The Peripheralization of the Urban Poor in the Local Manifestations of the Global Economy by Charisma Acey,

The purpose of this paper is to critically assess efforts on the part of the urban poor in Africa to address their lack of adequate access to local potable water and sanitation resources. In some instances, communities of the local poor have collectively successfully mobilized to exert pressure on public governance structures to address such issues, but in other situations they have failed to act as effective pressure groups. What explains success or failure in such situations? The ultimate aim of the study is to situate the activities of impoverished urban residents in the developing world in efforts to overcome their peripheralization within a broader discussion of globalization and the provision of public goods. Saskia Sassen (2003) has argued that the best level of analysis for the " decoding " of globalization is at the local level. Assuming this is a correct perspective, it logically follows that the condition of the urban poor with respect to access to basic water and sanitation services in Africa's recent rapid urbanization provides a key indicator of the global division of wealth and power. The local and most visible manifestation of this division in the international economic order is the rapidly growing population of poor urban slum dwellers in formal and informal settlements who lack adequate housing and who must cope with an inequitable distribution of basic services of sufficient quality such as water, sanitation, transportation, electricity, etc. In many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa there is steady growth in population, and this strains local food and water supplies. In addition, in the countryside, there tends to be a lack of jobs and other forms of economic opportunity. Consequently, people are being " pushed " out of rural areas and " pulled " into urban areas in expectation of a better life. Instead, more often than not, the cities they migrate to are congested and bereft of adequate public services (e.g. environmental sanitation and public health services, a dearth of formal employment and affordable and livable housing, etc.). In this context, rural to urban migration compounds the problems associated with high density and low basic services. In fact, from 1970-2000 average African urban growth rates were the highest in the world at nearly five percent, while these countries experienced an average decline in GDP during most of that same period. (Hicks 1998). Much of the research on urbanization and slums in low and middle income …