-cost housing design workshops were organized in Viet Tri. The workshop was specifically held to help the two communities already planning their housing projects there, but the 200 participants also included community leaders from other settlements and other cities who joined in to learn. • Community-manufactured building materials training in July 2009 : The Thai team brought a concrete blockmaking machine to Viet Tri, and organized a week-long training program in Nong Trang, in which community builders from Chantaburi Thailand taught their friends in Viet Tri how to make their own concrete and pre-cast building materials (blocks, paving slabs, toilet rings, etc), which will help bring the cost of their housing projects down even lower. Big housing project in Vinh City : And another big housing breakthrough in Cua Nam Ward, Block 6A (29 households) (on-site reconstruction of dilapidated collective housing) The Cua Nam Ward is another place where the provincial authority approved plans to demolish 142 units of old, "sub-standard" collective housing (30m2) around the city and replace them with a contractor-built redevelopment with units of more than double the size (70m2 - the province's "minimum" unit size), which people wishing to stay would have to pay for, at unaffordable market rates. The 29 poor households living in collective housing in Block 6A, who could never afford units in the new scheme, decided to propose an alternative plan to the provincial authority, in which they redevelop their block themselves. The plans they developed, with help from a local architect and the CODI team, include widening the lanes to five meters, laying proper drains and rebuilding their own small houses using a modest row-house design on 45m2 plots. They used these redevelopment plans, which will be partly financed by ACCA, to negotiate - first with the city government, and once they got the city's support, they used the force of that approval to negotiate with the provincial authority. The province finally agreed to the people's proposal in early September 2009.

•

•

•

This project sets an important new precedent in Viet Nam : This is the first-ever case in Viet Nam in which urban poor communities living in collective housing have won the right to design and rebuild their own affordable housing on the same site. It is an important breakthrough because in cities all over Viet Nam, municipal governments keen on modernizing their cities are now on the warpath to demolish and redevelop their stock of rundown collective housing, which are seen as an eyesore. When the redevelopment is done by for-profit developers, as it usually is, the redevelopment process invariably means eviction and homelessness for the poor families who live there. Using the ACCA project to challenge and change unrealistically high building standards which make most new housing unaffordable to the poor. The province-set standard minimum house size of 70 sq. meters was challenged by the people in Cua Nam Ward, who have for 30 years lived in 30 sq. meter houses, and have successfully proposed building their own new 45 sq. mt. rowhouses that are more closely designed to fit their affordability. This people's standard has been recognized and sanctioned by the local government. Using this success to initiate the same process in the other collective housing communities : After winning approval for their community-driven redevelopment plans, the Block 6A community will assist four other communities living in collective housing quarters elsewhere in Vinh City to initiate the same process, in which the communities develop their own rebuilding plan, and then design and build their houses together.

Discussion on too-high building standards : (Somsook) Viet Nam is still centralized, with a proper unified system. When we work in any city in Viet Nam, there is a system in the city where the communities have to link to the ward authority, the ward to the district, the district to the city, the city to the province, etc. It's a system with many tiers and it works very well in Viet Nam. But sometimes there are problems, as when they impose these kinds of standards as we see here in Vinh city, where the policy says that all houses have to be 70 square meters or higher. Suddenly, that standard makes all the poor people's existing houses illegal and makes a good reason to evict them! People might have lived like that for centuries, in their less-than-70sm dwellings, but these kinds of new standards can suddenly create a lot of problems for them. So here in Vinh, the pilot project is showing a new alternative standard, which is also possible, to show the government a new and more realistic possibility and to negotiate with the system to come down a bit with it's too-high standards and be more realistic. SIX PROPOSED NEW CITIES : Ben Tre, Hung Yen, Thai Nguyen, Hai Duong, Ha Tinh and Ca Mau In August and September, 2009, an ACCA-supported survey in seven new cities was undertaken by the communities and the ACCA National Coordinating Unit (NCU), to visit settlements, organize community meetings, gather basic settlement and land tenure information and introduce the savings process and the ACCA program. Community and government representatives from all the wards and communes in these seven cities were then invited to city-level meetings to identify the key problems and needs relating to infrastructure, housing and urban poverty reduction. Any wards and communes who wished to join the ACCA program were welcome. Experienced community leaders from Viet Tri and Vinh have been going to these new cities to help strengthen and network the savings groups and develop small upgrading project proposals. Selection of small ACCA projects : On October 8, 2009, 70 community representatives and savings group leaders from these seven new cities were invited to come together and meet with the national community savings network leaders (plus ACVN and Enda VN) and to set their own criteria for selecting "good" small projects with a "good community process." The small projects in these new cities were selected by an all-community panel consisting of 5 community representatives and two country-level savings leaders. Finally, 21 small projects were chosen to be submitted to ACCA this time. Another 8 projects need more time for preparation (including those in Ca Mau) 1. PROPOSED NEW CITY : Ben Tre Proposed budget : $15,000 (6 small projects) + $3,000 city process support = Total $18,000 The city of Ben Tre is located on the south-western tip of Viet Nam, in the Mekong Delta, on the Tien River, 86 kms from Ho Chi Minh City. The city has a population of 143,312 people, living in 10 urban wards and 6 semirural communes. The survey found that 3,814 households are living in poor housing conditions in 16 areas. Five of these settlements (1,372 households) have extremely insecure land tenure arrangements, with two facing immediate eviction. Like so many other secondary cities in Viet Nam, the city's infrastructure development lags far behind its population growth, so 2,550 of the city's poor households have problems of inadequate drainage and flooding, 655 households have no toilets, and 2,851 households have no access to paved access roads and walkways. The city government in Ben Tre already has a policy of giving back 20% 30% of the cost of small community-improvement projects, as a kind of

rebate, to encourage communities to do such projects themselves. This policy has given the city a head-start on small community upgrading activities. • Proposed Small Projects : (6 projects, varying budgets, total $15,000) as below : Community

Small Project

# households in comm.

# househol ds benefitin g

Budget from ACCA

Budget from communi ty

Budget from others

Total project value

1. Group 8, 9, 10, Block 3 , Ward 5 2. Group 3, 4, 5, Block 3, Ward 4 3. Orphanage village, Block 3, Ward 4. Group 2B, Block 4, Ward 8 5. Group 6 + 7, Block 3, Ward 8 6. Block 1 & and Phu Tan Ward TOTAL

Road construction Electricity lighting Sewers Road construction Sewers Road construction

150 200 40 40 45 300 775

64 87 30 15 28 80 304

3,276 1,794 1,429 1,871 3,000 3,631 15,000

1,404 769 130 802 1,800 8,774 13,679

468 256 156 267 2057 4,962 8,166

4,680 2,563 1,559 2,673 6,857 16,539 34,871

2. PROPOSED NEW CITY : Hung Yen Proposed budget : $15,000 ($3,000 x 5 small projects) + $3,000 city process support = Total $18,000 The northern city of Hung Yen is a small but ancient city with a population of 85,808 people, of which 77% live in the 18 urban wards and the rest live in the 10 semi rural communes. In general, Hung Yen does not have big housing problems, but there are several residential blocks in the city where many of the city's poor households live. In these areas, infrastructure systems are bad and are not being improved, partly because of unclear land-use rights certificates. Some of these residential blocks are owned by staterun companies which have gone bankrupt or been sold off and the workers who live in them - most still very low-income people - have been left to fend for themselves. The survey found 2,950 households living in these housing conditions in 45 scattered situations. Of these, some 255 households are living in seven settlements with insecure land tenure. The survey also found that problems of drainage and water supply were the two main issues in the city's flood-prone poor communities : 2,360 households have no formal water supply, 2,035 households have no proper drainage, 2,450 have no sewers and 185 have no toilets. Proposed Small Projects : (5 x $3,000 = $15,000) to raise roads and install storm drains (in Hamlet 2, Village 2, Quang Chau Commune), to construct drainage lines (in Hamlet 4, Village 2, Quang Chau Ward), to build a community center (in Phan Dinh Phung Block, Minh Khai Ward), and to do two other as-yet-not-decided small projects.

3. PROPOSED NEW CITY : Thai Nguyen Proposed budget : $15,000 ($3,000 x 5 small projects) + $3,000 city process support = Total $18,000 The northern city of Thai Nguyen, with a population of 272.643, is divided into 18 urban wards and 10 semi-rural communes, with about 2,554 poor households living in some 360 poor and run-down housing situations. The survey found seven informal communities (255 households) with insecure land tenure. But many more households have problems of lack of services: 1,962 households without drainage, 1,793 households without sewers and 2,410 households without access roads. Proposed ACCA activities : Besides the five small projects described in the table below, the plans for Thai Nguyen include improving current saving groups with increased ownership of members and networking of saving groups especially in Cam Gia Ward. Community

Small Project

# households

1. Residential Block 6, Tan Thanh Ward 2. Go Che Residential Block, Cao Ngan Commune 3. Residential Block 6, Cam Gia Ward. 4. Thai Ninh II Residential Bloc, Tuc Duyen Ward 5. Residential Block 3, Phuc Ha Commune

community center walkway drainage system community center community center

170 173 100 210 51

ACCA budget

3.000 3.000 3.000 3.000 3.000

Budget from community

9.000 13.700 1.300 9.000 3.000

Budget from other

3.800 2.944

Total project value

12,.000 15.700 4.300 14.800 8,944

4. PROPOSED NEW CITY : Hai Duong

(pronounced "Hi Zung")

Proposed budget : $15,000 ($3,000 x 5 small projects) + $3,000 city process support = Total $18,000 Hai Duong is a "second tier" city on the coast of northern Viet Nam with poor infrastructure, especially in its newly merged communes around the periphery of the city. The city has a population of 210,399 people, of whom 80% live in the 13 urban wards and the rest live in the 6 semi-rural communes. The survey found that about 2,085 households live in poor housing conditions in 36 areas of the city. Two of these communities (with 380 households total) have insecure land tenure. The lack of infrastructure affects the poor in Hai Duong the most: 2,360 households have no formal water supply, 1,915 households have no drainage system and 135 have no access to paved access roads and walkways. Some fishing communities along the coast still live in their boats. •

Small projects (5 x $3,000 = $15,000) Hai Duong is not ready for a big project yet, but it is proposed that the city start out with a round of small projects in 5 communities - projects such as composting toilets for 37 families (in a community of 128 families living in textile worker housing in Block 9, Nguyen Trai Ward) and a community cultural center (in a community of 110 households in the same ward).

5. PROPOSED NEW CITY : Ha Tinh Proposed budget : $15,000 ($3,000 x 5 small projects) + $3,000 city process support = Total $18,000 The city of Ha Tinh, in North Central Viet Nam, has a population of 87,186 people, living in 10 urban wards and 6 semi-rural communes. The city has a high rate of poverty and poor infrastructure. The survey found 12,161 poor households living in 102 slum situations, about 12 of which have insecure land tenure (1,924 households). Water supply and drainage are big problems for the poor in Ha Tinh, with 4,215 households having no formal water supply, and 10,800 having no access to sewers. Proposed ACCA activities (5 x $3,000 = $15,000) Besides the five small projects described in the table below, the plans for Ha Tinh include improving the current saving groups with increased ownership of members and networking of saving groups within each ward and commune. Community

Small projects

Total # househ olds

# benefiting house-holds

1. Nam Phu Village, Thach Trung Commune 2. Dong Giang Village, Thach Dong Commune 3. Block 19, Bac Ha Ward 4. Lien Thanh Village, Thach Ha Commune 5. Trung Dinh Block, Thach Trung Commune

ACCA budget

Budget from community

Total project value

Waste water drainage

120

72

3.000

6.000

9.000

Waste water drainage

89

56

3.000

4.800

7.800

Waste water drainage Waste water drainage

135 195

86 123

3.000 3.000

7.000 7.300

10.000 10.300

Waste water drainage

115

85

3.000

8.000

11.000

6. PROPOSED NEW CITY : Ca Mau Proposed budget : Only $3,000 city process support so far (no small or big projects yet). Ca Mau is a river-side city of 214,457 people in southwestern Viet Nam, with 10 urban wards and 7 semi-rural communes in the wateriest part of the Mekong Delta. Travel to nearby towns is mostly by river. The river running through the center of Ca Mau is lined with slum communities, where people earn their living on the river - as fisher folk or ferry operators. Most people living in these communities have no land use certificates or secure land tenure (5,130 households), and most also have no toilets (1,241 households) or proper water supply (1,702 households) . The wrong and right kind of upgrading : Since 2006, Ca Mau has been part of the "Urban Environmental Planning Program in Viet Nam", which is being funded by the EU. Under this program, settlements along 400 meters of the river (affecting only 125 households) are to be upgraded. But there have been complaints that the project, which is to be expensively built by contractors, focused only on the purely physical aspects of upgrading and there was little public

participation or linking with the local communities. The city's ACCA proposal aims at bringing into the city a more comprehensive kind of community upgrading, in which communities themselves assess their existing situations, survey and map their settlements and develop action plans for upgrading their housing and living conditions in two pilot wards. No small or big projects are being proposed just yet, while the people in Ca Mau work on initiating new savings groups, organizing exchanges and sharing experiences amongst members of city saving group network. Proposed ACCA-supported activities ($3,000 city-process budget) Mapping the current housing status of riverside communities in several riverside wards, setting up new housing savings groups, developing a network of community architects in Ca Mau to help people develop their upgrading plans. One of the ideas behind building a strong community savings and network process in Ca Mau is to enable the communities to negotiate with the large World Bank upgrading project (which was approved in early 2009 by WB and the Central Government of Viet Nam) from a position of greater strength, so that they can get some benefit out of it. Discussion on the process in Viet Nam : Why so many cities are being proposed to ACCA? (Somsook responds) The reason that so many cities are being brought into the national savings and ACCA process is that there is a need for a platform of people-to-people - both within cities and between cities in Viet Nam. If these platforms are there and have a stronger dynamism, the city-to-city dynamic, which is being supported by ACVN, can make this country's stiff, vertical systems softer and more relaxed. So all these cities are going to use the small ACCA projects in order to make this dynamic link between communities - within the city and between cities - stronger and more active. They will start the savings activities at the same time. This new community-to-community platform at local and national levels will probably make the vertical systems in the cities and in the country soften and relax. That's the strategy, and that kind of strategic thinking is the Vietnamese won wars with both the French and the Americans! How do you manage to link all these cities up and down this huge long country and develop a national program like this? (Anh responds) That's why the ACVN and Enda are partners. Enda is based in Ho Chih Minh City, and ACVN is based in Hanoi. Secondly, the ACVN is already an institutionalized linkage of all the cities in Viet Nam, and also linked with the central government. For our part, Enda has expertise in community participation processes and city processes - that's why we are cooperating with each other. Thirdly, because we have divided the country's cities up into 8 cluster groups, as I showed on the slide earlier, the community leaders nearby each other in each cluster can easily travel to visit and meet and support each other, and we plan to eventually have eight coordinators - one to support the communities in savings and credit and training and "marketing the ACCA Program" in each cluster, so that eventually the community networks themselves can provide most of the support for new communities and new cities. Now we just have a small team to work with this project, but we all have skype and skype each other every week! • So far we have 28 cities in the community savings/CDF Network in Viet Nam. • Our aim is to get 100 cities in the network by 2010. Why is the cost-sharing from the local government in the small projects so high? (Anh responds) Local governments often want to show they are doing something for poor communities in their cities, and roads are something that is visible to everybody. That's why they contribute so much more to the road projects. Also, in most Vietnamese cities, rural areas surrounding the city have been brought into the municipal boundaries, but these areas (which comprise a large portion of the urban territory) are still mostly rural, without much infrastructure. So in many cities, the government's action plans put infrastructure development in these rural communes on top of the priority list. In these projects, the money from the city comes to the community directly, and they manage the budgets themselves. There is a long history of this kind of small, local joint ventures between local governments and communities like this in Vietnamese cities - it's not something new. But it used to be that the local government managed the money and the projects and the people would contribute - here in ACCA we're turning this equation around!

7. SRI LANKA • •

(Jaya and Rupa report) (115 Rupees = US$1) 2 cities approved already : Nuwara Eliya and Kalutara 1 new city proposed : Matale

The ACCA process in Sri Lanka has so far begun in two cities, and is being implemented by a working team comprising Women's Bank (now called "Women's Co-Op" which organizes the settlements and starts savings), the Colombo-based NGO Sevanatha (which provides technical support for the surveying and housing process) and the CLAP-net national community revolving loan fund. Since the 2004 tsunami, these three organizations have been working very closely

together to support community driven housing, livelihood and upgrading projects in areas all over Sri Lanka. In the two cities so far, they are working with the local municipal councils, as well as several national government agencies and land-owning bodies. In the cities where they work together, the Women's Co-Op, Sevanatha and Clap-net begin by introducing the ACCA program to the key local stakeholders and local and national government organizations. WB initiates savings in all the settlements right away, and a joint process to survey and map all the communities begins with the community members. When a city-wide slum profile is prepared, the communities and supporters present it to the mayor and council members. This information is used to help jointly select the pilot communities for small upgrading and big housing projects to be supported by ACCA, and Sevanatha and WB then conduct "Action Planning workshops" individually in those selected communities to plan the projects. In Sri Lanka, many of the secondary towns and cities are really quite small, and the number of poor settlements is few, and the problems are really quite solvable. 1. CITY IN PROCESS : Nuwara Eliya The town of Nuwara Eliya, in the central highlands of Sri Lanka, has since the British Colonial times been an important tea-growing area. Today, a great portion of the town's poor are decedents of the Tamil tea plantation workers the British brought over from southern India to work in the large tea estates they set up here. There are 32 poor settlements in the town, with a total population of about 1,251 households. The Women's Bank's support to the savings process in Nuwara Eliya began several years before the ACCA process began, and there are now savings groups in all 32 settlements, with 56 savings groups (in 8 branches) with 576 members and collective savings of 190,000 Rupees ($1,650), and collective loans given so far of 140,000 Rupees ($1,200). Small projects : • Nawagam Goda (113 houses) The idea of also doing a small project at Nawagam Goda was to leverage more money for infrastructure from the Municipal Council, as part of the big project. It's not clear if this has happened, but the construction of access roads and drains in the settlement is completed • Kelegala (59 households) The design for the community sewer line has been completed in the Kelegala Community and work has begun, under the community-contract system. 12 families are also taking loans to construct toilets • Unique View (41 houses) : This community is one of the highest-elevation settlements in the whole country and very difficult to access! Designs have now been completed for access roads and a water supply system in the Unique View Community, and construction work has begun. • Next round of small project plans identified: Bambarakele Estate (access road and drains), Scrubs Estate Line Houses (access road and drains) and Kelegala (retaining wall to stop erosion) Big project : Nawagam Goda (113 households) This project, which was proposed by the Municipal Council since the former Public Works Department laborers who settled here already have secure tenure (individual tenure, allocated in 1998). 40 families (all WB members) with the worst existing housing conditions have been selected for the first round of housing loans from ACCA. Six housing loans have already been given and work on their house reconstruction has begun, according to house plans and cost estimates developed using "a participatory approach." Secure relocation land for another community : In another community, the growing city upgrading process has motivated the Municipal Council to allocate land for relocation for 21 families living in the steeply-sloping Under Banks squatter settlement, on Forest Department land. The alternative land is nearby, within the municipal limits. Some of these families will also get loans from the ACCA big project funds. • How the money works : The funds from ACCA go first to Clapnet, and the Clapnet Steering Committee decides how to allocate the money - and in the ACCA project it is automatically for the proposed communities. Then the money is released to Women's Bank in the city. The borrowers in Nawagam Goda have to follow all the usual WB borrowing and repayment procedures, and pay the usual 18% per year interest. • Housing loan process : (Rupa reports) Before this ACCA city-wide program, the WB didn't have a housing program, but after the tsunami, we got more involved in helping members rebuild their houses, with technical support from Sevanatha. Now the WB membership is going up very fast and WB is more systematically organizing a housing program. But the actual construction of the houses is all done by the households themselves. We have already set up 8 branches in Nuwara Eliya. Each branch opens a special account for housing loans. The ACCA project funds go from Clapnet into this account, and through this account, they release the loans to members. The WB head office visits twice a month, and the national housing committee gives training for house planning and

construction frequently. Only for housing loans, the WB has reduced their standard interest rate to 18% per year. Before giving anybody housing loans, the WB first gives livelihood loans, to help the family initiate some new business and improve their earning, so they can repay their housing loan well. When the loans are repaid, all the principal and interest stays in that branch - it doesn't go to the center.

2. CITY IN PROCESS : Kalutara The small city of Kalutara, on the south-western coast of Sri Lanka (near Colombo), has 15 poor communities, with a total of just 203 households - many of them on government land and most without basic infrastructure or secure land tenure. Before the Women's Bank's support to the savings process in Kalutara began in September 2009, there were no savings groups at all in the town. There are now savings groups in all the communities, with 51 members and collective savings of 14,000 Rupees ($125). • Produced city-wide slum profile : WB and Sevanatha have prepared a very nice small booklet which presents a detailed summary of the city-wide slum survey. Please contact Jaya for a copy. SMALL Projects in Kalutara (6) : The construction work in these six small projects is being done through the "community contract" system, with a number of community members participating in the work. The projects are being jointly managed by the communities, NGO and local authority. The six projects are : • Bosiripura (8 households) community center • Linehouses-North (24 households) toilets • Kottambagaha Watta (47 households) walkway • Bothuwa Watta (40 households) drainage system • Kaluganvila (19 households) drainage system BIG project at the Bothuwa Watta Community (40 households) This is Kalutara's largest slum. The community was chosen to be the ACCA big project in a meeting at the Kalutara Municipal Council, which included municipal officials, Sevanatha, Woman’s Bank and community representatives. Land will be given by the government. 40 of the 140 houses in the settlement will be rebuilt on the same site, as a kind of pilot within the community. Each house will have a floor area of 40 m2 and will cost US$ 2,000 per unit, which will come as a loan from the new city-fund, and will be repaid in five years. House construction will be party collective and partly individual.

3. PROPOSED NEW CITY : Matale Proposed budget : $15,000 ($3,000 x 5 small projects) + $40,000 (big project) + $3,000 city process support = TOTAL $58,000. There are about 708 poor families living in 39 mostly small settlements scattered around this small town, which is also in the central highlands of Sri Lanka. The Women's Bank's has been supporting the setting up of women's community savings groups for several years in Matale, and there are already 39 savings groups (in 8 branches) with 558 members and collective savings of 213,000 Rupees ($1,850), and collective loans given so far of 200,000 Rupees ($1,750).

Small projects (total 5 projects) : Community

Small projects

Total # households

Budget from ACCA

Budget from community

Labor from community

Materials from community

Total value

1. Near Kaludewala Kovil 2. Epitaulla – II 3. Agalawatta 4. Near Mosque 5. Oyapahala

water supply water supply toilets community center walkway

48 33 13 108 21

3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000 3,000

80 80 80 80 80

100 100 100 100 100

120 120 120 120 120

3,300 3,300 3,300 3,300 3,300

Big project at 2nd Land Kaludewala Community (55 households - on-site upgrading) As part of the project, 40 units of single-story detached houses will be built at the estimated cost of US$ 2,000 per house. The community will also contribute another US$ 2,000 in cash per house. The construction will be partly collective and partly individual. Under this project, the land ownership will be “owner permits”.

Discussion about Sri Lanka process : 18% interest rate for housing loans? Too high for the poor! (Lajana protests and Rupa responds) This is the first time the WB has reduced their interest rate! Normally, they charge 2% per month (24% annually) on loans of any sort. We feel the 18% is reasonable for housing loans. Also, women who have been members for more than 10 years can get a subsidy on loans they take, where they pay only 20% annual interest. Why are we so strong on this? We never deposit any of our savings in any commercial banks - if you save some money today, that same money goes in a loan to another member - the money is all circulating within the circle of WB membership. If this member pays 24% interest, the benefit goes to another member, and some day the same benefit will come to everyone. • We give only small, incremental housing loans : Also, we usually give only small loans which enable people to build or improve their houses only incrementally - we don't give big loans to pay for building a full house! Then, when a member pays back the first loan, she can apply to get another slightly larger loan. She might use the first loan to build the foundation, and the next loan to build the columns and roof, and the next to fill in the walls. This system was not started with the ACCA program, but after the tsunami, when WB received a grant from ACHR, which went as seed capital for the revolving funds of the various branches. Over the last few years, these branches in tsunami-affected areas have accumulated a large amount of money, as the housing and livelihood loans - with interest - have been repaid. In this way, the original ACHR grant of 12 million Rupees ($105,000) has now gone up to about 40 million Rupees ($350,000) - all of this money in individual branches. 18% on housing loans to the poor is not sustainable in any way! (Kirtee protests and Rupa responds) In Sri Lanka, there are no housing loans for the urban poor at all! The Housing Authority has collapsed and has no program. That is why the WB is willing to give loans for housing to members. Plus, many of the poor are building their houses not only for living, but for production or for rent. Many rent out a room in their house - in Rupa's settlement, there is a huge demand for decent, inexpensive rental rooms in upgraded settlements, and many families build on an extra room to rent out for 10,000 Rupees ($87) a month, and this rent helps repay the housing loans. Nuwara Eliya is a tourist destination, and many of the families taking ACCA loans, are planning to improve their houses and bathrooms to have rent-paying guests. In Nepal, we also started with very high interest rates (Lajana adds) : When the women's community savings cooperatives started, they also charged very high interest rates - about 25% annually. But later on, in the last ten years, they have reduced the interest - different rates for different loan purposes. For housing loans, the cooperatives now charge 10% or 12%. And for the ACCA Program, we have persuaded the cooperatives to reduce their interest rate on housing to just 5%, and they have agreed. In the Kirtipur housing project in Kathmandu - our first community driven housing relocation project - they also pay only 5% for their housing loans. And in the big project at Salyani, in Bharatpur, the 5% interest is partially used to pay for the logistics cost of the cooperative and community federation - which jointly manage the loan process. No longer afraid of thinking city-wide : (Jaya) In Sri Lanka, when we work with out network, we are no longer afraid to talk about the city scale. Earlier, we were always thinking one or two settlements is sufficient, and that is how we worked. But in Nuwara Eliya, we have found that we can identify all the settlements, with the support of the Municipality, and then, since we have some funds from ACCA and the back-up of the Women's Bank, we can always negotiate with the Municipalities that we are willing to do some work. And what is important in this upgrading process is that initially we are organizing the communities through savings. So when we say city-wide upgrading, after the mapping we have started some kind of upgrading in all the settlements. • So when we moved to the second and third cities, it becomes very easy. Also, all the communities feel we are doing something, and the various kinds of problems these communities face are analyzed and then addressed in city-wide groups - problems like land, access to infrastructure, etc. So our lesson is that we have established a very good system through this process and everyone is happy about it: the communities are happy because nobody has intervened in their settlements before and we have started the savings, and the city is happy because they were not able to do anything in these settlements, and now we are going to do something together, and it is really going to happen. • In some of these small cities, the problems are not too big (in Kalutara, there are only 203 poor households with housing problems!), so if we work together, we can address these issues easily, within two years time! This is something we found through the surveying and mapping process. • Next step moving to national level, as in Cambodia : Our group is now discussing to move gradually to what the Cambodians are doing, with a national level settlement survey, so we have a slum profile for each town, and that will help the city as well as the communities and the Women's Bank to expand this program. • (Somsook) That is the big change that we are seeing happening in many countries: the change from the project-style work, to the city-wide scale approach, with surveys and activities which allow as many communities as possible to link into the process and to decide together. And the city-wide level also allows communities to understand the land situation at a city-scale, and to begin identifying unused public land to negotiate to use for people's housing.

8. MONGOLIA • •

(Enhe reports) (US$1 = 1,420 Tugrik) 7 cities already approved and in process 5 new cities proposed. approved already : Serey Sophoan and Samrong

(Leak Kay reports)

It's worth reminding everyone that with a population of just 2.7 million people, and land totally some 1.5 million square kilometers, Mongolia's problems do not include a shortage of land! But even though their is plenty of land and nobody is being evicted, 60% of the people in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar live in informal and badly-serviced ger areas - named after the traditional felt-lined tents that Mongolia's nomadic herdspeople traditionally lived in and continue to put up on their urban plots. In the provinces and districts around the country, 80 - 100% of the people live in such ger areas. ACCA is so far being implemented in 7 cities and districts, with support from two organizations (the Urban Development Resource Center - UDRC, and the Center for Human Rights and Development - CHRD) 1. Erdenet City (involving 22,000 households, UDRC) 2. Bayanchandmani District (involving 1,093 households, UDRC) 3. Tunkhel Village (involving 980 households, UDRC) 4. Ulaanbaatar, 15th Subdistrict (involving 3,000 households, UDRC) 5. Ulaanbaatar, 5th Subdistrict (involving 678 households, CHRD) 6. Darkhan City (involving 8,000 households, UDRC + CHRD) 7. Ovorkhangai (involving 6,641 households, CHRD) National ACCA committee set up : In June 2009, a national meeting was held in Ulaanbaatar in which savings group leaders, NGO supporters and local government officials gathered to set up a national coordination committee to coordinate the ACCA process in Mongolia. The 16-member committee includes 7 savings group members, 3 NGO representatives, 3 local government reps, 2 donor reps, and one academic. This committee sets up rules and approves all small and big projects to be submitted to the ACCA Program. Big boost for the savings process : The ACCA-supported activities have helped generate renewed interest in the community savings activities. Since the ACCA program began earlier this year, 23 new savings groups have been established after groups heard about the projects other savings groups were undertaking with support from ACCA. Community planning has become a subject on the curriculum of the National Technical University and the Institute of Architecture and Urban Planning, as a result of our work on community upgrading, and one of the UDRC members has become a lecturer at that university. 1. CITY IN PROCESS : Tunkhel Village Tunkhel village, in Mandal District, is located in the beautifully mountainous and forested region of north-central Mongolia, on the railway line to Russia, and it's main industry is timber production. The village has a human population of 980 human households, and a livestock population of 34,587. 100% of the houses in Tunkhel are in unserviced ger areas. The village has plenty of problems: lack of cooperation between people, messy streets with lots of garbage thrown everywhere, lack of playgrounds and street lighting, 60% unemployment (after the government-run timber operations closed down) and a lot of alcoholism. But there are 12 very active savings groups, supported by UDRC. Small projects already completed in Tunkhel Village (total 8 projects) : Savings group name

Benefi ciaries

Eviin khuch

350

Khorshin kholboo Khorshin khishig Khogjil Bat nairamdal Khamtin khuch Itgel Alsiin kharaa TOTAL

Small Project

playground and park on former dump site 45 playground and park and road repair 250 street lighting 80 meeting pavilion on waste site 34 playground and sun bathing area 141 playground 150 street lighting 135 community center, playground and sawdust fuel briquette making 1,185 people

Land ownership

Budget from ACCA

Budget from community

Total project value

community

$2,500

1,100

3,600

community community community community community community community

1,250 2,450 1,400 1,298 1,200 1,600 1,870

521 1,410 337 411 250 1,199 1,303

1,771 3,860 1,737 1,709 1,450 2,799 3,173

$13,568

$5,432

$19,001

Impacts of the small projects : News of the small projects in Tunkhel has spread: authorities and residents in neighboring districts and villages have heard about the participatory upgrading activities and are now asking for help to develop similar projects in their communities. With a small amount of money, local people have done so much to clean up their village, get rid of waste, build playgrounds and recreation areas and put up street lights. The activities of the savings groups have become more broad as more and more villagers join and participate. Villagers are learning how to cooperate with each other through the process of implementing these improvements to their shared living environment. Even children and young people have started taking part in savings group activities. Big project in Tunkhel Village (16 households, reconstruction of old row-houses) In the center of the village, there are many old houses built of timber and clay in the 1950s as dormitories for timber-industry workers. These buildings are now in seriously dilapidated condition. For Tunkhel's big project, a group of families occupying 16 of these adjoining houses (55 people, with a strong savings group) have demolished and completely rebuilt their houses, using mostly timber and all their own labor, according to their own designs. This project is now 80% finished. The local government assisted them throughout - especially with the demolition. • Celebrating World Habitat Day here : On September 23, 2009, we celebrated World Habitat Day at this almost-completed project, with about 100 people from all over the country (including mayors from 10 Mongolian cities and donors and community people) joined this event. As part of the event, the visitors even rolled their sleeves and spent one day helping the people do their construction work, in order to make sure the project is finished before the onset of winter. The event was filmed and broadcast on national TV. 2. CITY IN PROCESS : Erdenet

(supported by UDRC)

The northern copper-mining city of Erdenet, close to the Russian border, is Mongolia's second largest city, with a population of 89,800 in 23,700 households. 60% of this population lives in the ger areas which sprawl across the bare hills all around the city. There are 16 active savings groups in the city, supported by UDRC. Small projects already completed in Erdenet (total 5 projects) : Savings group name

Benefi ciaries

Small Project

Arvidikh Erdene Korshiin nokhorlol Valentina Ireeduin khotkhon TOTAL

98 playground 750 bus stop on main road 42 community recreation area 64 playground 46 garbage bins and sidewalk 1,000 people

Land ownership

Budget from ACCA

Budget from community

Total project value

community community community private private

1,832 2,042 1,972 1,972 1,977 $ 10,500

92 315 602 1,003 783 $ 2,795

1,924 2,357 2,574 2,975 2,760 $ 13,295

Impacts of the small projects : The upgrading activities of the saving groups have influenced neighbors in their areas and pulled more people into the savings groups. Living environments have become more comfortable and community groups are more ready to resolve problems together. By working together, the people reduced costs of these projects and were able to do more with less money. Big project in Erdenet (12 households, new houses and community for single mother-headed families on land given by city government) On that land, people have started to make plans for building a new community, in which there will be no fences between the houses, but a more collective arrangement of houses, playgrounds, cattle places, vegetable gardens and animal husbandry areas, pit latrines, etc. These women call their savings group, Khorshiin Nokhorlol. 3. CITY IN PROCESS : Bayanchandmani District (supported by UDRC) Bayanchandmani is a small livestock-breeding town on the road north from Ulaanbaatar to Erdenet, with a population of 3,797 people, in 1,097 households. The town is experiencing many of the same problems as most of Mongolia: high unemployment (52%) after the state-run factories closed, and 98% of the population living in unserviced ger areas. Small projects already completed in Bayanchandmani (total 5 projects) :

Savings group name

Benefi ciaries

Small Project

Land ownership

Budget from ACCA

Budget from community

Total project value

Ev ey Devshil Khorshiin nunjig Delgerekh Osokh

31 32 28 51 26

Community place Model "see through" fence Redesign community square bio toilets greenhouses, street lighting, community square

community private community private community

2,499 2,443 2,500 2,447 2,447

395 765 2,945 179 179

2,894 3,208 5,448 2,627 2,627

TOTAL

168

$ 12,390

$ 5,244

$ 17,634

people

Impacts of the small projects : As in Tunkhel village, news of the small projects in Tunkhel has spread: authorities and residents in neighboring districts and villages have heard about the participatory upgrading activities and are now asking for help to develop similar projects in their communities. And within Bayanchandmani, the "demanddriven" infrastructure improvements built by the savings group members have become places where local residents meet. Local authorities have admitted that people can work more effectively when they work together in cooperation. Big project in Bayanchandmani (housing repair loans to 40 scattered households) About 70% of the households in Bayanchandmani live in old houses made of wood and clay built 20-25 years ago, many of them badly in need of repair. For the town's big project, a survey was done in the whole town, to find out what kind of housing problems people have and to identify the most needy cases. 40 savings member households were then selected to be given small loans of between $500 and $1,500 to repair their houses, add insulation, replace roofing, etc. The loans will be repaid into a citybased revolving loan fund. FIVE PROPOSED NEW CITIES (proposed by UDRC) Based on requests from community groups and local governments and discussion among National ACCA Coordinating Committee members, the following five new cities/districts are being proposed. All these communities have a majority of their population living in ger areas, with serious problems with housing, water supply, sanitation and living environment. But all these areas also have strong community savings groups and strong local government commitment. Community development activities have already started and the ACCA program will give a boost to these processes. 1. Bulgan Province : The small provincial capitol town of Bulgan Province is 318 kms from Ulaanbaatar and 64 kms from Erdenet. The town has a population of 12,323 people (in 3,264 households), of which 85% live in unserviced ger areas, where there are more land disputes than in other parts of the country. The town's ger area’s toilets and drainage are polluting the town's environment. • Proposed budget : Only $3,000 for city process support so far. 2. Sukhbaatar Province : The provincial capitol town of Sukhbaatar Province is a remote place located in the eastern part of Mongolia. The town has a population is 14,700 people (3,483 households), of which 90% stay in ger areas, where infrastructure and social services are not reaching most. But the town's remoteness makes the cost of essential needs very high. The local communities used to be able to buy good wood to build their houses and fences, but now the cost of wood is too high. But community savings groups have started. • Proposed budget : Only $3,000 for city process support so far. 3. Ulaanbaatar City, Baganuur District : Baganuur District is one of the seven districts which make up Ulaanbaatar City. The population of district is 25,643 people (6,393 households), of which 60% live in four large ger area settlements. Baganuur is the most peripheral district, and there is very high unemployment. Because of this, the community savings groups have focused their lending on income generation activities. Some savings group members have also obtained small housing improvement loans from the UDRC and have upgraded their housing and living environment. The District Administration in Baganuur District has been supportive of the saving group activities and have expressed interest in supporting a district-wide ger area upgrading process. • Proposed budget : Only $3,000 for city process support so far.

4. Khentii Province, Tsenher Mandal District : The big infrastructure like national highways and electricity grids in this small district town, in a beautiful part of the country, is very well developed. But for the 400 households who live in ger areas (1,540 people, representing the entire population of the town!), the lack of all kinds of social and physical infrastructure remains a serious problem. The town continues to attract recent herder family migrants, who can no longer survive as herdspeople. • Proposed budget : Only $3,000 city process support so far. 5. Bayandalai District, South Gobi Province : The population of this small district town, near the border of China, is only 3,100 people (750 households), of which 100% live in ger areas. • Proposed budget : Only $3,000 city process support so far. Discussion on Mongolia process : What kind of concrete support are communities getting from their mayors and local government? (Ruby asks, Enhe answers) In Mongolia, the local governments are still very much dependent on the central government for their finances. Mayors are elected for a term of four years, and because they want to be elected for another four years, most of them want to be seen supporting the people. Maybe the person wants to increase his reputation as a politician, but some also have a good heart and wants to make some real changes in his/her community. Of course that mayor lives in that area, and many are also members of the savings groups. They contribute their money and understand that this is the way to work with the people. When the mayor visits the projects over the weekend, it gives a real boost to people's efforts. And when the mayor tries to help by giving land or maybe coordinating with other projects, these efforts make people feel very happy. In the case of Tunkhel Village, the mayor is working as a community member, together with all the others. When they were constructing the fountain, the mayor was right there helping with the construction.

9. LAO PDR • •

(Tee reports) (US$1 = 8,500 Kip) 1 city approved and in process : Vientiane 1 new city proposed : Muang Khong in Champasak Province

The community savings process in Lao began in October 2002, as a joint venture of ACHR, the National Lao Women's Union, CODI and a local NGO called the Women and Community Empowering Project (WCEP). There are now savings groups in 415 villages and communities, in 16 districts and 5 provinces (out of 18) around the country - most in rural villages, but a growing number in urban slum settlements in cities like Vientiane and Luang Prabang. A new MOU is about to be signed allowing the process to expand to several new provinces. The ACCA Program is adding new tools to this very big, strong community base - especially to help the savings process spread into more urban poor communities.. 1. CITY IN PROCESS : Vientiane (supported by UDRC) Vientiane is the capitol city of Lao PDR, with a population of about half a million people, and about 50 informal communities. A very Asian-style construction and real-estate development boom has gripped the city recently, and the development fever got even hotter when Vientiane was selected to host the 2009 Sea Games and a new urban development scheme was especially drawn up for the city. This scheme called for the selling off of to private developers a lot of government land around the city (especially wetlands and riverside land) where informal communities were located. Several poor communities have already been evicted and relocated to land on the fringe of the city, and many others are feeling the pressure of this redevelopment craze and likely to face eviction in the near future. Good links already with the Faculty of Architecture at the National University of Lao : In April, 2009, Nad and Tee (who are coordinating ACHR's regional community architects support work) started to link with the university in Vientiane - especially with two very active, very idealistic professors in the Architecture Faculty there who have formed a team of about 15 young architects (mostly recent graduates) and are now actively working with informal communities in Vientiane. This group also has an idea to set up a URC under the University umbrella, to do more pilot projects and "action" research in urban planning (maybe also in Luang Prabang, where they have done some research on poor communities in the heritage site, and where they have a link with the Faculty of Architecture in Luang Prabang. Because they set such stiff conditions for heritage preservation, the poor can't afford them and the heritage preservation is leading to eviction!) So this link with the University offers many springboards for other cities, other issues, other people in Lao PDR. Building a back-up system of community architects : Community Architects Training Workshop organized in Vientiane, Lao PDR (September 8-22, 2009) : Nad and Tee's strategy in Lao was not just to do a training for training's sake, but to use the design of the pilot ACCA housing project in Vientiane (at the Nong Duang Thung community, described below) as the subject of a participatory community design

workshop which would create a platform for all the stakeholders in the city to work together and to build a common understanding of the good and bad forces that are shaping the city and affecting the urban poor. These stakeholders included some very experienced community savings groups, the Faculty of Architecture at the University, the Women's Union and the local government. Finally, the workshop, which was named "Understanding Urban Form a Urbanization's Impacts," included 90 students - including 20 Masters students who are already working in various government departments and ministries - who got exposed to an alternative way to work with the people. The workshop was not just for training young architects, but it was also a survey process which the students took active part in. BIG PROJECT : Nong Duang Thong community (84 households - on-site reblocking on government land) Nong Duang Thong is a squatter community in the center of Vientiane, built on government land on the edge of what used to be a very important wetland, which provided a natural drain in the city during the rains. Because this wetland is in the middle of the city and is too valuable to leave alone, the government has been giving it (for sale? for long lease?) to private companies and foreign investors, and it is being filled in and developed very quickly with apartment blocks and commercial developments and infrastructure. Because the neighborhood is so fast developing, Nong Duang Thong has faced many eviction threats. Conditions in the community are not too bad the people have made several improvements, with support from various groups, including community toilets, storm drains, water supply system. The community people have a strong link with the local government, through their sub-district chief, who has been very supportive of the community over the years and helped them resist the eviction attempts. He is now supporting their efforts to regularize their land tenure and redevelop the community. • Savings : So far, Nong Duang Thong is the only community in Vientiane city which has a savings group, and they are being supported by the network of savings groups operating in the four rural districts around Vientiane Province. • Survey, mapping and community information : In April 2009, when Nad and Tee went to Vientiane, they helped the community and the YP/professors group to survey and map the community, and to put all the survey data on posters to put up in a public place, so everyone can understand the situation in the community. • Upgrading plans being developed with help from local YP group : Since being introduced to the Nong Duang Thong community by the local NGO Women and Community’s Empowering Project (WCEP), the YP group in Vientiane has worked with the people to develop a very good community reblocking and upgrading plan. Nad and Tee are acting as big brothers to this new YP group and helping form plans for implementing the upgrading project and set up community task forces to manage different aspects of the construction work. • Reblocking : The community upgrading plans make only very slight adjustments to the existing community layout, to make room for slightly wider access roads within the community. In one area of the community, two very small houses which come in the way of the widened road have to be moved, so the community has adjusted their current layout to make room for a few of those houses to move, to make room for the road widening. • The community is using the redevelopment project to negotiate secure land tenure. They have proposed leasing their land on a 50-year land lease contract from the government, on a nominal rent, and are now clarifying the site boundaries and determining the total land area. There are still more bureaucratic hurdles, but their proposal has been approved at the sub-district level. Somsook adds : The process in Lao PDR over the past eight years has been mostly with community savings, which is now active in five out of the country's 11 provinces. Community savings has been done very intensively in Lao - in some wards and districts now, every single village has a savings group, and in many villages, every single family joins the savings process. So there is some really very serious saving going on in this country! • For most of the rural communities where the savings process is active, housing and land is not a serious problem. But now that this socialist country is opening itself up to the market system, and countries like China are actively starting to grab the land, some communities are beginning to face problems of eviction - especially in the urban areas. The problem is especially bad in Vientiane, where the city is now planning the celebration of it's 450year anniversary and its hosting of the Sea Games. To prepare for these two big events, the local government is trying to dress up the city, and that means eviction for many poor and informal communities. • The community at Nong Duang Thung, which has been selected for the pilot ACCA project, is a very strategic case, because the people there have been able to negotiate with the land-owning agency to get the land and to show that upgrading on the same site is possible. To do this, the community people have been assisted by the local community architects, together with the University. But the community's savings group is the center of the process, and this project is being used partly to mobilize the savings groups around the city to work on the housing issue. • The young professional training course, which was organized by Nad and Tee in Vientiane in September 2009, and involved 90 young architects - what they did was to send all these young people into the communities, to survey all the areas where poor people are living: some have already been evicted and relocated, others are still in their old communities but facing eviction. With all that information that they collected, now we are at the stage where ACCA can intervene - to make some space for the city's poor communities to celebrate 450 years of the city that they built themselves!

2. NEW PROPOSED CITY : Muang Khong District, in Champasak Province Proposed budget : Small projects ($3,000 x 5 = $15,000) + city process support ($3,000) = total $18,000 Muang Khong District, in Champasak Province in southern Lao, is a rural district with a population of 86,505 people, most of them earning their livelihood by fishing and/or farming. Because the landscape of this river delta area has so many rivers and tributaries, many communities are located along the banks of the river, while others are actually on islands within the Mekong River and very difficult to access. So far, 18 villages in this area have started savings groups, with support from the Lao Women's Union, ACHR and the WCEP. These savings groups are now quite strong, with combined saving of more than US$ 80,000, which is mostly circulating among members in loans. The savings network in Muang Khong has their own welfare fund as well, which provides a variety of benefits to their members. •

• •

Water supply problems : Although there is water everywhere in Muang Khong, most of it is so polluted that it shouldn't be used for drinking. But for lack of other options, the villages use the river water, and all experience serious problems of illness - and even sometimes death - from water-born disease. So the small projects the community network are proposing are all artesian wells, which will provide these remote communities with potable drinking water. The cost of each well will be about US$ 90. (see chart below) Small project budgets all given as loans : The community savings network in Muang Khong has decided that all the ACCA funds for making the 141 planned artesian wells (which will serve 683 households) will be given as loans, with no interest, to be repaid within one year to the savings network's central fund. No big project proposed yet.

Village Name

# of households

Total population

Amount of savings (US$)

Number of wells

Budget from ACCA (US$)

Baan Viang Sim Baan Deuy Baan Tha Po Baan Tha Paow Baan Tho La Tee TOTAL

275 130 96 83 99 683

1,640 741 565 636 645 4,227

1,924 3,880 4,222 1,976 1,471 $ 13,880

33 30 25 25 28 141

3,000 (approx.) 3,000 (approx.) 3,000 (approx.) 3,000 (approx.) 3,000 (approx.) $ 15,000

3. NEW PROPOSED CITY : Luang Prabang No ACCA budget proposed yet, but preparations are going on for a proposal soon, and Nad and Tee have been continuing their discussions with the dean of Souphanouving University, Luang Prabang . The beautiful, ancient town of Luang Prabang, with its ancient Buddhist temples and old wooden houses, is nestled in the misty hills of northern Lao PDR. The city was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1995. The listing has done wonders for tourism, which is fast turning one of Asia's last, relatively unspoiled beauties into a kind of Lao Disneyland. The idea of trying to preserve such a beautiful town by bestowing upon it this special status is certainly a well-intended gesture. But the listing has had a dark side for the poor households who live in and around the heritage precinct, and for the city's citizens as a whole, who have found that many aspects of their city's development have been taken out of their hands, and once sacred areas are being made over with tattoo parlors and beer gardens. Vital public facilities like hospitals, schools and public markets in the heritage zone have been converted into shops and boutique hotels, forcing the locals to go far away to see a doctor. And for the 400 poor families who own houses in the heritage zone (50 of which are on the heritage list), many find they are being forced to either expensively restore their houses (which they cannot afford to do) or to leave their neighborhood and sell out to investors and foreigners. Tentative plan for Luang Prabang: City survey with university to understand actual problems

10. PAKISTAN •

(Report drawn from the proposal sent to ACHR) 1 city proposed : Rawalpindi

(US$1 = 84 Pakistan Rupees)

The Orangi Pilot Project (OPP) has always followed a principle of not expanding its work beyond the boundaries of its own city - Karachi. So instead of opening offices in other cities and getting bigger itself, the OPP has replicated its infrastructure delivery model (in which communities themselves build and pay for their own underground sewerage systems in their own lanes, on a self-help basis, the OPP provides technical support and the government does the work of connecting these community-built sewers to the city's trunk sewer system) by helping groups in other cities set up their own organizations, replicate the OPP model themselves and develop in their own way. There are now many OPP partner organizations in cities around Pakistan. The small organization which is making this ACCA Proposal, the Akhter Hameed Khan Memorial Trust (AHKMT), is one of the OPP's partner organizations. The AHKMT has been working for the past ten years in the city of Rawalpindi (which is the sister city to Pakistan's capital city Islamabad), doing the same OPP-style infrastructure in poor communities there. (Younus) 1. NEW PROPOSED CITY : Rawalpindi Approved budget : Special city process budget = total $5,000 (to cover only the first year initially) Rawalpindi is one of the five major cities of Pakistan, with a population of more than 1.6 million people. Although it is right next to the country's more modern capital of Islamabad, Rawalpindi is facing crucial sanitation problems, with open drains and lack of sewers throughout the city. Like other urban areas in Pakistan, high population growth has resulted in uncontrolled urban sprawl, deteriorated environments and shortfalls in the delivery of urban services. As a result, there are huge problems of typhoid, hepatitis and other water-borne diseases, especially in the city's slums. These unhealthy conditions impose high costs on the poor and help to aggravate their poverty. AHKMT has been working on issues of sanitation and solid waste in these marginalized areas of Rawalpindi, by replicating the OPP's self-help sanitation model, in which the local communities bear the cost of constructing primary sewerage lines within their communities. AHKMT supports their efforts by providing free technical assistance in the form of mapping, surveying, leveling and providing cost estimates of primary sewer line construction. Target area : The areas targeted by this proposed project are five large slum communities located within two adjacent union council areas in Rawalpindi (Chak Jalal Din and Lakhan Union Councils). The five settlements have a total of about 3,000 households. The five settlements are Shah Jeevan Colony, Sawan Colony, Sadiq Colony, Ahmedabad and Quaid-i-Azam Colony. Under this project, underground sewerage lines in a total of 36 lanes will be constructed over the next three years, servicing 360 families. Project activities : Developing of Maps and Union Council plan books, identification of streets with open drains, providing cost estimates to 100 streets, conducting meetings in these 100 lanes, identifying line managers from the community members in each lane, making follow-up visits in each lane, providing technical assistance and supervision in the 36 lanes, constructing sewer connections in 360 houses, organizing painting competitions on sanitation in local schools, preparing case study documentation on completed streets. •

No big or small project budgets : No budget for projects ("hardware") in this proposal, because in their OPP-style system, the money for all the physical infrastructure will come from the communities themselves. So they are asking only for support for the team which will facilitate this work.

Total proposed budget : US$ 17,030. The proposed budget will support the monthly salaries of three people (a program manager, a civil engineer and a social organizer) plus office rent and utilities, for a period of three years. • Year 1 : $4,875 • Year 2 : $5,460 • Year 3 : $6,755 • Total : $17,030 (for three years)

11. KOREA •

(Na reports) 1 city in process : Seoul

1. CITY IN PROCESS : Seoul

(Network of Vinyl House Communities) The project in Seoul involves a network of "Vinyl House" squatter communities, which is supported by a local NGO called Asian Bridge. Most vinyl house occupants are poor tenants who have been evicted from housing redevelopment areas but do not have enough money to rent even a single room in low-income residential areas. Vinyl house squatters settle in vacant hillside areas or public open spaces without any land rights or building permits. There are an estimated 48,000 households living in these informal slum communities in Korea, half of them on public land in low-lying and floodprone areas - and all of them under immediate threat of eviction. Only 60% of the houses have toilets, and because the houses in these settlements are built with cheap, flammable materials, there are often fires which burn down whole community. Building a network of vinyl house communities and poor tenants. In the past year, a group of these vinyl house communities have been coming together to meet, to build a network and to use their "group power" to gradually develop their own solutions to their serious housing, land and infrastructure problems. The network meets every month. Some of these vinyl house communities have begun collective savings groups. In Korea, there are lots of micro credit schemes, but community managed savings and credit is something very new. After coming to the ACHR meetings in Bangkok (January 2009), the Philippines (March 2009) and to the Women's Bank's 20 Year Anniversary in Sri Lanka (July 2009), the community leaders from informal settlements in Seoul are very excited.

•

•

A step forward for Korea's vinyl house communities in June 2009 : In June, the Vinyl House dwellers won the right to get their addresses registered formally. One of the problems vinyl house dwellers had always faced was that as squatters, they had no legally-recognized addresses, because of the “illegality” of their occupation of the land, even though they have lived there for ten or twenty years. In 2007, the Jan Di Vinyl House community people filed a class action suit for the right to their legitimate addresses. Finally, on June 18, the Supreme Court handed down a judgment allowing them to register their vinyl house communities as legal addresses. This means that they can now get legal water supply and electricity connections - but they still can't rebuild their houses. To celebrate this breakthrough, a public forum about secure tenure for Korea's vinyl house communities was organized with congressman on 26 June. Savings exposure trip to Thailand and Sri Lanka in July 2009: In early July, a small group of vinyl house community savings leaders (all women!) traveled to Colombo to join the Women's Bank's 20-year celebration (where there were some very emotional meetings with the women savers there), with a stop-over in Bangkok to visit savings groups and community upgrading projects there on the way - hosted by the two community women who'd visited Korea in June 2009.

Small Projects begun so far in Seoul : The small projects planned by the network are being implemented in the five settlements which are so far part of the network (four in Seoul and one in neighboring Gawcheon City, total 307 households). The funds for these small projects will come to communities in the form of a loan to buy the building materials, and the resident will build the improvements together, while increasing their independence and partnerships by paying back the loans in 3 - 5 years. Three small projects are now underway : • • •

Sancheong Village (49 households) Water supply system which connects to all houses (ACCA budget $3,000) Honeybee Village (120 households) Insulating houses for winter, building a community recycling shop (ACCA budget $3,000) Jeon Wan Village (85 households) Construct a small community center (ACCA budget $3,000)

No big project yet : The long-term goal of Asian Bridge is to organize the communities and accumulate enough budget for the residents to acquire or negotiate some communal land so that they can all become legal residents. In the mean time, a budget of US$ 40,000 was proposed to ACCA to seed a revolving fund which would give loans to community members in these vinyl house settlements for housing improvements. The plans and details about how this fund will be developed and managed have not yet been worked out.

Discussion on the Korea Process : How the redevelopment process in Korea works : (Somsook) Korea is one of the countries that makes us have to think a lot. Because this is a very rich country, where there is no problem with the money, but there are very big problems about getting the money to the people. Korea is a country where the building contractors are so good and so powerful that they go to Cambodia and Viet Nam and all over Asia to build real estate projects for Korean investors! Inside Korea, the government has a policy of urban redevelopment, in which every area of the city can be demolished and rebuilt by these big contractors as high-rise blocks with super-highways running between them. When we went to Korea, we saw many very nice old neighborhoods that seem to have nothing at all wrong with them, but even these areas were being bulldozed and turned into higher-priced real estate developments. These condo blocks are not housing for the poor! So the renters who could find places to stay in those old neighborhoods can afford nothing in these redeveloped areas. So it's eviction, but it is eviction under the name of redevelopment. We learned from Professor Ha that the number of tenants in Korea is increasing. • What we proposed to the people in these vinyl house communities is to find a way that they link together as a network, save their money together in a common fund, and negotiate for land. • Public housing is not the best answer : In the past 20 years, poor communities have campaigned for access to subsidized public housing, and some of them got it. But this public housing is managed by the government, and it has the right to give it or not give it, and people have the right to stay in these subsidized apartments, in isolation. So people who used to stay together in lively and interlinked communities are spread out into separate units in different buildings and on different floors. They lose their connections, there is no more community - and they have to pay a high rent also! And this form of housing has become a problem. But now, the government no longer wants to follow a policy of providing subsidized public housing for the poor. So the current government is going back to the old redevelopment model, and some 60 neighborhoods in Seoul - many quite nice old 3-story neighborhoods! are now in the process of being "redeveloped." It's awful and scary stuff. • All this makes for a very high GDP in Korea, but the poor are really suffering, and more and more of them are forced to live in vinyl house squatter communities, where they live in danger of fires and eviction. • When the group of Korean women from the Vinyl House settlements in Seoul came to the Women's Bank event in Sri Lanka in July, they said they had never in their lives seen very poor people having such a lot of money and such a big number of people in their movement as this. And they were struck with the fact that even these very poor people had such a strong role and participated so energetically, and they found it incredible that they have been able to link together into this very big thing. One lady was crying as she spoke, and said she that she used to be very proud of Korea and believe that it was a rich country. But when she visited Thailand and then Sri Lanka where poor people are so important and linked together into something very big - she no longer felt Korea was very rich at all. QUESTION about savings in Korea : (Rupa asks) Are the Vinyl House communities only doing saving, or are they also giving each other loans? And what are your future plans for the savings process? (Rupa asks and Na answers) No, no credit yet. In Korea, it is still "individual" saving, not real genuine community savings, as you practice in Sri Lanka. We are still learning, still getting started. But all the groups are very eager for savings exposure visits to other countries. Maybe next year we can catch up with what you are doing!

12. THAILAND •

(Kanoksak and Somsook report) 2 cities in process : Bang Khen District (in Bangkok) and Chumpae City

ACCA in Thailand: Seeding two city-based and 100% people-managed community development funds : In these two cases from Thailand, community networks in two constituencies (one small city and one district) have proposed to ACCA for support to start city-based funds, in order to resolve the housing and land problems of all the remaining communities in their two constituencies, so that they can truly achieve 100% city-wide secure land and housing. Now Thailand is the rare case in Asia of a country which has been able to get the government to pass a considerable budget for land and housing to CODI, and CODI has for ten years been passing that budget to the communities, to help them survey all the slums and squatter settlements in their constituencies and negotiate for land and then develop their own housing projects. CODI's revolving loan fund gives loans at 4% interest, and the upgrading plans which people develop all by themselves is partly subsidized by CODI's Baan Mankong City-wide Upgrading Program. Today this citywide upgrading process has been developed in 260 cities and towns, and it's done entirely by communities and community networks in all these different cities. We hope this process can become a model for other countries in the region - a model in which the government just lets the work of solving their housing and land problems be planned and implemented by the people themselves - because it is their work, their communities, their lives, their families and their future. But one of the drawbacks of having a special kind of national government organization like CODI, which supports the people's housing and land initiatives on such a wide scale, then communities in each city have no reason to try to build any city-based fund of their own, as so many other Asian cities are now trying to do. And in Thailand, we occasionally have serious problems of the government money running out, or not being added to, when it's needed, since even the CODI fund is dependent on the fickle whims of government politics and fiscal budgets.

So the community networks in these two constituencies felt that it would be important to take the opportunity the new ACCA Program offered to set up their own city-based community development funds, to take care of their own communities' land and housing needs, in ways that are under their control. These two funds - in Chumpae and Bang Khen District - are pilot initiatives in Thailand, in which the people themselves make their own fund at the city level, in order to take care of the rest of the communities which have not yet been covered by CODI's Baan Mankong Upgrading Program. We hope these two pilot funds will spread out and inspire other cities to move in this direction. And we hope that in the future, if the Thai government may be not so friendly or so supportive as they have been of a people-driven housing process, it won't matter. At least people take the opportunity now to start their own process. So that's why these two funds have been proposed. 1. CITY IN PROCESS : Bang Khen District (Bangkok) Bang Khen District is in the center of Bangkok - a district which is intensely developed with housing, commercial areas, universities and major infrastructure and transport arteries criss-crossing the district. There are many poor communities scattered around the district, but the greatest number of them are squatter settlements along the Bang Bua Canal, which runs along the edge of the district. For many years, the 13 slums along this canal have been blamed for causing serious social and environmental problems and been threatened with almost constant eviction. These canal-side communities began by forming a network, surveying and mapping their settlements, starting savings groups and undertaking small environmental improvement projects, Several years later, and after setting district-wide plans with the local authorities and local university to upgrade all the slums in the district, four communities in the network were able to negotiate long-term collective leases to the public land they occupy, upgraded their settlements and built new houses, with support from CODI's Baan Mankong upgrading program. These upgrading projects have become "learning centers" for communities all over Thailand and Asia to visit and learn from. But many other poor communities along the canal - and in other parts of the Bang Khen District - haven't started their development process yet, are having trouble negotiating their land tenure and still face eviction, or cannot get the proper land tenure required to access loans from CODI. Each of these communities have money of their own, in their savings groups, but they hadn't put this money together into a communal fund. As part of this project, we have set up a communal fund in Bang Khen district, to which each community contributes, and which the ACCA funds have added to. And we are now beginning to use this district-wide community development fund to finance upgrading projects in new settlements and to back up their negotiations with various public agencies for land tenure and for help with infrastructure. The fund began with the community network's own combined savings of US$30,000, and when they added the ACCA budget of $30,000, it added up to an initial lending capital in the fund of $60,000. Six communities have been selected for initial projects to be financed by the new district fund, of which three have already started : • Community 1 (name community?) - housing loans (how many? How much $?) • Community 2 (name community?) - housing loans (how many? How much $?) • Community 3 (Bang Bua) - Elderly and disabled shelter (Grant? Loan? How much $?) Loan terms : All this support goes as loans at 4% to the communities (not to individuals). This 4% interest charged by the district includes 2% which goes back into the District Fund, 1% goes into a District-wide welfare fund, and 1% is used to cover operation costs and network activities. In Bang Khen, the communities will then add a 3% margin on top of this 4% when they on-lend to their members, so that individual families will finally pay 7% interest on their loans. The community will use this 3% margin to cover unsteady repayment problems and to pay for their own operations, welfare funds and community activities. The Bang Khen District Community Fund is governed by a committee which includes representatives from three kinds of community networks: the Bang Bua Canal Network, the Bang Khen District Community Network, and the National Community Network. Land negotiations : This is the way they link all the various stakeholders in Bang Khen District to work together with the communities: the police, the army, the universities, the district authority, the Treasury Department (which owns the canal-side community land) etc. Using the fund to back up their land negotiations and their district-wide community upgrading plans : When they did their survey and district analysis in Bang Khen District, the network tried to understand in detail the district's potential and development direction, so they could forecast which communities would face eviction for which upcoming development projects. This analysis allowed them to plan in advance which slum areas need to move to alternative land within the same district, and which slum areas could likely redevelop or reblock in the same place. So they have a comprehensive land and housing plan for all the slums in the district. And they are now in the process negotiating with

all the different land-owning agencies - as a group. Each community is no longer fighting their own fight in isolation, but they are all now part of a giant, district-wide group planning and negotiation process. And now that they have built this District Development Fund, they feel like they have a stronger back-up to these negotiations. Because whether they get the CODI money for upgrading or not, they now have their own fund, and they can start their planned developments right away - no need to wait for the CODI loan funds to be approved and come! They can also start with their own fund, and then negotiate for the CODI loan later on.

2. CITY IN PROCESS : Chumpae Chumpae is a small town in Khon Kaen Province, in northeastern Thailand. Though it is small, the town has its share of the usual urbanization problems: in-migration of poor rural people, rising land prices and housing costs and increasing commercial pressure on urban land - all leading to problems of eviction and lack of affordable housing. The network of poor communities and poor room renters in Chumpae is well organized and works very closely and well with the Municipality and with other stakeholders in the town "as a single working team." The community network's survey found 10 poor communities in Chumpae, with 3,704 households. The process in Chumpae follows a similar pattern to Bang Khen District. In Chumpae, the community network has already upgraded 8 out of these ten communities (391 households), with support from CODI's Baan Mankong Upgrading Program - some on cheaply-purchased private land, some on long-term leased government land, some involving relocation, some happening on the same site. But the network's city-wide survey shows that they still have about 1,000 poor families in the city with housing problems (in the two remaining settlements, plus scattered squatters, and room renters) The network then gathered these remaining 1,000 poor families together to discuss and to see how to find a proper housing solution for everyone. So starting a new city-fund to support the rest of the upgrading in Chumpae : They had a plan to set up a city fund before the ACCA program came along, and the Municipality has already pledged to add some capital (about $60,000) to the community's own $14,000, to start the fund. With the $30,000 seed capital from the ACCA big project funds added to this, their fund is starting with a lending capital of $84,000. How the new fund will be used? For housing loans (65% of the fund capital), for housing improvement loans (7.5%), for education loans (5%) and to subsidize the infrastructure development (5%). The fund will make loans to communities at 4% annual interest (of which 2% goes back into the fund, 1% goes into a city-wide network welfare fund, and 1% covers operation costs and network activities). The new fund's first project : They have now found a new piece of land, and are going to develop a new housing project to accommodate a good number of these families, using the new Chumpae City-wide Community Development Fund, which ACCA is supporting. This will be a land sharing project in (what place? How many families?), in which a portion of the land will be used for developing low-cost housing for the people, and the rest of the land will be developed with for-profit housing, which will be sold off on the market to cross-subsidize the people's housing. All these diverse ways of resolving poor people's housing needs are possible when the city has its own fund. So the community network of Chumpae will implement upgrading for the remaining 1,000 families themselves, using different techniques, and perhaps working together with the CODI Fund - but they can determine the process together, as a team.

PART 6 : Participants who took part in the meeting in Surabaya ACCA / ACHR Committee members : Representatives from core countries active in the program (total 9 countries): • From Philippines : Ms. Ana Oliveros, FDUP NGO in Manila, [email protected] • From Indonesia : Ms. Wardah Hafidz, UPC in Jakarta, [email protected] • From Cambodia : Mr. Somsak Phonphakdee, UPDF Cambodia, [email protected] • From Sri Lanka : Mr. K. A. Jayaratne Sevanatha NGO, Colombo, [email protected] • From Nepal : Ms. Lajana Manandar (Lumanti, Kathmandu), [email protected] • From Viet Nam : Ms. Vu Thi Vinh (ACVN), [email protected] • From Mongolia : Ms. Ekhbayar Tsedendorj (UDRC), [email protected] • From Pakistan : Mr. Muhammad Younus (URC Karachi), [email protected] • From India : Mr. Kirtee Shah (ASAG, Ahmedabad), [email protected] Community leaders • From Philippines : Ms. Ruby Papeleras and Ms. Sonia Cardornigara, Homeless People's Federation Philippines • From Mongolia : Mr. Bayarmemekh Banzragch (Bayanchandmani District Community Savings Network) • From Viet Nam : Mrs. Nguyen Thi An (Viet Tri City community savings network) • From Sri Lanka : Ms. Rupa Manel (Women's Co-Op), [email protected] • From Thailand : Mr. Somchat Ruangjam (Bang Prong Community, Community Builders Network) and Mr. Kanoksak Wipaskanok (Bang Khen District Community Network, Bang Bua Community) • From Indonesia : A big group of leaders from three cities: Surabaya, Jakarta and Makassar 2 senior people from the ACHR network • Fr. Jorge Anzorena (Selavip Foundation and Sophia University, Japan), [email protected] • Mr. Gregor Meerpohl, advisor on community-based urban development, Germany, [email protected] 1 representative from the ACHR secretariat • Ms. Somsook Boonyabancha, [email protected] Observers also attending the meeting : • Mr. Hyowoo Na (Asian Bridge NGO, Seoul Korea), [email protected] • Mr. Hash Vongdara (National Committee for Population and Development - NCPD, Cambodia) • Ms. Le Dieu Anh, new director of ENDA-Viet Nam, [email protected] • Mr. Keisuke Ikegaya ("Keke"), CASE-Japan, Osaka, [email protected] From Indonesia : • Mr. Andrea Fitrianto ("Cakcak"), community architect, UPC, [email protected] • Ms. Maya Anggraini, UPC, [email protected] • Mr. Hendra Budiarto, UPC • Mr. Wawan Some, UPC • Mr. Budi Santoso, UPC • A few representatives from the Jakarta Community Network • A few representatives from the Makassar Community Network • A big group of representatives from the Stren Kali Riverside Community Network in Surabaya From the ACHR Secretariat in Bangkok • Mr. Maurice Leonhardt, [email protected] • Mr. Thomas Kerr, [email protected] • Mr. Chawanad Luansang ("Nad"), [email protected] • Mr. Supawut Boonmahathanakorn ("Tee"), [email protected]