South Asia s Growing Urban Divide

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1 South Asia s Growing Urban Divide Presented by: Fazilda Nabeel, Senior Research Fellow Mahbub ul Haq Human Development Centre

2 Outline - Position the urban infrastructural deficit as a key determinant of the urban divide - Various facets of urban inequality, poverty and deprivation and how it restrains human development for the region s urban residents - Policy Imperatives: How to make South Asia s cities develop in a socially just and environmentally sustainable manner for the benefits of urban growth to be equitably distributed.

3 Growing Urban Divide in the context of Infrastructural and Service Deficit Urban divide creates challenges human development outcomes of urban residents. Sheer pace of urbanization and lack of systematic urban planning infrastructural deficit Infrastructural and Service Delivery Deficits constrain people s capabilities urban poverty and deprivation

4 Growing Urban Divide in the context of Infrastructural and Service Deficit Inadequate Urban Infrastructure Urban Violence Urban Poverty and Vulnerability of Youth and Women South Asia's Urban Divide Urban Housing Shortage Inadequate Urban Transport Urban Health and Education Divide Access to Water supply and Sanitation MHHDC, 18 th Sept, 2014 HDSA 2014

5 The Urban Transport Deficit Urban transport instrumental to shaping urban development and urban living Common transport bottlenecks across cities in South Asia include excessive motorization and lack of public transportation and mass transit systems. Quality of transport infrastructure

6 The Urban Transport Deficit India, between 1994 and 2007, public transportation as a mode has experienced a per cent decline in different sized Indian cities. Cities in Pakistan are inclined towards using private transportation as opposed to public and non-motorized forms

7 The Urban Transport Deficit Dhaka - annual motorization growth of 8%, there could be up to half a million cars in Nepal has the lowest road density in South Asia (0.6 kilometres per 1,000 people), about 45 per cent of the road network is unpaved. Sri Lanka, only outlier in the region with a high share of use of public transport in her cities as compared to other cities in South Asia. However, quality and reliability are issues.

8 Water Supply, Sanitation and Solid Waste Management Pakistan: Urban areas as a whole tend to fare much better than their rural counterparts in : - % with access to flush toilets (94 per cent versus 51 per cent in rural areas) - underground drains for sanitation (52 per cent versus 5 per cent in rural areas). - What about the disparity in access to water and sanitation within urban areas? Solid waste in Pakistan is largely unmanaged, with metropolitan governments recovering fewer than 60 per cent of the solid waste generated in the urban centers.

9 India: per cent of the urban population is covered by individual water supply connections, the duration of water supply ranging 1 to 6 hours. - The problem of sanitation is worse, with up to 50 percent of households in cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad not having sewerage connections. - Solid waste collection ranges from per cent in major metropolitan cities in India, but is less than 50 per cent in smaller cities.

10 Bangladesh: - Laggard, in improved access to drinking water and sanitation coverage in urban areas. - Access to improved drinking water sources in urban areas of Bangladesh has declined from 88 per cent in 1990 to 85 per cent in Access to improved sanitation remains low at 55 per cent (2011)

11 Access to Urban Education and Health

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13 Urban Housing Shortage of more than 38 million housing units in the South Asian region, not counting housing in need of repair or replacement. Urban housing shortages in South Asia are hiding behind squatter settlements and higher persons-per-room densities

14 India: urban housing shortage is estimated at nearly million households in The housing backlog in Pakistan was at an estimated 7.57 million units in million of them in urban areas It is estimated that as much as 45 percent population in Urban Sindh and 50 percent in Urban Punjab lives in a one room house. For Bangladesh, housing shortages in urban areas are compounded by the temporary nature of most dwellings. Natural disasters frequent, only 23 per cent of all urban housing is of a permanent nature.

15 Youth, Gender, Poverty and Inequality of Opportunity - South Asia s rising urban youth population, highest proportion compared to other regions. - Interaction between youth and the inequality of opportunity and poverty in cities, coexistence of a large informal economy and urban poverty. - Urban Youth remain unemployed (9.8%) or informally employed, they become vulnerable to the social ills that accompany urban poverty urban violence. - Gender gaps in labour market access (34.1%) for South Asia, Middle East (33.6%), North Africa (27.4%), Latin America and Carribbean (19.9%)

16 Urban Violence - Dynamics between poverty, marginalization and crime. - Urban residents living without access to basic urban services are more vulnerable to being affected by, and more importantly, contributing to urban violence. - In the absence of government provision of public services in a large part of the city, parallel structures of authority and security emerge Mastaans in Dhaka.

17 Policy Imperatives a) Improving Access to Urban Transport: -Demand management in addition to overcoming the chronic underinvestment in public transportation sector -India 2006 National Urban Transport Policy (NUTP). Cities that wish to access funds from the Government s US$20 million scheme for upgrading urban infrastructure, JnNURM, must comply with standards set out in the NUTP, such as equitable allocation of road space, prioritizing the use of public transport and integrating land use and transport planning. (Ahmedabad) -However, the implementation of BRT systems must be undertaken after careful cost benefit analysis

18 b)leveraging non-government organizations, public private partnerships, and community participation to improve access to improved water, sanitation and better solid waste management. - In India an NGO called Next Drop has introduced a Smart Grid solution that leverages mobile technology to collect and share water delivery information with urban residents and water utilities. - Bangalore experimenting with using slum dwellers as waste pickers - Lahore, recently outsourced solid waste management to two Turkish companies, now in charge of waste collection,

19 c) Improving Access to Affordable Urban Housing: - Efficient land administration and expanding housing finance to low-income groups which are most likely to resort to living in informal housing units and slums. - Successful slum development projects in South Asia have typically leveraged partnerships with non- governmental organizations and the affected communities (OPP). - Collection of reliable quantitative data on housing status.

20 Conclusion Most urban polices restricted in their approach Necessary vs Sufficient conditions More infrastructure vs sustainable infrastructure for bridging the urban divide