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UN Volunteers Policy Paper ‘Caring Cities’ Volunteering in Urban Development and the role of the United Nations Volunteer Programme PART II – THE UNITED NATIONS VOLUNTEERS PROGRAMME Thematic view and illustrations PART II – THE UNITED NATIONS VOLUNTEERS PROGRAMME Thematic view and illustrations Page 58 Page 59 project was implemented in the city of Monrovia and surrounding areas and later expanded to other localities in the country. Through businesses that have been established by grants provided by the project, it has provided sustainable livelihood for approximately 9,132 beneficiaries of the program and their families. They have been able to provide food security, healthcare and education for their families. Fifteen NGOs participated in the final phase. The beneficiaries have demonstrated good business acumen and innovations in their trade. One innovative person started with selling dry goods but quickly moved to textile printing. Another young entrepreneur started a soap making business, now he sells to bulk buyers. A further very good example of working with little means is a cutlery-making workshop. This skilled worker runs a pottery business. He makes moulds out of sand or clay for household utensils and pours melted metal recovered from used cans and bottles in that mould. Finally he scours the rough edges of the spoons and pans and sells them. This business also has an environmental component, as it recycles waste by utilizing scrap metal found in the streets as raw material for their products. R -------------------------------------------- Volunteer support to housing provision and inner city renovation – cases from Namibia and Poland ----------------------------------------------- A small team of UN Volunteers – an urban planner, a community worker and a building engineer – worked with Namibia’s Ministry of Local Government and Housing, the National Housing Enterprise and local authorities. They analysed constraints in housing delivery, helped prepare a national shelter strategy, organised implementation of self-help housing at community level, surveyed lands and allocated plots, and gave training in lowcost building. This Namibia Build Together programme won the Best Practices Award at the 1995 Dubai International Conference on Best Practices in Improving the Living Environment. Another award-winning UNVassisted initiative is the Renovation Strategy for the Inner City Area of Szczecin in Poland. Wide public consultation, together with balanced application of social, environmental and commercial criteria, ensures investment is attracted while existing housing is upgraded, additional accommodation provided and an architecturally historic area is preserved. 4.4. The physical domain This domain is the ‘hardcore’ of urban development, and includes housing and the provision of physical infrastructure and engineering-related urban services, such as: transport, water, sewerage, drainage, garbage collection, roads, etc. The urban poor often live in neighbourhoods – such as shanty areas, squatter settlements and slums - which are substantially different from the central areas of cities, and therefore require a specific type of solution for their problems. In a previous section, this paper analysed the community-based approach in urban development, and highlighted the role of mutual, voluntary and self-help processes throughout the developing world. This certainly encompasses the elements of the physical domain, as many low-income urban settlements are literally built entirely, or at least with a large amount of input, from its own residents. Consequently, there is a need to support grassroots communities to carry out these tasks, therefore making the most of UNV’s specific abilities to work with grassroots communities Depending on the circumstances, housing and the other physical elements of urban development are provided by other urban agents. In such cases, UNV may also be of value, through the types of support that it can provide to local authorities, NGOs and to the private sector, as described elsewhere in this publication. UNV has acted widely in the physical domain, e.g. in housing and infrastructure provision and rehabilitation in different countries and regions (see text R and text S below for some examples). In addition to the fact that the physical domain of urban development includes primary human needs (such as housing and water), it acquires further importance due to the frequent incidence of natural disasters in several developing countries. Such disasters mean death or serious injury for those who do not have the proper physical protection. The assistance provided by governments, private agencies (both for-profit and not-for-profit) as well as by the international community has been limited. At the same time, there is a vast array of simple and effective solutions within the reach of low-income communities, which could prevent many disasters. Therefore, it is
UN Volunteers Policy Paper ‘Caring Cities’ Volunteering in Urban Development and the role of the United Nations Volunteer Programme PART II – THE UNITED NATIONS VOLUNTEERS PROGRAMME Thematic view and illustrations PART II – THE UNITED NATIONS VOLUNTEERS PROGRAMME Thematic view and illustrations Page 60 Page 61 imperative to work directly with low-income communities, again highlighting the UNV’s role in such a context. In the case of mitigation of disasters, speed of response is also a crucial attribute – let alone the value of solidarity transmitted via voluntary work to help heal the traumatised group of individuals affected by a given calamity. An example of a UNV project focusing on post-disaster reconstruction – and future mitigation – is the one which entails the setting up of a university volunteer scheme in Nicaragua, presented in text G. Another similar example is a project in Guatemala, with the University of San Carlos, which focuses on disaster prevention. S -------------------------------------------- Volunteer support to urban environment improvement – cases from the Philippines, Indonesia, Fiji and Botswana ----------------------------------------------- UNV and the NGO Megacities enabled National UN Volunteers and local volunteers in the Philippines to share with other urban poor communities of Metro Manila the waste management techniques adopted by KALAHIG, the 400-member Payatas Association of Waste Pickers. Included was a visit to Egypt in which KALAHIG garbage industry workers compared notes with Cairo’s Zabbaleen scavengers and their Environmental Development Programme. The visit galvanised research, innovation transfer, social marketing and above all, an enterprise approach. In Cipinang Besar, Jakarta, Indonesia, a UN Volunteer suggested composting the biodegradable rubbish from the market and public housing. A shed was built from junkyard scrap steel and soon three tons of compost was being produced each month. Unusually for Jakarta, the scheme is run by the community itself, providing work for twelve employees and yielding income from sales to market gardens, shrimp ponds and golf courses. International and National UN Volunteers in Fiji assisted the NGO SPACHEE (South Pacific Action Committee for Human Ecology) with environmental education, primary health care strategies, mobilising local volunteer contributions and networking. With funding from the United Kingdom Government, the pilot project tested participatory approaches to using community-level National UN Volunteers in primary environmental care in low-income urban contexts. UN Volunteers in Botswana had schoolchildren conduct baseline surveys, which exposed poor environmental practices in some of the country’s settlements. A year’s promotional work followed, through the Health Ministry’s Family Welfare Educators, and handbooks were published in Setswana. The result was the contractedout construction of hundreds of latrines within the National T -------------------------------------------- Cultural Heritage Volunteers: cases from Nepal and Uzbekistan ----------------------------------------------- UNV has joined UNESCO and the Co-ordinating Committee on International Voluntary Service to respond to the World Commission on Culture and Development’s call for an enhanced programme of Cultural Heritage Volunteers. This joint on-going project aims to preserve or restore monu- 4.5. The cultural domain The relationship between volunteerism and cultural heritage was elaborated in the first part of this paper. It explains UNV’s attention to this aspect of urban development. In addition to supporting such a relationship as a whole, UNV has specific attributes to reinforce the cultural foundations of communities, and to strengthen their bonds with the surrounding milieu. This is carried out by community motivators and instructors who raise the awareness and understanding of the communities about: (i) their cultural foundations, (ii) the importance of respecting such foundations, (iii) the relationship between the built milieu (i.e. the very neighbourhoods where they live) and culture, and (iv) the importance of preserving the built milieu.
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