| Abstract |
The vast majority of the poor in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, are squatters. This manual, based on the "Orangi Model", was prepared for the UNESCO-sponsored World Decade of Cultural Development 1987-1997 to assist architects and planners in developing effective projects for rehabilitating urban low-income informal settlements. The methodology used in Orangi, the largest squatter settlement in Karachi, for implementing the Orangi Pilot Project (OPP) forms the basis of the manual. The OPP does not carry out development work but promotes community organization and cooperative action and provides technical support to such initiatives. It has forged an effective arrangement between qualified professionals and research institutions and the informal sector and low-income communities. The OPP has operated programmes covering the following needs: low-cost sanitation, low-cost housing, basic health and family planning, women's work centres for garment workers, supervised credit for small family enterprises, and education, all of which have been implemented and managed through community participation and the creation of local organizations. Communities involved in development acquire awareness proportional to their financial and managerial involvement in the development process. They are also willing to operate and maintain projects at their own cost and develop skills that effect a change in the community's political and economic relationship with the informal sector and with local government.
The manual outlines the basic procedures for implementing a rehabilitation project in urban informal settlements. The settlement chosen should have de facto tenure security and the project should have the support of the local government. The project office should be located within the informal settlement and staff training should be an integral part of the whole process of development which in turn involves the community. Staff should consist of a director, and administrative staff and social organizers recruited from the community. The chief role of the social organizers is to motivate people to organize so as to undertake the management and financing of development; to involve people in the decision-making, planning and implementation process; and to act as a link between the project technical staff, consultants and the community. Local consultants, experienced in development through community participation, should be employed. Rather than getting to know the area through surveys, the OPP believes that the director should talk to members of the community and to local organizations to gain their opinions of the major problems that need to be addressed in the settlement and to make it clear that his project will not dole out money or carry out development but will give technical advice and managerial assistance to people wishing to do so. Once the priority problem of the community has been established, an extension package to tackle this problem can be developed and taken to the people, which includes a system for the community to organize as well as technical advice. Motivation is facilitated if some members of the extension team are women as this makes neighbourhood women more responsive. In Orangi, the programme had to promote new attitudes and practices among the tradition-bound segregated women of low-income families but in the end succeeded in fostering women's involvement. Community organizations should be small and cohesive, e.g. 40 households from one lane, so that its members can directly control its representatives and effectively participate in the development effort. The technology chosen should effectively deal with the priority problem and be affordable by the people, and the community organization should determine how to implement the programme with technicians supervising the work being done. The manual outlines technical problems that may be encountered during implementation and suggests ways of dealing with them, and gives methods of carrying out monitoring, documentation and evaluation of a project.
In the process of operating the programme for addressing the priority problem, the project will develop a number of assets and gain valuable insights and knowledge into the social and economic dynamics of the settlement. The project must capitalize on these and launch new programmes built on the first programme of the project. However, it is essential that all programmes begin on a very small scale and expand only when the approach developed for them has been tested and found effective. Successful projects are publicized to encourage replication by other agencies, communities and by the government. The OPP model has brought major physical, social and economic changes in Orangi. Its methodology has succeeded in creating access to the community, based on voluntary action and trust, and in mobilizing it. Without these ingredients, the research and extension effort that has led to the awareness-raising of the community, and the building up of its technical, managerial and entrepreneurial capacity and capability would not have been possible. It also fosters a more equitable relationship between the community, local government and development authorities. Once governments have developed trunk and intermediate infrastructure, mobilized communities can take care of planning, financing, construction, maintenance and operation of their own neighbourhood infrastructure, which reduces overall development costs substantially.
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