§ Mr. SheermanTo ask the Secretary of State for International Development what recent projects her Department has undertaken to reduce the number of people living in urban slums in developing countries. [63512]
§ Clare ShortIncreasingly we are providing assistance to developing countries through Direct Budget Support to enable developing country Governments to take forward their own priorities under their Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) agreed with the international community. All PRSPs include a section on addressing urban poverty issues.
In addition in India, for example, we have supported the Government of Andhra Pradesh in their programme for urban services for the poor. This programme works at a policy level with the 32 class 1 municipalities in the state, and provides support to encourage investments in upgrading slum areas. This experience has also been taken into account with new work on urban poverty reduction in Kolkata (Calcutta) and in Kenya and Jamaica where DFID has supported work to help local organisation of the urban poor initiate improvements in the living conditions of the urban poor.
In addition, we are directly supporting the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) in their work to provide guidance and best practice advice to developing countries in reducing the numbers of people living in slum conditions and are working with the 677W collaborative UN Urban Management Programme. The latter provides working examples of improved practice at the local government level.
We are also collaborating globally with 17 other partners, including all G7 members, in the Cities Alliance which has the overall objective of "Cities Without Slums". In practical terms, we have helped them develop the Community-led Infrastructure Finance Facility which will provide better access of local community groups to local bank funding of their own projects. This is seen as a long-term process for people to take command of their own improvements in living conditions.