Urbanization and Rural-Urban Migration: Toward Involving the Church in Addressing Pro-Poor Urban Housing Challenges in Enugu, Nigeria

Policy measures of governments toward addressing urban housing provisions seem to neglect the urban poor, especially in Nigeria. Presently, the world population estimated at 50% urban is aggravated by rural-urban migration. This is true of Enugu city in Nigeria, where urban housing challenges affect the poor residents. Enugu is one of the major Christian populaces in Nigeria where the Catholic Church is conspicuously a fulcrum for socioeconomic attractions. This makes it imperative for the Catholic Church to be involved in addressing pro-poor housing challenges. This study therefore examined urban public housing provision in Enugu metropolis with a view to determine pro-poor housing policy delivery involving the Catholic Church. Mixed research method was adopted. Interviews and observations were conducted randomly within the identified 23 informal/slum or squatter settlements adjourning the 18 formal neighborhoods of Enugu metropolis while the social inclusion theory formed the basis of the study. Findings showed that the identified 118 Catholic parishes also canonically engage in socioeconomic development of the neighborhoods as the available public housing provisions in Enugu were skewed away from the urban majority who are low-income earners. This indicates poor government attention to the housing needs of low-income households who resort to informal/squatter settlements. This article therefore recommends Catholic Church-Government collaboration toward inclusive, holistic, and proactive pro-poor housing delivery in Enugu. Effective utilization of housing cooperative societies, as well as a single-digit interest loan package for housing finance, was also recommended for the Government-Church collaboration to achieve inclusive social housing delivery in the city.

Assessment of Essential Newborn Care Practices in the Squatter Settlements of Islamabad Capital Territory in Pakistan

Background: While Pakistan has shown progress in reducing child mortality, significant challenges exist in reducing neonatal mortality rate. WHO recommends a package of “essential newborn care” practices based on effective coverage to improve newborn survival. Aim: To assess the coverage of Essential Newborn Care (ENC) as defined by WHO guidelines, in the squatter settlements of Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT). Methods: This cross-sectional survey gathered community-based data on newborn care practices from 416 eligible mothers within randomly selected squatter settlements of ICT. Three composite outcomes (safe cord care, optimal thermal care and good neonatal feeding) were generated by combining individual practices from a list of WHO recommended ENC practices. ENC was considered when all practices within each domain of safe cord care, ideal thermal care and good neonatal feeding were fulfilled. Results: Only 2.9% of newborns received all components of WHO recommended ENC. Seventeen percent newborns received safe cord care, 40.4% received optimal thermal care and 28.8% followed WHO recommended neonatal feeding practice. Various cultural and societal misconceptions were reported which translate into harmful practices for newborn care. Conclusion: The study highlighted an extremely low coverage level of effective essential newborn care. Pakistan needs to address issues of quality care for newborns through policy and programs which focus on Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health (MNCH) continuum of care. It needs a concerted effort at the grass root level, especially training front line workers to educate mothers on various cultural and societal misconceptions that translate into harmful practices for newborns.

Examining the Effect of Squatter Settlements in the Evolution of Spatial Fragmentation in the Housing Market of the City of Buenos Aires by Using Geographical Weighted Regression

The spatial fragmentation in the housing market and the growth of squatter settlements are characteristic for the metropolitan areas in developing countries. Over the years, in large cities, these phenomena have been promoting an increase in the spatial concentration of poverty. Therefore, this study examined the relationship between the squatter settlement growth and spatial fragmentation in the housing market of Buenos Aires. By performing a spatiotemporal analysis using geographically weighted regression in the house prices for the years 2001, 2010, and 2018, the results showed that while squatter settlements had a strong negative effect on house prices, the affected areas shifted over time. Our findings indicate that it is not the growth of the squatter settlement that causes spatial fragmentation, but rather the widening income disparities and further segregation of low-income households. However, squatter settlements determined the spatial demarcation of fragmented housing market by attracting low-income households to surrounding low house price areas.

Squatter Settlements

Squatter settlements, widespread in urban Africa, Latin America, and South and Southeast Asia, are a characteristic feature of contemporary urbanization. Also known as shantytowns, slums, favelas in Brazil, and bustees in South Asia, they involve the extralegal occupation and settlement of public or private land, often by migrants from rural areas. Unplanned and typically located on peripheral or marginal land, squatter settlements have poor infrastructure and inadequate public services, including water, health, and sanitation. Houses tend to be auto-constructed and built incrementally. Residents of squatter settlements generally lack legally recognized rights to the land they occupy, and may lead precarious lives. The majority work in the informal economy, in insecure, low-wage jobs or are self-employed. State policies in many countries, seeking to curb a migrant influx to big cities, criminalize land encroachment but fail to address the housing needs of the urban poor. Squatter settlements may be demolished in slum clearance programs. Nonetheless, many such settlements endure and grow, over time acquiring public services and rights. Well-known slums like Mumbai’s Dharavi, Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro, and Nairobi’s Kibera are populous, established, and diverse cities within cities. They are both celebrated and deplored in popular and academic accounts, as symbols of human resilience and entrepreneurship, or products of uneven development and global and national inequities. Early literature on squatter settlements located their growth in the distorted urbanization of what was known as the Third World, divorced from industrial modernization. Squatters were considered economically marginal, akin to peasants rather than “modern” urban citizens. Ethnographic and empirical research complicated these perspectives, providing insight into the lived experience and social, economic, and political organization of squatter settlements. Slums began to be viewed as solutions to challenges of housing, livelihoods, and economic growth. “Self-build” housing was celebrated, as was small-scale entrepreneurship. In-situ improvement and tenure legalization became preferred policy approaches. Later, critical urban theorists rejected notions of “underdevelopment” and development and argued that informal processes such as squatting were integral to urbanization in the Global South. As the world urbanizes, with population growth concentrated in developing world cities, slums have reemerged as sites for social-scientific inquiry. Debates about their relationship to growth and development, their viability as communities and living environments, and about policy approaches and outcomes continue to animate the literature. These debates reflect the fact that squatter settlements across the world, and even within cities, are heterogeneous and dynamic, within varied histories and trajectories.