Originally published on News from Bangladesh on 5 September
Chinese government recently took a bold step to
help people who had no jobs and thus were forced to migrate to Beijing in
search of work. These people were scattered and they had to live in poor
conditions. The government built 500 public multi-storied housing units for
them. For construction of these slum housing units, the government utilized
used and hard recycled materials.
The government also facilitated service access
to these people. Currently, education is provided to the slum children by
several university and college students. The slum people therefore have their
own educational facilities inside the area. Other vocational training
institutions also ensured presence in these slums and started providing labour
skills to the slum dwellers. As an incentive, the government pays a significant
amount of money and provides achievement certificate to both the trainers and
students. This came as big encouragement for volunteer mentors and teachers.
Interestingly, these housing units do not have
any power connection directly from a supply source; they have solar panels
installed instead. There are well managed grocery shops and food markets in the
community along with other small businesses as part of income generating
activities. For the security of the community there are community guards who
are selected from the people of the community. To address the needs of health
and medical conditions, surveys are conducted every month. The government monitors
thoroughly any sicknesses that spread in the community and also provide medical
services when needed.
The government also has its officials to
monitor the activities of the area and report to higher authorities for
promoting policies and actions. An interesting fact is that these people are
provided with training concerning micro insurance and micro-finance. Few banks already
stepped forward to provide loans at low interest rate. In addition to that, public
and private bank volunteers visit the place and teach people the concept of
business, management and savings.
An amazing thing about this effort is that the
government and people are directly linked and thus there are no middlemen or
opportunists who can take advantage of the poor or exploit them. All things of
the community are owned by the state; people living there are able to lease the
housing for a period of 50 years. When the economic conditions of the
households improve, they will have to provide tax to the government, which would
then be allocated for spending for the development of the slum.
Bangladesh could very easily follow this model.
Bangladesh has plenty of unexploited resources that could be used and recycled
for income generating purpose and employment, which would ultimately lead to
improving the conditions of the urban slums and the people living there.
Huge number of people lives in urban slums in
Bangladesh. The government through proper planning could use them for mutual
benefit. The large manpower from these slums could be used to maintain several
areas which would improve the environment quality as well as living standard of
the areas. The government can select some of the land it owns and resettle the
dwellers in a planned way and at the same time engage them to make the roads,
houses and establish small non-formal industries and innovative recycling
plants among others. These dwellers could also be used for cleaning roads,
maintaining open spaces and parks, gardening at the road sides. This would
fulfill performing civic activities in one hand, and generate employment on the
other.
The development agencies could take initiative
to provide cash and kind ration or wages to these people and employ them for
maintenance work and cleaning works they perform, instead of providing onetime
cash support, which hardly lasts for some time. This would also allow those
employed to save from the wage they receive. They can afterwards go back to
their village and invest this money for further income generating.
It is time that Bangladesh takes innovative
decisions rather than evicting them and utilizes the underutilized resources it
has in its slums. Why not make the maximum out of the resources present at the
moment? And considering slum dwellers as human resources is not a new concept.
Wasim
Subhan Choudhury
-works
as a risk analyst for a London based risk assessment company and contributes to
several research institutes and investment firms in the US as a freelancer.
subhan.c@gmail.com
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