Spotlighting development in peri-urban areas

Valuable knowledge has been generated about production, livelihoods and poverty at the boundaries between rural and urban areas. This will help policy makers and development agencies target support for the livelihoods of millions in these peri-urban areas - which are growing rapidly as cities expand. The synthesis of lessons learned and future directions covers 10 years of results from DFID-funded research in three city regions: Kumasi (Ghana) and Hubli-Dharwad and Kolkata (India). It found many issues common to all three regions, and tackles concerns ranging from growing higher value crops for sale in urban markets, and start-up training for small businesses, to urban waste-management policy.

Project Ref: NRSP32:
Topic: 6. Promoting Success: Partnerships, Policy & Empowerment
Lead Organisation: University College, London, UK
Source: Natural Resources Systems Programme

Contents:		Description
		Validation
		Current Situation
		Lessons Learned
		Impacts On Poverty
		Environmental Impact

Description

Research Programmes:

Natural Resources Systems Programme

Relevant Research Projects:

R8491; Development Planning Unit, University College London; Michael Mattingly

Research Outputs, Problems and Solutions:

While searching for more knowledge about NR management, the RNRRS has learned that reducing poverty is partly a matter of moving people to production that is not NR based and which is highly likely to be related to urban areas. Furthermore, it has learned something about how to do this. The numbers of poor and potentially poor to which is applies are staggering, possibly greater than the entire population of poor people that can be helped with better NR management. Over one year (2005-6), new knowledge was obtained of peri-urban production, livelihoods and poverty by synthesising findings of separate lines of 10 years (1997-2006) of NRSP research on the peri-urban interfaces (PUIs) of 3 city-regions - Kumasi, Ghana, Hubli-Dharwad, India and Kolkata, India. Previous to these NRSP studies, little was known about the impacts of a peri-urban interface on production, livelihoods and poverty. The project brought together this knowledge for the first time, picking up and promoting awareness of important commonalities and differences among the three locations.

Themes of the output include:

• the common effects of a PUI upon natural resource management and upon the livelihoods of poor people (for example, the impact of the loss of land or of the reduction of water quality on production and income, or the focus of negative impacts upon poor people and women),
• the abilities of poor people affected by a PUI to plan for and carry out the adoption of alternative livelihoods (including their tendencies to mix continuation of rural natural resources based production with ventures into urban opportunities, and the difficulties of involving local governments in planning and in trials of alternatives),
• the effectiveness of alternative livelihoods (for example, the potentials of trading or the capacities of renewed traditional productive activities such as farming), and actions of intervention that appear to help poor people change their livelihood activities in response to the effects of a PUI.

The findings may also shed light upon the problems and opportunities of rural to urban migration in general and of urban-rural linkages.

Types of Research Output:

Major Commodities Involved:

There is no focus on a particular commodity.

Production Systems:

Farming Systems:

Potential for Added Value:

This output is already the result of clustering the outputs of various PUI projects of the NRSP. Furthermore, an attempt was made to cover in the synthesis the outputs of other RNRRS projects. Unfortunately, in general, the small output obtained from other projects that commented on PU matters does not add significantly to the knowledge obtained by the NRSP of livelihoods and poverty.

The one exception to this conclusion is the output of RNRRS projects regarding urban and peri-urban agriculture that were synthesised by the Livestock Production Programme, but this synthesis does not appear on the circulated list. Moreover, substantial research is being supported on urban and peri-urban agriculture by the International Network of Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and Food Security (RUAF, http://www.ruaf.org/) with the assistance of the Canadian government. .

Other research output on PU livelihoods, poverty and production is being carried out in a scatter of individual efforts - as shown in the literature - that could benefit from being brought together with the NRSP synthesis. No other major programme is known that is investigating or has investigated PU livelihoods, and poverty in relation to PU production.

In each of the three locations of the NRSP studies, efforts are being made to apply the findings regarding that location. The overall synthesis output can give added support any of these applications. This could strengthen a case for pursuing the application of the PUI findings in, say Karnataka, another Indian state, or even India, building upon project R8084, as distinct from a global application of the synthesis output.

Validation

How the outputs were validated:

A small number of elements of the output of this synthesis project were validated by an impact assessment of NRSP PUI research (PD 138), performed by a UK consultant. Although this evaluation preceded the completion of the synthesis project, several conclusions of the synthesis were supported by observations of the separate impacts of the actions of the two PUI research projects. No other formal validation of the output of this synthesis study has been carried out. As noted below, significant use of the synthesis output cannot be expected for some time, so the only opportunities to examine applications occurred during the research in the three locations, when learning by doing was taking place.

Where the Outputs were Validated:            

The validation of this project's findings occurred in the three locations of NRSP PUI studies (Kolkata and Hubli-Dharwad, India and Kumasi, Ghana) during the 10 years up to 2006. But this validation was not recognised through the actions of synthesis until 2005-6 in the UK. The impact studies in Hubli-Dharwad and Kumasi were carried out in the PUIs of those cities at the end of 2005 and the beginning of 2006.

Impacts on poor people of peri-urban interfaces were the foci of both the validation through synthesis and of the impact studies in Hubli-Dharwad and Kumasi.

Current Situation

Who are the Users?

The outputs of the synthesis itself - as distinct from the outputs of individual NRSP studies of the PUI that were synthesised - are not yet known to be the source of applications by anyone. The synthesis outputs were made generally available to potential users in early 2006. Consequently, their use is not yet discernable in policy decision-making and in practice. Nor will their use be easily traceable, given that they are knowledge outputs.

Some of the synthesis findings continue to be used in the 3 study locations where they emerged during learning-by-doing. They are being used by people and organisations who participated in these projects, as well as by others who have enjoyed proximity to those who participated.

Where the outputs have been used:

Given that application of the synthesis output is not yet known, places of use cannot be stated. Outputs of individual projects from which the synthesis was drawn are being used in the PUIs of Kumasi, Ghana, Hubli-Dharwad, India, and Kolkata, India, as well as in Mangalore, India, and other parts of Karnataka State, India.

Scale of Current Use:

The scale of application of the synthesis knowledge at this early date is certainly quite small. The scale of use of the findings of the individual PUI projects is largely confined to their locations, as indicated in 13. above. However, a number of articles have been published regarding research on the PUIs of Kolkata and to Hubli-Dharwad and the researchers involved in those projects have promoted wider knowledge of their findings, especially in the case of Hubli-Dharwad. This has spread knowledge of certain findings to professionals and policy makers in Karnataka State and in India and beyond to the international audience (see http://www.nrsp.org.uk/pdfs/resources/NSS/Pu%20S1%20UPN%2005-06.pdf for a rough estimate of the impact of this spread). In these cases, there is as yet only the impact study in Hubli-Dharwad and Kumasi identified above to indicate that this knowledge is being used. Also, a finding drawn from Hubli-Dharwad has been used by the ILO in Mangalore, India. Probably, indications cannot be expected for some time.

Policy and Institutional Structures, and Key Components for Success:

Outside of the organisations that collaborated in the NRSP's PUI research, there has not been assistance with promotion or adoption from the sources indicated in the question. After creating a strong link with DFID's Urban Rural Change Team at the beginning of the research, support was expected. This did not materialise, probably mainly because the Urban Rural Change Team was dissolved shortly after delivery of the output to it. See 16. below.

Because former members of NRSP PUI research teams and their institutions (i.e. universities in UK, India and Ghana; NGOs in India and Ghana; a state government agency in India) are continuing to use and promote findings, output from the synthesis study is being fed back to them.

Lessons Learned and Uptake Pathways

Promotion of Outputs:

The principal target for promotion was DFID. Interaction with its Urban-Rural Change Team from the very beginning identified current areas of DFID work which could be informed by research findings about peri-urban interface conditions. Agreement was reached on a knowledge product highlighting specific research messages that could be used to create briefing documents DFID country and region desks. A shorter summary was produced for DFID's Central Research Department for dissemination within DFID as one of several RNRRS synthesis reports.

Individually tailored bundles of short briefing documents, each calling attention to a different research message, were sent to nearly 20 named individuals known to have peri-urban or rural/urban interests in the UNDP, UN-Habitat, the FAO, DFID, the World Bank, the International Development Research Center (Canada), the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), the Resource Centre on Urban Agriculture and Food Security (RUAF), and the Urban Harvest (the CGIAR Strategic Initiative on Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture), as well as academics and researchers in the UK, Denmark, USA, India, Ghana, and Thailand. Also, bundles of briefing documents went to a number of relevant institutions, including the 8 regional offices of UN-Habitat. All knowledge products of the synthesis were placed on http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dpu/pui/research/previous/sythesis/index.html in downloadable forms.

Potential Barriers Preventing Adoption of Outputs:

Probably the greatest barrier to uptake is the division into rural and urban that is entrenched in organisations, in responsibilities, in perspectives and in areas of knowledge. Consequently, rural and urban connections belong to no one and interest few. A second related barrier is the general disinterest among international and governmental agencies in the role of urban activities in development. These circumstances have yet to respond to evidence that most livelihoods now are supported by urban activities, that most people who are poor are probably already in cities and towns, and that urban economies and urban places will have to absorb nearly all of the world's population increases, including the majority of this increase that will be poor. The effect of these circumstances is that there is very little demand for the output of the PUI knowledge synthesis.

How to Overcome Barriers to Adoption of Outputs:

To the extent that the rural-urban divide and the disinterest in urban development described above are the result of ignorance and/or negligence, more promotion of knowledge of what happens to a vast number of livelihoods during a rural to urban transition and of the consequences in relation to poverty could lead to sufficient recognition or acceptance that current organisations and approaches are unsuitable and require changing.

The global education or marketing exercise needed to remove these barriers is beyond the scope of the RIUP. However, education and marketing directed at staff of DFID is not, and it could have a significant impact on the perceptions and capacities within an organisation that can be a world leader of change. Unfortunately, with the demise of its urban development advisory office and of the Urban Rural Change Team, the last vestiges of DFID's interest in rural-urban links and of competence regarding the urban end of such connections have disappeared. If a significant and sustained demand for PUI knowledge were created first in DFID, DFID would create a demand for the knowledge among appropriate government organisations and NGOs in its client countries.

Lessons Learned:

The outputs of the synthesis project are not for use so much by poor people themselves as by those who are formulating or affecting policy. Dissemination of the synthesis output began too recently to learn very much at all about the effectiveness of the ways employed to obtain its use in policy.

That said, some outputs from the individual PUI studies were used by poor people as part of the research that was undertaken. The most prominent lesson from these experiences was that people who participate in planning how they might collectively and individually deal with the changes wrought by a peri-urban interface are more likely to use new knowledge of alternative productive activities and of supports for taking up these activities.

Impacts On Poverty

Poverty Impact Studies: 

From December 2005 to March 2006, a study of impact on poverty was undertaken at two of the three locations where the NRSP supported PUI research. These were Kumasi, Ghana and Hubli-Dharwad, India. The impacts identified were those on people who had participated in the learning-by doing of the research. Where these impacts were the result of findings common to both places, they were in effect impacts of aspects of the synthesis study output. This impact study is entitled NRSP impact assessment case studies (NRSP Project PD 138) and a description which can be found at http://www.nrsp.org.uk/database/project_view.asp?projectid=301.

How the Poor have Benefited (including gender and other poverty groups):

The abovementioned study undertook to identify and project of the impacts on poverty that resulted by 2005 (after no more than 24 months of learning by doing) or that could be expected to result by 2015 at the two sites. It also aimed to identify the research contribution to meeting relevant Millennium Development Goals (halving poverty and hunger; ensuring environmental sustainability) but found this could not be done.

Key conclusions that relate to the synthesis of PUI livelihoods knowledge were:

• "The overall impact on poverty of project beneficiaries has been positive. In India returns from income-generating activities are more likely to have been realised and incomes have increased; similarly for individual trader beneficiaries in Ghana. In both countries beneficiaries perceive their overall well-being to have increased with improvement in livelihoods assets. These positive findings are confirmed by a reduction in the number of households being ranked as poor in both countries. Impact on poverty within households is starting to be felt with increased incomes being spent on children's education, for example. However, the outlook for reducing poverty on a larger scale may be limited without further (modest) support to ensure continuing focus on pro poor groups and to retain project innovations. If this is secured (in Ghana particularly) much larger reductions are expected to be achieved." (http://www.nrsp.org.uk/database/documents/2056.pdf, p. 1)
  
• "Women's status has improved, though the existence of a significant proportion of poorly off women remains a major challenge. Impact on women's status has been positive in both countries, with improvements in both well-being and incomes. However, 50 percent of women were still poorly off in Kumasi by the end of the project. Establishment of women's sangha in Hubli-Dharwad has been a highly positive development and women are now moving into traditionally male economic activities (trading). Election of women to leadership posts, such as CLFs in Ghana and Gram Panchayat in India, is a significant step." (http://www.nrsp.org.uk/database/documents/2056.pdf, page 2.)

Environmental Impact

Direct and Indirect Environmental Benefits:

If the economic value of natural resources to the livelihoods for so many peri-urban residents is better understood by policymakers and planners and this leads to more sensitive or more careful natural resource management, then the negative environmental impacts of exploitative natural resource use and pollution of the natural resource base may be ameliorated.

There are no other obvious direct or indirect environmental benefits of any significance.

Adverse Environmental Impacts:

There are no obvious adverse environmental impacts related to the outputs.

Coping with the Effects of Climate Change, or Risk from Natural Disasters:

The application of the outputs could help poor people to integrate into production processes that are not NR based and therefore possibly less subject to the effects of climate change.

Relevant Research Projects, with links to the
Research for Development (R4D) web site
and Technical Reports:

R4D	Project Title	Technical Report
R8084	Enhancing livelihoods and NR management in peri-urban villages near Hubli-Dharwad
R8491	Synthesis of peri-urban interface knowledge

For relevant research projects, with links to further information

Target Audiences for this content:

Crop farmers, Livestock farmers, Fishers, Forest-dependent poor, Processors, Traders, Consumers,