Negotiating and accessing piped water supply in slum homes
Coping with water scarcity by storing in underground tanks in slum homes
Vocational training for women for livelihood
Improving sanitation in informal settlements
Vegetable gardening in slums for nutrition and greening
Update 4
Urban Health Resource Centre discussed the organization’s programme approaches with researchers and academics of the Urbanization and Health group at the University of York and ARISE group at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (July 5, 2023).
Practical Strategies that can Improve Lives of Informal Workers and Settlement Dwellers
I. Risks and challenges of informal settlement dwellers and informal workers
-Climate change risks (heat/heavy downpour)
-Living Environment risks
-Difficulties in access to social protection schemes
-Gendered Burdens
II. Approaches to address
-Role of UHRC mentored slum women’s collectives in addressing different challenges
-Efforts to improve living environment through collective requests to local politicians, civic authorities
-Outreach efforts to enhance access to Government ID and social protection through helping with applications
-Vegetable gardening in slum homes
III. Outcomes of strategies
-Slum upgrading – paved lanes, cleaned garbage, laying of sewerage system, cleaning back-lane, piped water supply
-Access to picture ID (Voter Card, Aadhaar/UID)
-Brick-by-brick self improved climate resilient housing
-Greening of slum areas through vegetable gardening and tree plantation
-Collective savings to aid self-built slum housing upgradation,
IV. Implications for research, policy and practice
How long-term, sustained efforts with women’s groups can strengthen demand side for policy implementation in India and LMICs.
Update 3
PROCEEDINGS OF THE FAO’s Food Security Nutrition FORUM DISCUSSION No. 35 IDENTIFYING AND ADDRESSING FOOD INSECURITY AMONG THE URBAN POOR
While urban areas are recognized as centers for economic development, forum members would agree that opulence co-exists with deprivation in the urban set-up. Furthermore, while urban poor food insecurity remains a visible daily reality, not only it is scarcely documented, evidence-based program experiences to simply identify it and address it are also limited. You all would agree that the dynamics of urban food insecurity are multifactorial and largely differ from rural populace. Unlike in rural areas, urban poor economy is cash-based which makes an impoverished urban poor family more vulnerable to food insecurity when they have no cash in hand. Poor environmental conditions cramped, low-quality housing with limited sanitation in urban slums results in frequent episodes of morbidity, putting families especially women and children in a vicious cycle of malnutrition. Furthermore, as many of the urban poor live in temporary settlements and slums not included in the official government slum lists they are often excluded from basic government services and they constantly struggle for housing, livelihood and health care. As the scale of urban poverty is rapidly increasing world-wide, the challenges to address its concerns will increase multifold. Improving food security for urban poor is not only important from a humanistic point of view but it also pertinent considering that this population contributes significantly to our GDP in the form of the informal sector workforce to improve the urban food security scenario.
In this context, it would be very helpful if Forum’s members could share insights and program experiences (particularly from India and developing countries) on a) How food insecurity among urban poor was identified and what were the survey results? b) What methods/mechanisms were used to address food insecurity among the urban poor at household and community-level and what were some of the best practices and lessons learnt?
UHRC Publications Update 1
- State of Urban Health in India: Comparing the poorest quartile to the rest of urban population in selected states and cities, Siddharth Agarwal, Environment and Urbanization International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).Vol 23(1): 13–28. DOI: 10.1177/0956247811398589 Full Text
- Human touch to detect hypothermia in neonates in Indian slum dwellings; Siddharth Agarwal, Vani Sethi, Karishma Srivastava, Prabhat K Jha, Abdullah H Baqui. Indian Journal of Pediatrics, Volume 77—July, 2010 Full Text
- Birth preparedness and complication readiness among slum women in Indore city, India. Siddharth Agarwal, Vani Sethi, Karishma Srivastava, Prabhat K Jha, Abdullah H Baqui. JHPN Volume 28 | Number 0 | 00 2010 Full Text
- Improving Urban Newborn Health: Challenges and the Way Forward: Siddharth Agarwal; Journal of Neonatology, Vol. 23, No. 3, July-September 2009. Full Text
- Social Determinants of Children’s Health in Urban Areas; Siddharth Agarwal, Aradhana Srivastava; Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved 20 (2009): 68–89 Abstract
UHRC Publications Update 2
- Women and Urban Health Governance: a Study of Empowerment and Entitlement Agarwal Siddharth, Verma Shabnam, Verma Neeraj, Agarwal Kabir, Sharma M.R., Sharma C.B . mfc bulletin/Nov 2015-Apr 2016 Full Text
- Urban Migration and Social Exclusion Study from Indore Slums and Informal Settlements. IIED – UHRC, 2016. Siddharth Agarwal Full Text
- Confident, trained slum women’s groups negotiate to make urban governance more responsive and overcome socio-environmental exclusion. Presentation at 13th International Conference on Urban Health (ICUH),San Francisco, California, 3-4-2016 View Presentation
- Public Private Partnerships for Urban Health: Experiences and Lessons from Urban Primary Healthcare. Agarwal, Siddharth, 2016. Urban Health Resource Centre Full Text
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