When SDI delegates from Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa visited Uganda in the beginning of February it was to help consolidate the process of profiling and federation building that has been underway there since 2002. Another goal was to meet with Cities Alliance in order to explain our process and work with them and government officials to develop a ... read more
One of the key challenges of urban poverty is to find people-driven solutions to housing finance. An innovation of many federations in the SDI network has been to develop what are known as “urban poor funds.” All federations in the alliance practice daily savings as a means for community organization. These savings can often be used for various kinds ... read more
This week, SDI delegates are traveling through Uganda with members of the Cities Alliance secretariat to meet with Uganda Slum Dwellers Federation-organized communities, ACTogether, an NGO supporting the activities of the USDF, and officials from all levels of government. This is part of a project facilitated through the new Cities Alliance “Land, Services, and Citizenship” program that is focusing ... read more
Summary. The Urban Poor Fund International (UPF-International) is a self-governed, self-managed, ongoing and expanding financial facility that provides capital to member national urban poor funds, who are members of Slum Dwellers International (SDI). They in turn provide capital to savings federations undertaking important urban improvement and housing projects.
The Fund's principal goals and objectives. The Fund is established on the proposition that the poor are central actors in urban development and poverty eradication and are best able to decide and co-manage their own urban improvement programs. Giving the poor direct control of capital enables them to negotiate as an acknowledged potential partner with formal bodies such as government and banks.
The autonomy of SDI affiliates will be enhanced by the liquidity and cash availability of UPF-International and its national subsidiaries.
Different federations will have different expectations of capital recovery, so in the aggregate, the Fund will make net cash outflows. These must be matched by inflows from donors to UPF-International. To assure this, the Fund will manage itself via a capital allocation strategy whereby the mix of distributions will be adjusted based on repayment results and available ongoing inflows.
Recovery of capital/ cash will flow from fund recipients back to UPF-national entities and be maintained there, not be expatriated back to UPF-International. This is to ensure that the national federations have enough capital to leverage resources from local, provincial or national Governments. It also eliminates international currency challenges. The end result will be an increasing number of UPF-national funds that are autonomous and self-sustaining (with top-up inflows).
Development of the Fund. From 2001 to October 2007, SDI had been operating small capital funds through bilateral donations from private foundations (principally Misereor, Cordaid, the Big Lottery, Allachy Trust and Sigrid Rausing Trust). Capital through-flow from SDI to its national affiliates during this period exceeded $5,000,000.
In October 2007 the Fund was seeded with a further US$5,000,000 capital grant from the Gates Foundation, and an accompanying US$5,000,000 grant to expand the secretariat and to provide assistance to Fund recipients.
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