* BULLETIN : 3

Some Notes on a few affiliates.

Ghana savings schemes are spreading throughout the capital city. This is the preliminary report from Rose Molokoane who headed an exchange to Accra a fortnight ago.

The threat of eviction still looms over old Fadama but PD Ghana has begun to engage the Accra Municipal Authority around alternatives.

Uganda. The bureaucracy at city and national level grinds away slowly and the people get frustrated but remain committed to their goals. The toilet construction has been delayed by the insistence of soil samples and the unilateral decision taken by the Kampala City Council to include a totally unrelated NGO in the project and build two instead of one storey building.

The good news, however, is that council has committed funds, in this financial year to purchase land for the construction of 50 housing units. The start of construction is aimed for August but we are used to delays in Kampala and will surprised if this actually comes to pass. This presents us with a problem in regard to donor agreements who had projected development by September. We still hope to meet that deadline but if the bureaucracy slows us down as usual we will try to negotiate an extension.

We are still hamstrung by the lack of a support organization for the emerging Federation and efforts to find suitable partners have not yielded any success. We now have a lead from Pamoja Trust in Nairobi and hope this will yield results.

South Africa. Two public toilets have been constructed in Lamontville, outside Durban – with lots of help from the Kenya Federation. Houses are being built in Inanda and finished in Mossel Bay. uTshani has finally agreed on new loan packages and the board will now begin to approve requests. Subsidy chase is showing some promise in Gauteng and in Mpumalanga. The Jo’burg Federation is conducting a settlement profile of all slums in Jhb and the Cape Town Federation is close to signing a deal with the Cape Town City council to enumerate 12,500 families in seven slums who face imminent relocation and upgrading. The Cape Town Federation has also brokered a partnership with the city in regard to its largest greenfields development on the Vusi Nsuntsha land in Philippi. The Federation and its partners in the umbrella coalition of the Urban Poor will hold a national summit from July 16 to 18, where, inter alia, they will draft a people’s housing policy.

Kenya. Muungano and Pamoja prepare to enumerate the largest slum in Africa – Kibera, with the objective to work with the Government on a pilot relocation programme. The Kenya alliance has gone through a rather tedious strategic review process. The most important outcome, perhaps, was a recognition that this traditional NGO instrument for reflection and planning, was hopelessly inappropriate for people’s organizations. Pamoja’s next challenge around innovation is to develop planning systems that are in line with the Federation’s overall approach.

Sri Lanka. Here is an extract from Murin Fernandez’s (WBDF) latest report.

(1) We work with community of Ibbagewattha which is situated bank of canal. This house holders are squatters and their houses are situated untidy. So they are facing very envirmental problems . When we went to the settlement they explained important problem . Because There is not a drain across the settlement the water which comes from household is flowing through the houses and they face very difficulties in rainy days.

There is the drain around the settlement but the water isn‚t flowing continuously because the culvert has broken down.

While The Women's development Banks federation agreed to construct a new drain across the settlement with Mayor of Colombo M.C., The Mayor promised to reconstruct the culvert in this settlement.

We have achieved above the proposals.

(2) we have planed to build common toilet in Poranuwatta. This land owner is Urban Development Authority. So firstly, We have got permission from UDA last week.

We discussed about this project with chairman of Paliyagoda Town Council and officers and made plan to construct common toilet , will start it next middle of July.

(3) We discussed how to construct and partnership of common toilet with Madurapatiya community, in Municipal council of Kurunegala. They planed to start this project last week of July.

Philippines. The PHPF hosted federations from Africa and Asia on exchanges to coincide with the ADB Gender meeting in Manila. The South Africans were particularly impressed with the systems and procedures that the Filipinos have developed around savings and have asked for direct support.

World Urban Forum. Plans for this event are beginning to take shape. SDI will have speakers on 5 of the 9 panels, will have a display, will give a presentation, and will participate in side events along with Cordaid, ITDG, AGFE and the MDG Task Team on Slum Dwellers.
Exchanges that are due to be arranged.

Late July. SA/India/Kenya to Uganda.
July. Africa groups to SA for N2 Corridor enumeration in Cape Town
July. SDI to support Muungano and Pamoja in the enumeration of Kibera.
July. SA team to Zimbabwe.
July/August. Uganda to India.