POVERTY ATLAS (GHANA): In 2008, for the first time in history, more than half of the world's population lived in urban areas. Of that urban population, almost a third, or 924 million people, live in slums--a 2,500-fold increase from 35 million slum dwellers in 1957.
Image: COURTESY OF CHF INTERNATIONAL
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Economic opportunity has always been a big part of the allure of urban life, yet most cities are at least pockmarked by areas of extreme poverty. Often the scope of the problem eludes government agencies as well as the impoverished communities themselves. Poverty atlases that map the extent of privation have existed for decades as a means to alert urban leaders to areas lacking basic services, such as water, electricity and sanitation. More recently, however, groups are looking to deliver this information beyond bureaucrats, going straight to the residents in an effort to empower them to take charge of devising and implementing long-term solutions to their problems.
Since 2007 nonprofit CHF International has been mapping urban poverty in areas of India and Africa through a program called Slum Communities Achieving Livable Environments with Urban Partners (SCALE-UP) (pdf). "There isn't a lot of granular information on poverty and slums in the cities we're working in," says Brian English, country director of slum upgrading, urbanization and climate change initiatives in India for CHF, which was founded in 1952 as the Foundation for Cooperative Housing to provide affordable homes for low-income families in rural and urban America.
CHF's goal in mapping slums is to provide a more complete picture of why poverty exists in certain areas and how conditions can be improved. For now, SCALE-UP, with the help of about $9 million in funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, focuses on three cities in India—Bangalore, Nagpur and Pune—as well as three in Ghana—its capital Accra and its twin port cities Sekondi and Takoradi. Some mapping work has also begun in Haiti.
Data deficit
There are several reasons why information about slum neighborhoods may be lacking. Often, when a local government designates an area as a slum it has certain obligations to that locale, such as providing access to health care, water and sanitation services. "So until the government is ready to accept their obligations to provide services to these populations they won't collect any details on them or include them in official statistics," English says. "Another way of saying this is policy makers often turn a blind eye to impermanent settlements."
In addition, high-poverty neighborhoods are spreading faster than some cities can track them, particularly if local governments are relying on outdated census information to allocate resources. And government-conducted surveys on poverty in developing countries are often considered crude estimates because the poor's mistrust of authorities skews honest answers, English adds.
Map making
In general, the first stage in creating a poverty atlas is to identify the communities that meet the criteria for being considered a slum and to plug their locations into geographic information system (GIS) software. (Esri's ArcGIS has been used in Ghana, for example.) This enables CHF and its partners to analyze data and query conditions in a particular community. CHF is likewise using satellite imagery and survey-grade handheld GPS devices to ensure the accuracy of its maps. "We've also experimented with open-source platforms like Walking Papers that allow anyone to add detail to maps and upload them to wiki-style, Web-based OpenStreetMap," English says.
CHF's Pune atlas, created with help from local NGO Maharashtra Social Housing and Action League (MASHAL), is one of the organization's most complete projects, with 477 slum neighborhoods identified. CHF has also been able to drill down and perform socioeconomic surveys within 360 of the slums, according to English. Within those, 85,000 households have responded to a questionnaire, representing roughly 430,000 individuals. To get this more detailed information, CHF broke each slum down into clusters of 25 households and asked a volunteer from each one to gather information concerning the people living in their household. For example, households were asked if they had their own toilet, used a public toilet (and whether it was free) or defecated in the open.
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Add CommentSince Texas is known to have a lot of ultra rich people ((R)Perry who is running for president in 2012, for example - a billionaire) because of their mass oil supply.... How many slum areas are in their cities and who are these slums major cultures, ie - maybe black or Hispanic or both (just a guess) and what are these ultra rich people doing to elevate the poverty there?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWest Virginia is probably one of the richest state in coal and natural gas combination, yet it is the second poorest state in the nation (major Irish/Protestant population, but European/Catholic owned businesses and industries) and at the bottom of every bad list in the country. Isn't it somewhat clear what or who causes the poverty and why? England has a strong foothold in India and Africa.... Do you really need to keep trying to figure out what or who causes poverty and how to fix it?
Open your eyes and take a good look and trace the trail a little ways back in history and you may figure out where and how poverty got started and who is its major causer. I do not like to point fingers, but you probably can start at the house of Rothchild in France and the Catholic church. That's where I would start if I was you. We really can learn from our history if we are willing to accept the facts for what they are.
I feel that your analysis of poverty in Africa may be too superficial, former British colonies do have big problems but tend to be richer and more stable than the former colonies of Portugal, Belgium and France (a long term approach to exploitation always beats the short term rape and pillage approach). It is also well known that the richest country in Africa is the former British colony of South Africa. To add to the lack of logic in your argument, Britain has not been under Catholic domination (unlike the other major colonial powers) for many hundreds of years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBritish colonial domination ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAccording to the UN, the two countries with the highest quality of life in the world are Canada and Australia. Both 'victims' of British colonial domination.
I agree with you, "bern1005" and "geojellyroll"; British colonies do dominate and they do have a high quality of life in India, Australia, Canada and Africa, but I have to disagree with you, "bern1005", when you said that "Britain has not been under Catholic domination for many hundreds of years." The Catholic Church still controls all of Europe, greatest majority of South America, Australia and Africa. The British rule South Africa and look at the natives of these British ruled countries; they have the highest poverty level in the world. Learn from your past and use it to better every ones future.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe if you average out quality of life accross all citizens today your statements appear to mean something, but if you only look at the aboriginal populations, those who lived "under" colonization, their quality of life is certainly way below the national average.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this--
Poverty is a direct result of overpopulation. Population always increases as long as resources exist and then overtakes resources. Its a basic rule of nature. Once intelligence develops, we learn to control population. Affluent nations are the ones that did this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAffluent nations will not remain affluent for long, if they discard population control. There is already a tendency towards this. Religion is the evil force demanding uncontrolled population growth. Religion also demands uncontrolled access for illiterate religious immigrants, under the guise of refugees to dilute the power of literacy.
In a democracy, numbers matter, religion is seeking to regain its medieval absolute powers. Islam is a shining example of what religion can accomplish, the rest of the religions seek to follow its example.
What people here and also elsewhere mostly fail to realize (although Adams obviously does) is that 'poverty' in Third World countries is actaly SYSTEMIC. By this I mean that such communities have to live in such conditions in order for 'westerners' and local elites o have their vastly more opulent style of life available to them. In order for Mary in Toronto to go to a shop and buy an affordable dress off the rack, there has to be a labourer making it in Ghana or somewhere else where the labour is cheaper - optimally prison labour or child labour, of course. That labourer (say it's a Ghanaian worker) works 12 hours a day and so can't find time to cook after traveling home on the horrible roads. That means he/she has to have support systems in place when he/she gets home - a wife, daughter, sister, mother, brother, grandmother or any combination of same. These extra people have to be supported by the one labourer. Somtimes a whole extended family of 35 or so people are forced to depend on the earnings of one educated man - as frequently happens in Northern Ghana. The agricultural workers in the country are hardly paid what one would consider to be a living wage and often they support two to five kids (most agric workers are female) and in some cases a husband.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince a Northern lifestyle can't be supported on these kinds of wages, it's necessary that there are folks here living in abject poverty in order for Mary to be able to buy her dress there.
Auntie Adjeley: If they practised birth control,educated themselves, discarded their superstitions and religion they would be in a much better position.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFurther we in the first world (if you believe the world is currently so dividable - a fallacy in my opinion) would then pay appropriate prices for what we buy and goods would have more value.
In Australia, where I live the plight of the aboriginal people is wept over, billions have been spent to improve their plight. No results! Why? They do not want change, they want to live the life of hunter-gatherers. No society can provide mobile schools & hospitals for small wandering tribes. The men rule and treat their women like slaves. All they want from the modern world is sex, drugs & alcohol and they get the dole to pay for it.
Some Homo sapiens appear to be sentient humans, not all are.