Global Report on Human Settlements 2007 - PoA-ISS

Vulnerability, risk and resilience: Towards a conceptual framework
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will provide some relief services and also contribute to
recovery. But their ability to do so depends both upon
national fiscal capacity, as well institutional and technical
capacity. Nevertheless, in many cases the causes of these
problems may lie outside national boundaries – for example,
from political problems such as the settling of political
refugees from Darfur in Chad or Rwandans in Congo. The
issue of refugees also intersects with the issue of security of
tenure because, in many cases, refugees occupy land on a
temporary basis, and often for extended periods of time,
regardless of its legal status.
A similar case is the losses from periodic floods in
Mozambique even though the rivers originate in neighbouring
countries. As noted in Chapter 1, even with major
international assistance, aid levels have never covered the
costs of more than 10 per cent of the losses. This conclusion
suggests that countries, particularly the poorest, will have to
simply absorb these losses and accept that progress in
improving the welfare of their populations will once again be
held back. ‘Living with the floods’, a phrase from the public
debate in Mozambique, reflects this resignation in the face
of the repeated force of nature. 31
As noted earlier, from a macro-economic perspective,
urban safety and security are also private goods that are
consumed by individuals and households. Indeed, there is
growing evidence that safety and security from crime in some
cities and from natural disasters in other cities are major
private priorities for many households. Comparative studies
of the effects of structural adjustment in developing
countries demonstrate that the impacts of macro-economic
change through changes in prices, job opportunities and
public expenditures have enormous cumulative impacts on
urban households, and particularly the poor. A comparative
study of Guayaquil, Manila, Lusaka and Budapest demonstrated
how these impacts increased the vulnerabilities of the
poor by undercutting important household and community
assets, 32 including labour, economic and social infrastructure,
housing, household relations, and social capital at the
community level. As macro-economic conditions deteriorated
and poverty deepened at the community level, urban security
became a high priority for poor households as crime and
violence dramatically increased, from domestic violence to
drug-related crime.
An additional aspect of crime that affects the macroeconomic
level is the issue of corruption, which is addressed
in Chapter 3. Extensive evidence now exists on the impact
of corruption on macro-economic performance. Indices of
corruption developed by Transparency International have
been extended through surveys of individual regions and
countries to assess the impact of perceptions of corruption
on business practices and levels of investment. Business
Environment and Enterprise Performance Surveys are being
conducted by the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development, as well as the World Bank, since 1999 in 27
countries, mostly in Central and Eastern Europe and the
countries of the former Soviet Union. 33 Analytic work in
other regions has advanced as well, with institutions such as
the World Bank hardening its approach to this controversial
issue.
If corruption refers mostly to crime involving public
institutions and officials, another prevalent and growing
criminal phenomenon affecting the macro-economic level is
organized crime, which is discussed in Chapter 3. While it is
difficult to assess the scale and penetration of organized
crime into national economies, there are some areas, such as
the drug trade, where organized crime is a major force. One
study by the United Nations Drug Control Programme
estimated that US$1 billion of illicit capital circulates every
day in the world’s financial institutions. 34
The urban level
The next level of analysis at which urban safety and security
can be assessed is the urban level itself. The essence of the
urban is its relation to context: physical, spatial, environmental,
social, cultural, economic and political. The meaning of
urban safety and security is highly contextual because, while
it is indisputably affected by global and national factors, the
most institutionally meaningful unit of analysis, as well as
arena for action, is the urban region or city.
One of the discourses on urban safety has been the
design of ‘defensible space’ (i.e. how cities and neighbourhoods
can be designed to reduce the factors that contribute
to crime and violence itself). This includes neighbourhood
layouts, the integration of public space with other uses, such
as shopping, in order to increase circulation of people at
various times in the day, or how transit systems can reduce
the isolation of specific transit stops and locations. Extensive
studies have been undertaken in the US and major European
cities on the relation between transit and security. 35 These
issues are discussed in some detail in Chapter 3.
Security of tenure is an interesting case at the urban
level because the occupancy of land is a central fact in the
urban landscape, with implications for poverty, inequality,
human rights and discrimination against specific groups,
including non-enforcement of internationally recognized
rights, as well as national law. The urban context is important
here, as illustrated in Chapter 6, which shows how
various countries have addressed insecurity of tenure and
the safeguarding of human rights. The South Africa case, for
example, shows that formalization may be hard to achieve
even with legislation, and that such formalization can impose
significant costs on the poor. Brazil, too, has made an effort
to enact legislation; but the scale and depth of both urban
poverty and intra-urban inequality inhibits increasing access
to security of tenure. The Indian case is also contradictory,
with rights protected by law and the courts; yet, state and
local government policy is much more politicized and influenced
by political and economic interests, such as the real
estate industry.
As noted earlier in this chapter, vulnerability to disasters
at the urban level is unevenly distributed and reflects
historical settlement patterns, as well as varying degrees of
preparedness and attention given to different classes
of people. It has been observed that the New Orleans
experience demonstrated, to a global audience, visible
discrimination in the immediate responses to the security
needs of African–American, white and Creole residents, in
Urban safety and
security are also
private goods that
are consumed by
individuals and
households
While it is difficult
to assess the scale
and penetration of
organized crime into
national economies,
there are some
areas, such as the
drug trade, where
organized crime is a
major force
One of the
discourses on urban
safety has been the
design of ‘defensible
space’