Metropolitan Governance and Urban Poverty

Nick DevasInternational Development DepartmentSchool of Public PolicyUniversity of Birmingham

Abstract

In the design of urban governance structures, there is an

inherent tension between ‘scale’ and ‘voice’. Both aspects are

important considerations if city government is to address the

needs of the poor. Metropolitan-scale government offers the

potential for resources (notably finance but also land,

natural resources and skills) to be mobilised from across the

city to provide services and infrastructure for all, including

the poor. But the metropolitan scale can also mean remoteness

of decision-makers from citizens and hence weakened citizen

‘voice’, especially of the poor. This article explores this

tension, using material from recent research on urban

governance and poverty in ten cities in Asia, Africa and Latin

America. The analysis covers issues of jurisdiction

boundaries, responsibilities for services and infrastructure,

resource bases and mobilisation, performance in service

delivery and access to services, political representation and

accountability, and mechanisms of citizen participation. The

conclusion is that the tension between scale and voice may be

1

best addressed by a two-tier or multi-tier structure involving

both a very local level, with statutory rights and a share of

resources, accessible and accountable to the poor, together

with an upper level, also democratically accountable, covering

the whole metropolitan area.

2

Metropolitan Governance and Urban Poverty

Poverty and governance are both issues at the forefront of the

international agenda. Poverty can no longer be regarded as

primarily a rural phenomenon: the rapid growth of cities means

that the proportion of the world’s poor who live in cities is

increasing rapidly (Satterthwaite 1997; Haddad et al, 1999).

As a result, increased attention is being paid to issues of

urban poverty. There is also wide recognition of the

connections between poverty and governance at all levels

(UNDP, 2000; World Bank, 2000 and 2003).

The structure and processes of city governance have important

implications for whether and how urban poverty is addressed.

In the case of metropolitan governance, the debate about

structural reform has tended to focus on technical issues of

planning, infrastructure development and service delivery. But

there are important issues about the impact of the structure

of metropolitan governance on those living in poverty, and how

political processes may include or exclude the urban poor. In

this article, we will examine a number of these issues, and

identify some implications for metropolitan governance and its

reform. The material is based on a study of urban governance

and poverty conducted between 1998 and 2001 in ten cities –

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most of them metropolitan in scale – in Asia, Africa and Latin

America.1

The Tension between Scale and Voice in Metropolitan Governance

In the design of urban governance structures, there is an

inherent tension between ‘scale’ and ‘voice’. On the one hand,

scale provides the potential for resources – not just

financial but also access to land and skills – to enable

living space, infrastructure and services to be delivered to

all. On the other hand, greater organisational scale can mean

remoteness of decision-makers from citizens and hence weakened

citizen ‘voice’. For the poor, these are both critical issues,

since they are the ones most likely to be marginalized by

inadequate service provision and by lack of voice in relation

to decisions that affect them. This tension is likely to be

amplified with city size and is therefore an important

consideration in the design of the structures of metropolitan

governance.

This tension has long been recognised – for example in the re-

design of British local government in the 1970s (Redcliffe-

Maud, 1969), and in the debate over community control in the

UK (Atkinson, 1994) and the USA (Feinstein and Feinstein,

4

1976; Box, 1998). It is reflected in the contrast between the

anglo-saxon model of large local governments, with its

emphasis on economies of scale in service delivery, and the

continental European model of community-based local

governments, with the emphasis on local voice and

representation. Within the UK, the remoteness of large local

governments is often seen as one of the reasons for low voter

turnout (Rallings and Thrasher, 1997, p.54). Cities like

Birmingham have begun to experiment with decentralisation of

services to local offices and devolution of (limited)

decision-making to area committees (Davis and Daly, 2004),

while other initiatives in Britain such as New Deal for

Communities have sought to bring decision-making on local

issues closer to citizens (Shaw and Davidson, 2002).

The demand by local communities for recognition was at the

heart of post-1989 reform of local governance in central and

eastern Europe, resulting in the proliferation of small local

government units (Coulson, 1995). Similar concerns have

underlain the growth of municipal government units in Latin

America, and the unwillingness of municipalities to amalgamate

to create more “viable” units (Nickson, 1995). The tension

between scale and voice has also been noted in discussions

5

about decentralisation and local government reform in the

developing world (Olowu and Wunsch, 2004 p.12; Olowu, 2003,

p.48; Davey, 1996).

There is, of course, no automatic relationship between

jurisdiction size and either citizen voice or effectiveness of

service provision. Newton (1982) provides evidence to contest

the common assumption that larger jurisdictions are less

efficient as well as less democratic than smaller ones.

Furthermore, there are other ways in which the issues of scale

and voice can be addressed. For example, small jurisdictions

can develop co-operative arrangements for service delivery, or

can contract out service delivery to others; and large

jurisdictions can develop specific mechanisms for citizen

participation and engagement.

A common resolution of the tension between scale and voice is

to adopt a two-tier system, to gain scale economies at the

upper (metropolitan or county/district) level while retaining

proximity and voice at the lower (municipality or commune)

level. For large cities, the two-tier model offers the

potential for proximity to citizens at the lower level while

providing for planning, bulk infrastructure provision and

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resource mobilisation at the upper level. But there remain

questions about the relative powers and resources of each

level, the relationship between the levels, and how far the

interests of the poor are represented and addressed – in

practice as well as in principle – at each level. Any plan for

the restructuring of metropolitan governance needs to consider

the impact on the poor and to build in appropriate safeguards.

In following sections, we will consider the various mechanisms

through which the poor may be affected – positively or

adversely – by the structures of metropolitan governance. We

will draw on examples from our city case studies and

elsewhere.

City jurisdictions and boundaries

The first and most obvious issue is the impact of city

boundaries. In many cities, in both the North and the South,

boundaries have not kept pace with the growth of urban

settlements (Meligrana, 2004; Davey, 1996; Nickson, 1995). As

a result, much of the population growth takes place within

adjoining rural areas, villages and small towns. In developed

countries, it is mainly the better off who move to suburbs

beyond the city boundary, but in the developing world, it is

7

generally the poor who are forced to locate on cheap land on

the periphery. Few cities have significant amounts of

undeveloped land within their boundaries on which to

accommodate the growing urban poor population, or to relocate

space-extensive land uses, thereby freeing up sites closer to

the centre for the urban poor (assuming that there is any

political will to do either of these things).

Local governments on the urban periphery generally lack the

resources to provide the infrastructure and services needed to

accommodate the poor. A typical case is Ahmedabad, where the

urban periphery is divided between 163 village, town and

municipal councils, together with a number of special purpose

agencies. The capacity of these local governments to address

the needs of the poor is very limited indeed. ‘The result is

an uncertain patchwork of provision, or no provision at all’

(Dutta with Batley, 1999, p72). A similar situation applies in

Bangalore (Benjamin and Bhuvaneswari, 1999).

Other metropolitan areas in our study, such as Cebu, Santiago

and Recife, are divided into a number of municipalities

without any higher tier of government responsible for the

metropolis as a whole. In such situations, the core

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municipality (Cebu City, Recife Municipality) accommodates

only a proportion of the metropolitan population (less than

half in both cases) while accounting for a large proportion of

the economic – and hence fiscal – base of the metropolis

(Etemadi, 1999; Melo, 2001). In the case of Santiago, the

metropolitan area is divided into 34 communas, with the poor

concentrated in certain areas. There is a ten-fold difference

in revenues per capita between the richest and poorest

communas in the city (Dockemdorff et al, 2000, p182).

Johannesburg provides a particularly interesting case. Under

apartheid, greater Johannesburg was divided into 13 racially

segregated jurisdictions with vast differences in autonomy,

political legitimacy, fiscal resources and management

capacity. One consequence of the apartheid system was to

oblige the poor to live in locations remote from their

employment and with inadequate services. Following the ending

of apartheid, the 13 jurisdictions were amalgamated into four

local councils under the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan

Council (GJMC). The effect was unsatisfactory, with bizarrely

shaped jurisdictions and political resistance to transfers of

resources between the local councils (Beall et al, 1999).2

Consequently, from 2001, the lower level was abolished,

9

leaving a unitary authority for some 3 million people. Whilst

this has brought about the objective, long cherished by the

ruling African National Congress, of ‘one city, one tax base’,

it has made for a huge institution, raising questions about

distance from the electorate.3 It has also involved a long,

painful and expensive succession of reorganisations (Beall et

al, 1999). [The issues concerning the restructuring of

Johannesburg are examined in more detail by Cameron elsewhere

in this volume.]

Responsibilities for infrastructure provision and service

delivery

If city governments are to have a role in addressing poverty,

they need to have at least some responsibility for those

services and infrastructures on which the poor depend. Yet in

many countries until recently, local governments have been

progressively marginalised, whether because of poor

performance by local government, or as a result of conflicts

between local government and central or state government (or

both). Powers and responsibilities have often been

centralised, as in the case of Mombasa, or transferred to

parastatal agencies, as in Bangalore. Either way, removing key

functions from local level decision-making risks weakening

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whatever influence the urban poor may have on the services

that affect them.

It is common for public utilities like water and electricity

to come under the control of national agencies (or privatised

companies) rather than local government. There may be valid

economic and efficiency arguments for this, although in

practice the vaunted benefits are often not realised. But it

does mean that city governments have reduced leverage to

ensure that services are provided to poor residents. In

Johannesburg, funding for housing and urban infrastructure –

arguably the most significant investment flow for the urban

poor – is through the provincial rather than the city

government.

In the case of Bangalore, and many other cities in India,

there has been a long history of removing municipal functions

to special-purpose agencies under state control. For example,

planning and urban development is the responsibility of the

Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), a state agency. Such

agencies could be seen as a form of metropolitan government,

but without local accountability. The BDA, for example, is

controlled by a board of 23, only two of whom are elected

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members of the municipal government. BDA’s main concern is to

generate surpluses, which it does through commercial and high-

income residential developments, pre-empting land which might

otherwise be used to accommodate low-income groups. This lack

of accountability to the voters of the city has allowed BDA to

impose policies and ‘master plans’ that effectively exclude

the poor majority of the population (Benjamin and

Bhuvaneswari, 2001). Similarly, the Karnataka Slum Clearance

Board, which has responsibility for addressing the problems of

slum housing in Bangalore, has limited accountability to the

elected representatives of that city, and appears to have

delivered virtually nothing of benefit for Bangalore’s poor

residents. Benjamin (2000, p54) observes that, compared to the

access which the poor have to the municipal corporation

through their elected councillors, state agencies and

development authorities are more accessible to middle and

upper income groups.

In practice, the erosion of municipal government functions

often has more to do with conflicts over political power than

attempts to find solutions to technical and accountability

problems. In India, the 74th amendment to the constitution was

an attempt to curb the usurping of municipal powers by state

12

governments. Elsewhere (Mombasa, Kumasi – and many other

places), claims about limited capacity and weak performance by

municipal governments have provided the justification for

central governments to withhold powers from city governments.

However, this often has as much to do with the way that

central government interacts with city government, and

centre’s failure to address underlying issues (such as the

inadequate revenue raising powers of local government,

unfunded mandates and public service remuneration) as it does

with performance of the city government itself. The

implication for urban governance reform is that the capacity

1 The cities concerned were: Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Visakhaptnam inIndia, Colombo (Sri Lanka), Cebu (Philippines), Mombasa (Kenya), Johannesburg (South Africa), Kumasi (Ghana), Santiago (Chile), Recife(Brazil). This study was undertaken by an international team, including city-based researchers, led by the International Development Department at the University of Birmingham. The study wasfunded by the UK’s Department for International Development under itsESCOR programme. The views expressed in this article are those of theauthor and do not necessarily represent the views of DFID. The results have been published in: Devas, N (2004) Urban Governance, Voice and Poverty in the Developing World, Earthscan, London.

2 The redefined lower tier councils combined former black and white local authorities; in reality, the demarcation of the lower tier councils had as much to do with the ANC’s prospects for winning control of all the councils as with either resource redistribution orefficient service delivery. Another reason for the subsequent abolition of the lower tier councils was the inability of the metropolitan authority to achieve integrated land use planning because of the resistance of the lower councils to the location of low-income housing. (I am indebted to Robert Cameron for drawing my attention to these two points.)

3 Greater Johannesburg has subsequently been divided into 11 regions,but these are only administrative sub-divisions, not elected or decision-making bodies.

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of city government needs strengthening – which may involving

creating a democratically accountable metropolitan tier –

rather than removing responsibilities to institutions that are

less accountable to citizens, especially the poor.

Resource bases, revenue capacity and revenue mobilisation

A key argument in favour of metropolitan-wide government is

the ability to redistribute resources (primarily financial but

also human resources, land and in some cases natural resources

such as water) across the metropolitan area. A city’s tax base

is invariably concentrated in certain localities – usually the

centre but also in affluent suburbs. Under apartheid,

commercial centres in Johannesburg were all located within the

‘white’ local authorities, leaving the ‘black’ local

authorities with minimal revenue bases. But even when the 13

existing local authorities were restructured into four,

combining rich neighbourhoods with poor, there remained

substantial differences in resource capacity between those

four local councils. Attempts to even out those differences

were met with huge political opposition, including a prolonged

tax-boycott by the residents of the wealthy suburb of Sandton.

In the end, and leading up to the abolition of the four local

14

councils, the city simply consolidated the whole budget under

the metropolitan council (GJMC).

That avenue is not open in other large cities like Santiago,

Recife or Cebu where there is no metropolitan tier of

government. As result, substantial differences in revenues per

capita remain between municipalities within the metropolitan

area. In the absence of an effective system of equalising

transfers from the central government, these differences

become self-reinforcing, as businesses and high-income

residents consolidate in the more affluent municipalities.4 The

poorer municipalities then lack the resources to expand

infrastructure or even to maintain services at the same level

as their richer neighbours, resulting in a downward spiral of

poor services and low revenues. All this reinforces

inequalities across the city.

Of course, much of the problem is the result of the poor

performance by many municipal governments in collecting their 4

? In principle, central government transfers can be used to equalise resource capacity between jurisdictions. However, in developing countries there are rarely sufficient funds to equalise the vast disparities in resource bases between areas. This is all the more so within metropolitan areas, since the richest municipalities within large cities are usually the richest municipalities in the country. Thus, any equalising grants are likely to be exhausted in addressing the huge urban-rural differences, without doing anything about differences between jurisdictions within the metropolitan areas.

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revenues and managing their finances. In principle, larger,

metropolitan authorities will be in a position to employ

better qualified staff and develop better systems. However,

there is no necessary correlation between size and

performance: indeed, in Kenya, it is the largest places –

Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu – that seem to be the worst

performers.

Another area where size should offer an advantage is in

generating resources for capital investment, for example

accessing the capital market. In India, some of the largest

cities have been able issue municipal bonds to finance needed

infrastructure. The credit-rating process required for

municipal bonds, although costly, has induced substantial

improvements in municipal financial performance in those

places seeking bond finance. However, here again, size is not

everything: within Kenya, the capital city, Nairobi, has by

far the greatest level of un-payable debts of any Kenyan local

government (Government of Kenya, 2001 p.11).

Performance in service delivery and access to services

A critical issue for the urban poor is the ability of the

municipal authorities to extend basic services to the areas

16

where they live. Another is the maintenance of those services

so that they actually deliver what is required – taps that

produce clean water 24 hours a day, a waste collection service

that actually removes the waste, markets and public toilets

that are clean enough to use. Here again, the tension between

scale and voice becomes apparent. Only large municipal or

metropolitan governments are likely to have the resources –

financial and technical – to implement large-scale water

supplies systems and treatment plants, or have access to

suitable sites to dispose of waste. But the larger the

authority, the more distant are those making and implementing

decisions about services from the clients of those services –

unless specific mechanisms are adopted to ensure

responsiveness and accountability. By contrast, community-

employed waste collectors and water vendors are likely to be

more responsive and accountable because of the close

relationship between service users and providers. This applies

as much in poor neighbourhoods as rich ones – perhaps more so.

On the other hand, community-based services are of no value

without the supporting bulk systems (waste disposal

facilities, water treatment plants, primary drainage channels)

that only metropolitan or municipal government can provide.

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Nickson (1995, p.34) notes, in relation to Latin America, that

“The absence of a metropolitan government has led to lack of

co-ordination, rivalry and duplication in service provision

between municipalities within large conurbations.” The major

claim for metropolitan-scale government is that this offers

the potential for planning and co-ordinating infrastructure

such as transportation and water reticulation across the

metropolis. This includes making the best use of available

land. Land is needed not just for obvious purposes like

housing, industry and commerce but also for land-extensive

uses such as waste disposal, sewage treatment and drainage of

storm-water. But unless there are mechanisms to ensure that

the metropolitan government is responsive to the poor, then

poor people’s need for land – for both housing and economic

activities – may not feature in the priorities of the

authority.

In practice, in most developing country cities, the poor are

forced either to the periphery or to extremely marginal (and

often dangerous) sites. Once established, informal, low-income

settlements can often gain recognition and even some basic

services through the political process, on account of the

votes such areas can command. In some cities, there are fairly

18

coherent programmes for recognition and upgrading of informal

settlements, such as the Community Mortgage Programme in Cebu

(Etemadi, 1999; 2004) and the Prefeitura nos Bairros programme in

Recife (Melo et al, 2001). In Santiago, the urban poor have

been provided for mainly through formal sector housing

schemes, but these have often been of poor quality, in

peripheral locations and unattractive to the intended

beneficiaries (Rodríguez et al, 1999, p.29). In Johannesburg,

the Reconstruction and Development Programme has provided

basic housing units on serviced plots to large numbers of the

urban poor, but again both quality and location leave much to

be desired (Beall et al, 2002, p.134).

In Kumasi, there is evidence that the role of traditional

authorities (chiefs) in land allocation provides some degree

of access to land for the urban poor – at least those of Asante

origin (Devas and Korboe, 2000). But among our case studies,

there were no examples of municipal authorities systematically

providing suitable, well-located land for the urban poor to

build their own homes or undertake economic activities.

Indeed, all too often, as in Bangalore, the land development

activities of public authorities have tended to undermine the

19

fragile systems by which the poor manage to access land

Benjamin and Bhuvaneswari, 2001).

Thus, while metropolitan level government may be able to

command the financial and land resources to address the needs

of the poor, it is unlikely to use its resources in this way

unless there are effective mechanisms that give urban poor

groups some voice at that level. Radical political change, as

in South Africa, can give the poor greater voice, but unless

the government structures and processes are reformed to ensure

responsiveness and accountability to the poor, such gains may

not be sustained. Without specific and inclusive participatory

mechanisms, the very distance between urban poor communities

and metropolitan-level government makes it difficult for the

poor to make their voice heard in that forum.

Single or multiple tiers of urban government, and the

relationship between the tiers

As indicated earlier, a two-tier or multi-tier structure seems

like an obvious solution to the tension between scale and

voice. Of course, it is not that simple. For one thing, there

are costs involved in having multiple tiers. Secondly, there

are issues about what should be the relationship, and the

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division of responsibilities, between the levels. Within a

two-tier system, certain functions are typically provided at

the metropolitan level: strategic planning, transportation,

bulk water supplies, while the more local services are

normally provided by the municipal or commune government. But

there will inevitably be tensions between the two levels over

what is regarded as ‘strategic’ and what ‘local’, as well as

about how resources should be allocated between the levels.

Such tensions are likely to be exacerbated where the two

levels are controlled by rival political parties (Davey, 1996,

p.87). There are also questions about whether the lower tier

is sufficiently local to be accessible by the poor.

These questions relate to issues of electoral representation

and accountability. Should those at the upper tier be elected

separately from those at the lower tier? In which case, how

will conflicts be resolved? Alternatively, should the upper

tier be composed of delegates from the lower tier? The latter

arrangement should help ensure consistent decision-making

between levels, and may give somewhat greater voice to poor

communities, but it makes it more difficult to resolve

conflicts between municipalities within the metropolis.

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Interestingly, among our case study cities, only Johannesburg

had a two-tier system (and that only until 2000), although

some others had some form of community level governance, such

as the barangays in Cebu – see later. In most cities, there was

some form of regional planning and co-ordination, usually

under the auspices of the state or provincial government.

However, these arrangements are often quite ineffective, and

prone to political conflict between state/province and

municipal governments. Where these levels are controlled by

rival political parties, there is often an agenda on the part

of the former to take power away from the latter. Evidence

from Bangalore suggests that the further away that decisions

are made, the more difficult it is for the urban poor to exert

influence (Benjamin and Bhuvaneswari, 2001). By contrast,

high-income groups and commercial interests are well able to

organise to lobby at such higher levels.5

Thus, while regional planning arrangements may provide the

potential for redistributing resources across the metropolitan

region, this is unlikely to produce the desired results unless

5

? Benjamin, in his study of Bangalore, demonstrates how upper income groups are able to use ‘an upper circuit of influence’ with state level institutions (such as the Bangalore Development Authority), while the poor have (relatively) greater influence at the municipal level through their local councillors (Benjamin, 2000: 55).

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there are both taxing powers and mechanisms of democratic

accountability at the regional or metropolitan level. This

suggests the need for a formal level of democratically

accountable metropolitan government. Even so, the ability of

that level to redistribute resources in the interests of the

poor will depend on the particular balance of political

forces.

Political representation and accountability

For the poor, a crucial issue is what mechanisms are most

likely to ensure that their voice is heard? One aspect of this

is the scope for citizens to participate directly in the

decisions that affect them: this will be considered in the

next section. In this section we will consider the

arrangements for representative democracy and the implications

for the poor. Here the main debate is between ward-based

councillors, elected on a first-past-the-post basis, and

proportional representation (PR) based on party lists.

From our city case studies, there is some evidence

(particularly from Bangalore) that ward-based councillors

offer an avenue for the voice of the poor to make claims on

the city government. In the end, ward councillors are

23

answerable to their constituents, and where the poor are

concentrated in particular wards, this gives them at least

some leverage.6 In Indian cities, voter turnout is generally

much higher in low-income wards than in high-income areas. In

many cases the poor are able to organise themselves and use

‘vote banks’ to bargain with candidates for promises of

service delivery. Of course, such arrangements raise many

questions, and what little is delivered tends to be on the

basis of patronage favours. Nevertheless, the persistence of

the poor in making demands for things that are important to

them can pay off, albeit in ways that tends to reinforce the

dependent and clientelistic relationship between politicians

and voters.

By contrast, a PR system, while it may produce a more

representative elected body and be more inclusive of women and

minorities, breaks the vital link between the poor communities

and their elected councillors. In Colombo, the shift to a

party-list PR system (in 1979) has been criticised for not

altering the gender balance on the municipal council, and is

6

? It should be noted that there is often a democratic deficit where population has increased rapidly, particularly in poor wards, and ward boundaries have not been redrawn. Thus, in Mombasa, ward councillors represent an average of 30,000 people, with the highest numbers mainly in the poorest wards, compared to only 15,000 per wardon average in Johannesburg, Colombo and Kumasi.

24

perceived to have weakened the link with poor communities as

well as increasing the scope for corruption and vote rigging

(Fernando et al, 1999). As a result, there has been (at the time

of our study) active consideration of a return to a ward-based

system. South Africa has adopted a mixed system of half ward

councillors and half councillors elected by PR: this may offer

the best of both worlds, although creating a potential tension

between these two types of councillor in terms of status and

roles.7

The influence of the poor through their elected councillor

depends not only on the accountability of the councillor to

his/her constituents by also on the influence that the

councillor has on decisions about the use of municipal

resources. This in turn relates to the particular

institutional arrangements for decision-making within city

government, including the choices between directly and

indirectly elected mayors, and between executive mayors and

executive councils. Much depends on the details of the system

7

? There are other mechanisms for increasing the voice of women and minorities within national and local government, for example reservedseats. However, evidence suggests that such arrangements are often ineffective in empowering those groups they are intended to support (Blair, 2000).

25

– something that is beyond the scope of this paper but is

discussed in some detail by Rakodi (2004).

Mechanisms of citizen participation and voice

Recent global trends of democratisation and decentralisation

have opened up political space at the local level in many

countries. Whether or not the poor are able to make use of

that space depends on two things: firstly, the institutional

arrangements through which the poor can make their voice

heard, and secondly,the ability of the poor to organise

themselves to exert influence. There is, of course, no

necessary correlation between either of these and the size and

structure of city government. But it is notable that

innovations such a participatory budgeting, and the effective

organisation of poor people (street vendors in Cebu, Self-

Employed Women’s Association in Ahmedabad, the ‘civics’ in

Johannesburg towards the end of the apartheid era) have been

initiated in larger cities.

In several of the case study cities, new mechanisms of citizen

participation have been introduced. Participatory budgeting,

adopted in a number of Brazilian municipalities, has been one

of the most significant innovations in terms of giving poor

26

urban communities a voice in the use of municipal resources.

Nevertheless, the process is highly dependent on the support

of the elected mayor, and to a lesser extent of elected

council members (Melo et al, 2001; Souza, 2001). In Bangalore

and Johannesburg, ward committees have been established – on

paper at least – as forums for the views of local residents.

How effective these are depends on whether they command any

real resources of their own, or have any influence over the

use of municipal (or other) resources. Their survival may also

depend on whether or not they have any statutory basis. In

Colombo, Community Development Councils were effective in

giving poor communities a voice during the 1980s but they

lacked any statutory protection or resources, and have largely

evaporated as a result of the changed political climate

(Russell and Vidler, 2000).

By contrast, in the Philippines, the barangay is a statutory

tier of elected government below the municipality. In Cebu,

there are 80 barangays with an average population of 8,000. They

have some limited resources, including a share of both

national taxes and the city’s property tax, and are able to

provide a limited range of local services. Their small scale

means that they are accessible to the poor, and the poor can

27

have some influence on decisions affecting their locality,

especially where they are in the majority. The tax sharing

system ensures a fair distribution of resources between

barangays, while the fact that they are part of the statutory

system protects them from changes in the political

environment.8

In many cities there are formal mechanisms for citizen

participation: the Integrated Development Planning process in

Johannesburg, statutory consultation with NGOs in Cebu, the

Consejo Economico y Social Comunal in Santiago. These potentially

offer opportunities for the voice of the poor. But there are

many constraints: inaccessibility of the process, dominance of

elite groups, inability of the poor to organise and present

their views, and so on. In the end, such formal participatory

processes may have little impact on outcomes, either because

the real decisions are taken elsewhere, often through informal8

? However, even a statutory basis may be subject to manipulation. Thelocal government legislation in Ghana provides for an elaborate structure of Sub-Metros, Town Councils and Unit Committees below the Metropolitan Authority, but in Kumasi, the Metropolitan Chief Executive (effectively a centrally appointed mayor) was able prevent any of these from operating effectively – or even being established in some cases (King et al, 2001).

31 October 2004Articles/Metropolitan Governance for PAD

28

processes, or because the resources are not available to

implement what has been agreed (Devas 2003; Etemadi, 2001).

More effective, in many cases, is where urban poor groups have

been able to organise to press their case or make their voice

heard within whatever forum is available. Thus, in Cebu,

street vendors were able to organise to defend themselves

against demolition and to negotiate an unofficial policy of

‘maximum tolerance’ of street vending. In the same city, NGOs

came together in a forum to scrutinise the electoral platforms

of mayoral candidates in regard to their policies towards the

urban poor, and were thereby able to have an impact on the

mayoral election (Etemadi, 2001). In both cases, it was the

opportunity to organise across the city as well as at local

level that provided strength. In a contrasting case, Benjamin

(2000) describes the informal process of ‘politics by stealth’

by which the poor in Bangalore achieve limited gains at the

local level through local councillors networking with local

level officials. Such informal arrangements are, however,

often undermined by more formal, metropolitan-wide systems

that are more amenable to influence by high-income groups and

formal sector business interests.

29

The growth of civil society organisations in many parts of the

world has provided opportunities for the voice of the poor.

But there are huge obstacles: lack of resources of the poor,

conflicting interests within and between poor groups, lack of

accountability of the leadership of community organisations to

members, and so on (Mitlin, 2004). Many civil society

organisations represent primarily the interests of the better

off, while NGOs often have interests that are at variance with

the people they claim to represent.

Nevertheless, organisation by the poor, both locally and

across the city, is often the key to exerting influence. Trade

unions have traditionally been the means of organisation for

workers, but in developing countries the formal sector is

small and those represented by trade unions tend to be the

middle-income group rather than the poor. Trade associations

are mainly concerned to protect members’ interests, often at

the expense of the poor. Even grass-roots organisations within

poor communities may be far from inclusive. In the case study

of Diepsloot, a poor informal settlement on the periphery of

Johannesburg, the Community Forum, widely acknowledged as

being highly effective in representing the interests of low-

30

income residents, supported a policy of excluding other,

poorer groups from the area (Beall et al, 2001).

Political parties are another avenue by which, in principle,

the poor can combine to exert influence. However, few

developing countries have seen the development of programmatic

political parties representing the interests of the poor. Two

exceptions, within our case studies, are the ANC in South

Africa and the Workers Party (PT) in Brazil. Both have their

roots in urban areas, and PT has established its credibility

on the national stage through effective, pro-poor municipal

government, including the development of participatory

budgeting, in some of Brazil’s large cities.

Conclusion: Implications for Metropolitan Government Reform

What are the implications of all this for the structure of

metropolitan government? There is clearly no precise

relationship between the form of metropolitan governance and

whether or not it will be responsive to the needs of those in

poverty. What matters are the details of the system, and how

the various political forces play out in particular local

contexts. Nevertheless, there are a number of implications

from the foregoing analysis that are worth considering.

31

The main one is about political space. This comes back to the

tension between scale and voice. On the one hand, metropolitan

scale of government may give greater space for the poor to

organise in significant ways, through federations of grass-

roots organisations, to establish political platforms and

influence political processes. On the other hand, more local

level political processes offer accessibility by the poor to

decision-making, and opportunities to make claims through

informal processes that may otherwise be denied through larger

scale, formal processes. Yet the impact of such influence at

the very local level will always be limited – by both the

available resources and the often dependent, clientelistic

nature of local level political processes.

This suggests the need to provide opportunities for the poor

to engage at various levels. One way in which this could be

done is through a multi-level structure of democratically

elected urban governance that includes both a very local

(community) level and a very extensive (metropolitan) level

covering the entire urban area. Whether an intermediate

(municipal) level is also required might depend on the size of

the urban area. Such a two or three tier structure would

32

provide opportunities for the poor to exert influence in

different ways, appropriate to the scale of the issue and the

avenues available. The evidence from our case studies suggests

that, for such a model to have the desired outcome, certain

characteristics would be required:

a local level that is small enough for decision-making to

be accessible to, and accountable to, poor communities

an upper (metropolitan or municipal) level that is

extensive enough to incorporate the urban periphery and

the poor who reside there, thereby bringing together rich

and poor localities

statutory protection for each level from encroachment by

higher levels, and from changing political fashions (such

as undermined the position of Community Development

Councils in Colombo)

taxing powers that enable resources to be redistributed

between rich and poor localities

some share of resources guaranteed for the local,

community level, and distributed equitably, to enable

that level to finance some essential local services and

infrastructure

33

mechanisms for democratic accountability to citizens and

participation by citizens, including the poor, at each

level, as well mechanisms for accountability between

levels.

Such a model would allow for redistribution of resources (both

finance and land) across the metropolitan area, as well as

addressing the more conventional concerns with city-wide

planning and infrastructure provision. In larger cities, the

upper or metropolitan level would provide potential for the

emergence of both politicians with a status to engage with the

national level government and programmatic political parties

accountable to the poor (who make up the vast majority of

voters). At the same time, the community-level of government

with both statutory rights and access to resources would

provide a forum for low-income communities to have voice in

relation to those things that affect them. Such a model could

also help to address some of the other concerns: a scale

sufficient to attract and retain capable staff; limitations on

the power of local elite groups; and the obviation of need for

special purpose agencies imposed from above to provide

metropolitan-wide functions, unaccountable to local citizens.

34

Of course, there can be no one ideal model of metropolitan

governance: every arrangement has its advantages and

disadvantages. Much depends on the context, and on the

detailed arrangements for representation and accountability.

No system design can prevent those who are determined from

subverting it for their own ends. There would need to be

appropriate checks and balances, and those inevitably involve

costs. Whatever the structures, higher income groups and

powerful interests will always be able to shout loudest, and

the poor always start at a disadvantage. What matters, though,

is that, within the particular local context, the structure

provides the greatest chance for those living in poverty to

have their voice heard, to make their claims and to receive

basic services as a right rather than as a favour.

Any such restructuring can be a long, painful and expensive

process, as evidenced in Johannesburg. Elite groups are likely

to oppose reforms that threaten their interests. However, just

as in Victorian cities in Britain, there may be ways to

persuade elite groups of the benefits of addressing the needs

of the urban poor rather than ignoring or suppressing them –

the common practice in so many cities of the developing world.

No restructuring guarantees that the voice of the poor will be

35

heard, but certain structures of metropolitan governance may

have a better chance of achieving this than others.

36

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Endnotes

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