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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 5 - 11 October 2000 Issue No. 502 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 5 - 11 October 2000 Issue No. 502
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Elections Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters
A place in the city
By Fayza Hassan
"Cairo suffers from a severe and chronic lack of adequate and affordable housing," writes Jeffrey Nedoroscik in The City of the Dead. A History of Cairo's Cemetery Communities (Bergin and Garvey, 1997). "Indeed, the housing crisis is characteristic of much of the developing world. A metropolitan area of more than fifteen million inhabitants, Cairo is deficient in affordable housing. For Cairo's urban poor -- this group includes recent immigrants as well as more established city dwellers -- shelter is a luxury rather than a right. Because Cairo is so inhospitable to the indigent, many have resorted to survival outside of the law in the so-called informal sector."
In recent years, it has become the fashion among foreign researchers and sociologists to write compassionately about the poor dwelling in the City of the Dead. Capitalising on the effect of horrified surprise that their description is bound to provoke, they are thus assured a degree of public interest from which they would probably not benefit, had they chosen to study any other type of informal settlement. As non-Egyptians, they tend to regard the occupation of the cemeteries by the living through Western eyes, forgetting that, on one hand, Cairo's main burial grounds were an integral part of the city not so long ago, and that, on the other, Muslims entertain a much closer relationship with their dead than people of other faiths. It is therefore not the proximity of the living and the dead that they should question, but rather the way this marginalised group has managed to survive -- along with the poor of the numerous other informal settlements that are continuously sprouting around Cairo -- against all odds and without any of the basic services that are normally extended to the rest of the population.
For the informal dweller, the crucial problem is to find a measure of security, as he/she are pushed outside the legal channels and can only claim squatters' rights to their makeshift habitation. Whether impoverished new arrivals from rural areas, or inadequately compensated former residents of "condemn" buildings which were razed to make space for the establishment of a smart new quarter, the dwellers of informal settlements are acutely aware that they are, at best, part of a transient community. In many cases they live in constant fear of private and public harassment, whether by the police, allegedly hunting drug dealers and subversive elements, or by developers who have suddenly come up with great plans for this particular spot and are sending the bulldozers.
The informal settlers on the other hand, encroach on the thin belt of valuable agricultural land around the city, occupy potential green areas, ancient historical sites and monuments and generally thwart with their environmental-unfriendly behaviour, any form of rational planning to preserve and the urban landscape.
photo: Jean Pierre Ribiere, Cairo from Edge to Edge, AUC Press, 1998
Notwithstanding the ongoing fight between government officials, private interests and informal dwellers, several NGOs have occasionally addressed the problem of creating more salubrious living conditions for the poorest of the poor around the city. Until now, however, they have approached the problem in piecemeal fashion, with neither an overall plan nor any coordination among the organisations working in the field. Every now and then, one hears of an informal community gaining, through the relentless efforts of those intent on helping them, a semi-official right to stay on the land they occupy. It seems that the older the settlement is, the more chances it has of becoming permanent. Manshiyet Nasser and Bulaq Al-Dakrour are cases in point. Encouraged by such precedents, a number of national and international NGOs have set out to create and promote a form of sustainable development to benefit the communities of such areas.
"In the past," says Anita Moritz of the German Technical Cooperation Agency (GTZ) and team leader of the Bulaq Al-Dakrour project, "NGOs involved in the field of urban development were not normally in contact with each other. The difficulty resides here in the fact that decision-making is the province of the government, while the execution of any project takes place at the local echelon. What is sorely lacking is communication, the dissemination of information and cooperation between the various sectors. Our aim is to liaise between the Ministry of Planning, the various local authorities and the NGOs working in land management at grass-root level."
To achieve these purposes, the Egyptian Earth Construction Association (EECA) has been registered with the Ministry of Social Affairs as an Egyptian non-profit, non-governmental organisation concerned with appropriate building technology (ABT) as a tool for sustainable development and community building, and launched the Participatory Management Programme Policy Advisory Unit, headed by Barbara Hatour-Satow. The aim of EECA is "to develop, apply, and disseminate alternative building technologies that are appropriate for the Egyptian context." Their programme includes promoting the use of local building materials and of renewable sources of energy, implementing energy-saving techniques, creating harmony in the built environment and playing a constructive role in the development of local communities. The association also acts as a consultancy service, training architects, engineers, technicians and workers in ABT, and is in the process of establishing a database of relevant technical experiences.
Interested parties meet informally to discuss general or specific problems they are encountering on a given project and share their experience with other members of the group. Says Christian Voigt, a consultant with GTZ: "This is a long and complex process that has to be dealt with on several levels, addressing the policymakers, the local authorities, the NGOs and the people. It is normal that things take time to improve. But our network seems to be well established now, and that in itself is a step forward. Sharing experiences and data is still a novelty for most NGOs working in this field. Also, we support participatory methods, which imply going back to the dwellers themselves to find out what they need and want, and then helping them achieve their goals; that means gaining their trust first.
Hany El-Miniawy, chief executive officer of Appropriate Development, Architecture and Planning Technologies, whose role in the transformation of the informal settlement of Al-Nasiriya in Aswan has become a landmark in the application of the principles of participatory community development, is working at present in Bulaq Al-Dakrour. "In a couple of months, I hope to be able to show several completed buildings," he says, but refuses to reveal any more beyond the fact that it has been an uphill battle to obtain the green light for the project and then create an infrastructure from scratch. Bulaq Al-Dakrour is no different from other informal settlements, which typically lack sewage, running water, electricity or a garbage disposal system. As in Al-Nasiriya, the inhabitants themselves do the work, while the NGO basically provides the materials and the expertise. Whenever it is at all possible, the inhabitants are asked for a financial contribution to enhance their stake in the reclaimed area. "I hope to convince the group that the next network meeting should take place in Bulaq Al-Dakrour, instead of the centre [the Urban Training and Studies Institute Housing and Building Research Centre]," says El-Miniawy, "to show the people that we are working for them and give them a chance to join in the discussion."
In brief, what makes the work of EECA so attractive is its low-key approach, clearly spelled out in its Training and Capacity Building programme, which "aims at training and building the capacity of community groups, builders, architects, entrepreneurs, contractors and others to acquire knowledge and skills" in the following fields: appropriate building materials and techniques; small-scale building material production; potentials of ABT as an approach for community development; appropriate community organisation; and the participatory design process.
Achieving these aims, or even only a few of them, may in the long run be a positive step toward planning better low-cost housing for the poor, and giving the marginalised communities of the informal settlements the feeling of belonging and pride in their surroundings they have sorely lacked so far.
