Entitlement to Patronage

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*Corresponding author.

E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Ghafur)

Habitat International 24 (2000) 261}278

Entitlement to Patronage: social construction of householdclaims on Slum Improvement Project, Bangladesh

Shayer Ghafur*

Department of Architecture, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Abstract

This paper investigates how urban poor households claim the bene"ts of urban local interventions in order

to improve their livelihoods and living environments in a given social setting. The objective is to explore the

role of social factors in establishing household claims on urban local intervention in Bangladesh. This paper

argues that due to key institutional constraints in local government i.e. lack of"nance and an unrealistic set

of functions, poor households maintain a dependent relationship with local government in their claims on

urban services. In addition, the nature of their claims is socially constructed and refers to their de facto

entitlements. The nature of their dependence on local government, in expecting entitlements, is hierarchicaland historically speci"c arising from the social formation of Bangladesh. 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All

rights reserved.

Keywords: Urban poor communities; Entitlements; Patronage; Bangladesh

1. Introduction

Access to land, shelter and basic services, in addition to credit, education, better health, nutrition,and gender awareness, are essential for reduction of urban poverty in developing countries. But

most often, access to these components for all poor households living in a city or country is neitherwithin the "nancial and institutional capacity of central or local governments, nor do poorhouseholds consider them a!ordable. This paper considers the problems of both cause andconsequence of household access to non-physical bene"ts and physical improvements as problemsof entitlement. The concept of entitlement is understood as the capability, under a given legal and

0197-3975/00/$- see front matter 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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economic regime, of an individual or group to legitimately claim the means of subsistence (Sen,1982). This paper investigates how poor households claim the bene"ts of urban local interventionsto improve their livelihoods and living environments in the context of three intermediate-sizedcities in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is a least-developed country. All her citizens are constitutionally entitled to &theprovision of the basic necessities of life, including food, clothing, shelter, education and medicalcare' from the government (the Constitution of Bangladesh, Part II, Section 15a). But implementingand "nancing internally this fundamental state responsibility, in particular, for the poorer sectionof the society has been proved impossible, resulting in her dependence on donor assistance.Bangladesh recently asked for a one year aid of US$ 2.04 billion (The Daily Star 20.4.99). Ina premise of national dependency, Slum Improvement Project (SIP) is a state-sponsored anddonor-assisted local government intervention that aims to ful"ll the declared state objective. InSIP, urban poor households do not use their &rights' to claim bene"ts even though access to meansof subsistence is guaranteed by the Constitution. Lack of adequate income precludes theireconomic participation. Instead they depend on the local government representatives to become

eligible for bene"ts of SIP.In investigating the factors that condition household ability to claim bene"ts of SIP, existing

studies view the relationship between the intervention and bene"ciary households as passive, i.e.the latter simply takes what is given (Siddiqui et al., 1997; ADB et al., 1996; UNICEF and LGED,1994; Kalam and Karim, 1993; Haaga, 1992). As a result, those issues and &hidden structures' thathinder a given intervention's aim to empower the urban poor, to claim their entitlements tobene"ts, are not identi"ed. In SIP, where a market-led pricing mechanism for services is almostnon-existent, i.e. services are given in a rather welfarist way (made possible by donors' assistance), itis important to explore the hidden social factors responsible for apparent passiveness in relation toSIP. This social perspective not only considers institutional constraints but also investigates the

historical background that may have created a particular system of entitlement for speci"c societalgroups } urban poor households. Speci"c questions asked are:

E What is the Bengal-speci"c social construction of entitlements?E How are entitlements established while claiming bene"ts of SIP?E What relationship do bene"ciaries develop with the key local actors during claiming bene"ts of

SIP?

This paper argues that when households are legally de-enfranchised and economically incapaci-tated due to poverty, household claim is socially constructed. The social nature of their claimsshows certain homogeneity even though (bene"ciary) poor households are di!erentiated by

asymmetric access to services. In a context where public resources are scarce, if not non-existent,this paper presents a social explanation of how households claim bene"ts of SIP. Background ofSIP and pro"les of local key actors are discussed "rst, to address these questions.

2. Background of Slum Improvement Project (SIP)

The total urban population in Bangladesh was estimated to be 24 million in 1996, which is 20%of the national population. Urban population has been increasing rapidly at over 6% per annum

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A recent study (UNDP & UNCHS, 1993) estimates that implementation of upgrading in a conventional way would

require US$ 35 per capita &on-site' upgrading of infrastructure and US$ 15 per capita &o!-site' infrastructure leading to

a total of US$ 300 million capital investments over a period of ten years. Moreover, the costs for dealing with the newly

arriving 250,000 people during this ten year &transitional period', an additional cost of US$ 125 million will make the total

estimate US$ 425 million. It is needless to say that the government of Bangladesh is, or will hardly be, in a realistic

position to mobilize, and invest the said amount.

during the last three decades as against 2% of national population increase. A large number ofurban dwellers are poor, i.e. they cannot buy the basic needs requirements with their own incomes.According to a 1996 study, 61.3% of all urban households subsist below the poverty line and 40.2%fall below the &hardcore poverty line' (Islam et al., 1997, p. 9). Most of these poor people live inservice-de"cient low-income settlements with legal and illegal land tenure, which are generallytermed as &slums'. One key problem confronting Bangladesh is how to address the existing socialand physical service de"ciencies in slums, inhabited by approximately nine and a half million urbanpoor in di!erent sizes of cities and towns.

The scarcity of land, complexities inherent in #ood-free land development (CUS, 1989, p. 12) andpervasive low levels of a!ordability among more than half of the total urban populationled to identi"cation of &slum upgrading', among other possibilities, as a potential type ofintervention. But national "nancial constraints restrict the implementation of slum upgradation ina &conventional way'. The Slum Improvement Project (SIP), with donor assistance, has providedurban basic services and socio-economic facilities in low-income settlements in di!erent sizes ofcities and towns. This intervention strategy has emerged as one of the key forms of state

intervention in Bangladesh since 1985. The availability of donor assistance provided the spur to itsinitiation.

2.1. Historical background

In a policy vacuum in 1979, a study of &Urban Poor in Bangladesh', on four municipalcorporations, "nanced by the UNICEF, had provided a basis for the development of &First UrbanProject' (CUS, 1979). This project, &Community-Based Project for the Urban Poor', wasimplemented by the Department of Social Services (DSS) under the Ministry of Social Welfare

during the 1982}1985 period, in the four largest cities of Bangladesh and is seen as the precursorof SIP. The project activities included surveys of selected project communities, organizingthe communities, the provision of income-generating loans for women, establishing and/or sup-porting day-care centres, providing health care to mothers and children plus providing tube wellsand sanitary latrines.

During the 1982}1985 period, this project faced a number of di$culties in its implementation.Even though DSS had the advantage of having a cadre of experienced community workers in mosturban areas of Bangladesh, its lack of experience, if not inability, to deliver basic urban servicesproved to be a great disadvantage. Shortage and frequent transfers of sta! also added to thisdi$culty. In 1984}1985, after a few years of slow progress in implementation, decision makers at

the national level (especially UNICEF) felt that selection of an appropriate co-ordinating agency

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was crucial for the e$cient implementation of future projects. Subsequently, Local GovernmentEngineering Bureau (LGEB), under the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development andCo-operatives was given the task of nation-wide project co-ordination; the Bureau was laterupgraded to a Department in 1992 and is known as LGED. Because of LGED 's close ties withlocal government and in#uence over the policy and implementation of di!erent project compo-nents, its involvement was e!ective for project co-ordination and strengthened inter-institutionalcollaboration both at local and national levels. A summary pro"le of SIP is outlined next(UNICEF, 1988).

SIP is a target group speci"c urban intervention. Within hardcore urban poor group, women arethe target SIP bene"ciaries living in slums. In 1985, SIP started as a pilot project in "ve districtmunicipal towns with funding from UNICEF. The period of 1985}1988 constituted the "rst phasein the development of SIP. During this phase it succeeded in covering 7100 households in 16municipal towns. A signi"cant time and e!ort had been given to prepare and approve the projectproforma and overall implementation guidelines, building sta!commitment to the project, moti-vate and organize the bene"ciaries, and the time required to convince the land owner to come to

a land agreement. In the second phase (1988}1993), SIP succeeded in covering 15,000 households in24 municipal towns, and followed the previous work plan with minor modi"cations. At this stage,SIP aimed to expand and become more e$cient, and expected rapid institutionalization for theurban basic services and capacity building at the national level. The second phase was extended to1996.

2.2. Objectives

E To increase the capability of the pourashavas/municipal corporations to work with the urban

poor communities in the planning and provision of basic services.E To promote the bene"ts and possibilities of extending basic services to urban slums and to

encourage planning for expansion of the urban basic services commensurate with the growth ofthe country's urban centres.

E To increase government attention to urban areas and their rapid growth, especially regardingthe need to develop policies and plans related to the urban poor.

E To involve (urban) poor women in project activities for their own bene"t.

E To promote self-reliant community development e!orts through mobilization of communityresources and access to Government services.

E To improve the nutrition and health conditions of children and women through the provision of

an integrated basic services package to be supplemented by promoting access to existing health(immunization, ORS, vitamin A) and water/environmental sanitation programmes.

2.3. Project components

SIP has followed an integrated approach consisting of the following eight components: com-munity organization and participation; primary health care; water and environmental sanitation;savings and income generation; environmental upgrading; early childhood education; block grantfund; and research and advocacy.



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2.4. Organizational structure

SIP has a four-tier organizational structure, which comprises: Central Coordination Committee(CCC); Project Implementation Committee (PIC); Sub-Project Implementation Committee(SPIC); and Working Groups.

Since its inception as a pilot project in 1985, SIP covered around 36,000 households in 200project sites in 25 municipal towns and city corporations. SIP contributed to the improvement ofliving conditions through the development of physical infrastructure; it provided credit to morethan 8,000 of the poorest women, and o!ered health and nutrition education in the project areas.Despite noticeable improvement in its project areas and bene"ciaries, SIP has reached less than4% of the poorest families and less than 2% of urban poor households in Bangladesh (UNICEF,1996, p. 7). Despite this shortage in coverage, the model of SIP has made a breakthrough inproviding assistance to the urban poor in Bangladesh. In recognition, SIP has been identi"ed as the&best practice' in Bangladesh for the Habitat II Conference. Implementation of SIP was discontinu-ed in 1996; however, the basic model of SIP continued to remain as a key component of many

existing and future projects that aim to bene"t the urban poor in di!erent cities in Bangladesh(Siddiqui et al., 1997, p. 207).

3. Methodology

Data used in this paper are mainly qualitative in nature, and drawn from numerous informalinterviews conducted during the survey with people in the community, "eld workers, and o$cialsand elected members of the pourashava. These people were asked to explain their respective rolesand responsibilities in the design, implementation and maintenance of SIP, and to give their critical

appreciation of SIP. Personal interviews and on-site observations are supplemented by evidencefrom secondary sources, i.e. publications and project documents. These data were obtained as partof a larger empirical research (Ghafur, 1997) for which a &multi-stage strati"ed' sampling techniqueand a multi-method data collection approach were adopted (Fig. 1).

A population between 50,000 and 200,000 has been used to categorize and select intermediate-sized cities in Bangladesh. To have a representational sample, this broad 50,000}200,000 popula-tion range was sub-divided into three groups: 50,000}100,000; 100,001}150,000; and 150,001}200,000. Faridpur (69,000), Comilla (135,000) and Mymensingh (189,000) are the three cities takenfrom each of these groups. UNICEF's list of communities within SIP was obtained to set criteriaand guide selection of low-income settlements. The list contains total population and household

number and detailed project pro"les for each city. From that list, two large and one smallcommunity were selected, taking into account their total number of bene"ciary households. It wasensured that these settlements were run well under SIP, and the settlements had received interven-tion for a period of at least three years. For the selection of non-participant settlements, three morelow-income settlements in each of three intermediate-sized cities, not within SIP coverage, the SIPwaiting list for future action was taken. They were required to show poor shelter condition, highgross area density and inadequate services.

In selecting households, one-seventh (approximately 15%) of the total number of SIP house-holds in a programme (SIP) settlement, enumerated in the UNICEF list, were used to conduct the



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Fig. 1. Multi-stage strati"ed (random) sample framework.

questionnaire survey. To ensure a balanced response, an equal or very similar number of all SIPhouseholds (from the three participant settlements) were taken in three non-participating settle-ments in each city. Each of the three participating and non-participating settlements was dividedinto three physically identi"able parts, from which an equal number of households were randomlyselected. Five per cent of total cases (19 in total) from participating and non-participatingsettlements in three intermediate-sized cities were informally interviewed to make household case

histories.

4. Institutional setting of Slum Improvement Project

The four-tier implementation structure of SIP suggests that di!erent actors, with di!ering roles,responsibilities and pro"les, are involved at the national and local levels. Inter-institutionalrelationships at the national and local levels in planning, implementing and monitoring the SIP areshown in Fig. 2. This relationship is viewed from bottom to top, i.e. from household to global level;however, future discussion would be con"ned mainly to household and local level. Some general

observations on the national and local levels are made "rst to focus later on the local levels in thenext section.

4.1. National level

In policy declaration, the central government at the national level made it clear that itsinvolvement will be con"ned only in the provision of those services which are otherwise unattain-able by any individual or a community. In an acute resource stricken context, di!erent interna-tional aid and lending agencies usually provide the bulk of the resources needed for the public



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Fig. 2. Key actors and their roles and relationships in the SIP implementation.

sector project by means of grants, loans or technical assistance. In Bangladesh, a 1993 study reportsthat, the external "nancing accounts for over 80% of the planned outlays in the urban shelter sector(UNDP & UNCHS, 1993, p. 37). And in the case of SIP, it was UNICEF who would provide over75% of the funding and technical guidance (ADB et al., 1996, p. 38). SIP is a case where centralgovernment policies, made in conjunction with donor's priorities to bene"t the urban poor,explicitly set out to ensure access of urban poor to the basic services.

At the national level, the Central Co-ordination Committee (CCC) is composed of all theconcerned ministries and institutions that have a role in SIP. This setting is a forum to guide andco-ordinate inter-ministerial support in ful"lling project obligation, decide on policy and proced-ure formulation, and review project progress.

4.2. Local level

Among other associate actors, particularly, LGED as the co-ordinating agency, respectivemunicipal authorities were given the task of implementing SIP. A democratically elected



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chairperson is held responsible for the project management in each municipality. The mainobjective of entrusting the municipality with the implementation of SIP was to enable them towork as partners with the people living in low-income settlements on the one hand, and on theother hand to develop local capacity to plan, implement, and monitor basic services. This was thattheir increased-capacity would enable the city authority to respond quickly and selectively to theneeds as they are identi"ed. At this level, the municipality has to work hand in hand with otherspeci"c o$ces like Public Health, Social Welfare and Family Planning. The direct verticalconnection with the central co-ordinating agency LGED and a horizontal partnership with localassociated o$ces have so far contributed to its smooth functioning. Besides pourashavas, theservice of well-trained community organizers from established NGOs contributed greatly in theformative years of SIP.

5. Pro5les of local key actors

For the implementation of SIP, the actors at the local pourashava level are identi"ed andgrouped into three broad categories; they are: "rst, authorities, i.e. elected pourashava representa-tives and non-elected o$ce bearers; second, community organizers classi"ed as intermediaries;third, bene"ciaries, people living in low-income settlements. An understanding of their pro"lesprovides a background to explain how SIP bene"ciaries claim bene"ts and what relationship theydevelop with the authorities during the process.

5.1. Authorities: Unresponsive public representation

Authorities in SIP consist of elected pourashava representatives and technical personnel.

A pourashava in Bangladesh is divided into a number of electoral units or &wards'; usually, three&ward commissioners' are chosen by direct election from each ward. Under the present system ofurban local self-government, they are presumably supposed to play an active role between the

pourashava and the community in all developmental and socio-political activities carried out by theformer. Understanding the role of these ward commissioners is crucial to understanding how poorhousehold's (or community) felt needs are met, their access to local government initiatives isensured, and how their opinion is placed and considered in the decision making process at grassroots level.

During implementation of SIP, ward commissioners of a particular locality are usually co-optedonly as advisors without executive authority. SIP implementation e!ectively bypasses the commis-

sioners, but not without a price. As a consequence of this inert role, the commissioners lose interest,and withdraw from all activities of SIP. But the SIP community involved is e!ectively isolated fromtaking part in the socio-political functions of the municipality that a!ect their livelihoods andliving environments as the connecting link, potentially provided by the ward commissioners, isabsent.

The following account of a ward commissioner in Comilla pourashava o$ce is a typical pro"le oftheir role and perception of low-income people (as a representative of the communities). Thegentleman identi"ed himself as a &contractor' and explained that he had been serving his secondterm as a ward commissioner. He claimed that he had a thorough knowledge of the problems of his



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community and that allowed him the privilege to decide what development works needed to becarried out in his ward constituency. Based on this problem assessment, he then met the municipalchairman to inform him, and prioritize work that needed to be done. But the commissioner waswell aware that such development work should be equally distributed in all "ve mahallas (commu-nities) within his ward.

However, people in the community told the researcher that very rarely have all communitiesbeen favoured equally. The contractor's aim, implicit in the resource allocation for developmentwork, was to serve and ensure his existing vote banks. When asked what feedback he usually gotfrom the people in the community on activities that a!ected their livelihoods and living, he notedthat people (in particular, low-income slum dwellers) remain passive as they are not aware and donot know how the (o$cial) system works. What is evident is that he considers that what he thinks,sees, and decides is enough to meet the problems of the people; and second, people are unwilling tospeak out on a!airs that a!ect their livelihood and living environments. These set ideas justi"ed hisin#uencing who gets the contract to carry out development work. If the municipal chairman isfrom the same political party as his commissioner, he usually turns a blind eye to this in#uence in

order to maintain political a$liation.Engineers are the other key actors in the authority category. Discussions with pourashava

engineers (and others, e.g. ward commissioners), in all three cities, suggest that the main headings inpourashava expenditure are for civil works, i.e. bridge/culverts, road repair and construction.A comparative assessment of per capita expenditure reveals the excessive preoccupation of the

pourashavas in Bangladesh with road maintenance and development work, and (public) health andsanitation. Per capita expenditure on education, however, has been allowed to remain one of thelowest items (Faizullah, 1989, p. 64).

The advent of entrepreneurs into politics, termed as the &commercialization of politics' at thenational level, is also observable at the local pourashava election level. In an election preview, the

daily Ajker Kagoj (10.1.95), observed that most of these prospective ward commissioners are youngand, importantly, thikadar (small contractors) by profession. As most of the (aspirant as well asserving) ward commissioners are contractors by profession, it is perhaps not clear whether scopefor better contracts, or an opportunity to represent their respective populace, motivated them tobecome ward commissioners. A cyclic relationship between projects}money}power at the deci-sion-making level ofpourashava is very evident. It is, therefore, very unlikely that projects requiringallocation of resources to lower-income people of the city would be given much consideration. Thevoices of poor people are ine!ective and scarcely attended to at city level under the existing systemof representation.

5.2. Intermediaries: organizers, motivators and negotiators in SIP

The community organizers (COs) are the most important &actors' in the initiation and operationof SIP in low-income settlements. They are &intermediaries' because they play their role inimplementing the project by organizing and motivating the bene"ciaries while maintaining liaisonbetween bene"ciaries and authorities in the pourashava.

In the beginning of SIP, COs found it very di$cult communicating with the poor people,particularly women, because of their lack of social awareness and negative social prejudices. COs inall cities shared the common view that after setting up one or two pilot SIP communities



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successfully, COs became con"dent of their capability, and it became much easier to convince othercommunities. This was because the establishment of mutual trust with a particular communitycreated a basis for reference. This enabled a visual example of what they advocate and try toachieve. The well-articulated job description in the project proforma and the subsequent trainingare also notable factors in enabling COs to achieve their objectives. Female community healthworkers also play a crucial role in educating and building health awareness among the urban poor.

5.3. Benexciaries: homogeneity within diversity in depending on assistance

Urban poor women and their households are the direct and indirect bene"ciaries of SIP. Tobecome a legitimate bene"ciary of SIP, a woman has to come from a hardcore urban poorhousehold and live in a slum settlement. Authorities at the city and national level assume "rst, thatthe SIP bene"ciaries (and the settlements they live in), are socio-economically homogenous in allcities and communities; second, that formulation and strict following of the project proforma per seis enough to ensure the best selection and extension of services to the bene"ciaries. Their

assumptions appear as a myth of homogeneity in the following accounts (Ghafur, 1997):E Benexciary income proxle: SIP bene"ciaries are di!erentiated economically. During survey in

early 1995, a slum poverty line was made to check, among other things, if all SIP respondentswere genuine hardcore urban poor households in all three cities. Despite strict SIP rules andrespondent's &tongue in check' during the survey, 12.5% of 212 SIP households, reported thatthey had an average monthly household income above Tk. 3500 } a "gure above the slumpoverty income limit of a household with six members.

E Settlement proxle: Despite apparent homogeneity, low-income settlements (i.e. slums) di!er interms of physical condition, legal situation, and the nature and extent of services in o!ering

better living conditions and opportunities for livelihoods.A major "nding is that owner}occupies (with predominantly legal and illegal land tenure), rental,

and public housing accommodation are 79.4, 13.8, and 6.8%, respectively, among the 413 house-holds surveyed. These "gures for the 213 SIP households are 84.5, 9.8 and 5.6%, respectively. Theapparently high proportion of owner}occupiers in the private sector needs to be seen in the contextof the prevailing SIP regulations that explicitly favour urban poor owner}occupiers in implement-ing projects. Though urban poor owner}occupiers constitute a signi"cant number in the survey ofthe three intermediate-sized cities, there are also many illegal squatters, and/or a #oating popula-tion that varies in terms of settlement size and population between these cities. These twocategories of people are absent from government records of dwellers and dwellings in a given

neighbourhood. A short visit to the city railway station, or the rail track and river bank is enoughto show the precarious conditions in which these marginal urban populations live. A discussionwith the community organizers and municipal o$cials often reveals how helpless they are toinclude these marginal sections of the urban population in SIP, due to the strict tenurial conditionsof SIP regulations. Despite these diversities, what ba%es this researcher is the homogeneityapparent in bene"ciary and non-bene"ciary respondent's aspiration to claim services and resourcesof SIP.

Discussions with people in the community and authorities in pourashava during the "eld surveyhave suggested that poor (and non-poor) households have shown certain homogeneity in high



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expectations of their sarker (the government, in general) providing them with urban services, orrelief in time of natural disasters. General household attitudes towards dependence on sarker, forful"lling their expectations, constitute the social basis for their sense of de facto entitlement to thebene"ts of SIP. The speci"c nature and social construction of entitlements in the context ofBangladesh are discussed next.

6. Social construction of entitlements

The Bengal-speci"c notion of entitlement (on commodities or services) has a normative stance,and an origin that dates back to the pre-modern period. It is argued that the &exchange entitlementapproach' (Sen, 1982) takes an excessively legalistic view of social relations inherent in the speci"ccontext of Bengal (Appadurai, 1984, p. 483). Household aspiration to SIP has its roots in therelationship between &moral-economic traditions' of Bengal, and the social action that follows fromit, and the notion of entitlement in this context can be found in studies of causes and consequences

of poverty and famine in Bengal. Following Sen (1982), others have developed and supported theidea of the speci"c (social) nature of the moral ordering of society as it has existed in Bengal, inparticular, how Bengalis &feel entitled to a share of the wealth and abstract goodness that exists, forit is their moral right' (Greenough, 1983; Appadurai, 1984; Maloney, 1991). These "ndings havebeen found to provide a valuable insight into how people respondin crisis, and to the way in whichsocial values and beliefs orient people's (collective) aspirations to speci"c services or commodities.

There are contrasting views of what constitutes the basis of the moral economy of Bengal. Scott 'sadvocacy of &risk and scarcity' (Scott, 1976, p. 182) was disputed by Greenough (1983) who arguedthat the locally generated values of &abundance' and &indulgence' embedded in the traditional&nature of Bengali prosperity' are the notions that shaped the moral economy of Bengal. He

suggested that the values and obligations, implicit in paternalist authorities and land control inBengal are broadly incorporated in the &ideal' interpretation of these concepts of indulgence andabundance. The act of giving blessing or grace holds a key position in Bengali culture. The act ofindulgence #ows from the resourceful patron to the needy dependent in the local hierarchy. Thedependent expects that he/she be entitled to an indulged redistribution of wealth, abstractgoodness, and personal blessing. This social construction of entitlement is his/her de facto right. Inessence, the Bengali notion of prosperity is based on a balance between destined providers ofsubsistence (annadatas) and persons requiring nurture (posyas) (Greenough, 1983, p. 841).

Normative construction of the hidden structure, based on social values and accepted behaviourpatterns, still "nds concrete expression in, and is consolidated within, the social setting speci"c to

intermediate-sized cities in Bangladesh; but often with undesirable implications. This is discussedbelow to explain the dependent relationship between the local government and poor households inBangladesh.

7. Household claims to de facto entitlements

In the implementation of SIP, all actors (Fig. 2) at the &top' and &bottom' have been observed toact in accordance with the traditional moral social order. In the context of persisting institutional



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constraints, this implies that socially constructed entitlement expectations set certain norms forboth (local) authorities and households, and that their consequences operate both ways, from&below' and &above' the pourashava. The following discussion explains the situations that ariseduring household de facto entitlement is acceded or refused.

7.1. Establishing entitlements

Entitlement established is the situation where an individual or group of households claimssucceeds, i.e. access to, and appropriation of the services and resources of SIP.

The decision to make available a given bundle of physical, social, and economic services to thetarget bene"ciaries, i.e. urban poor women, originally was made by UNICEF } an organizationwith a well-declared &intention' to provide welfare for &mother and children' (UNICEF, 1984).These intentions, not UNICEF's initial &duty', are expressed in programmes conditioned on thenature and extent of the problem in a given situation, and available funds. It was mainly due toUNICEF}Bangladesh initiatives that the government of Bangladesh felt obliged to pursue and

implement UNICEF}funded urban programmes. A Country Report on Bangladesh's Urban Pro-gramme states `a major task of UNICEF is advocating for the urban poor, and trying to encouragethe government to begin addressing the problems of the urban areas, in general, and those of theurban poor, in particulara (UNICEF, 1989, p. 4). The gradual creation of proper monitoring andimplementing authorities (LGED and pourashavas, respectively), and the formulation of projectproforma are all carried out under UNICEF supervision. The creation of an environment thatenabled households, especially women in the household, to claim entitlements, did not arise froma community of urban poor &"ghting' for its &rights'.

The apparent sense of responsibility carried over from UNICEF to central government led toidenti"cation of &felt needs' of the households in low-income settlements through their collabora-

tion. The identi"cation of felt needs by providers rather than recipients no doubt gives certainadvantages to local governments in implementing a nationally conceived (and planned) top-downintervention like SIP. However, it denies households the possibility of speaking collectively abouttheir own problems. Moreover, only a small portion of all households in a given city are given theopportunity to take up their entitlements in a context in which households are not homogenous,despite the criteria set by SIP for selecting bene"ciaries.

7.2. Entitlement failure

Entitlement failure occurs when an individual or groups of households are unable to establish

their claim on de facto entitlement.The extent of entitlement failure is more prevalent than its establishment. The key factors

hindering an individual or groups of households from claiming their entitlements, i.e. de factorights, include scarce pourashava resources; in addition, squatters are excluded by SIP guidelines.When di!erent pourashava authorities were asked why they could not expand SIP coverage, theypointed to inadequate "nance; their own lack of revenue needed to supplement that from thedonors (UNICEF) via the central government prevents wider coverage. When UNICEF stopsfunding, they expect that grants from other foreign donors will be required to run the SIP; if suchfunds are not available, they see no option but to stop running it. If this happens, UNICEF, central



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government, pourashava, and community would each have an excuse for not having received"nance from their immediate superior. Each level would feel &abandoned' by its immediatesuperior, and would probably make no e!ort to accumulate alternative "nance, thereby threaten-ing the sustainability of existing as well as future SIP in each community. Even if UNICEF isreplaced by other "nancing bodies, as it has been observed now (Siddiqui et al., 1997, p. 207)), thesituation would remain the same.

The denial ofde facto right to SIP because of illegal land tenure of a given group of households isdue to the authorities' perception of squatters as a oating population', implying temporary urbanresidence. This is then used to justify denial of households' right to urban services. But there areexceptions; the two SIP-settlements in Faridpur with illegal occupation suggest that mediationtook place between pourashava and land-owning public authorities at the initiative of the former.This novelty on the part of Faridpur pourashava is attributed to its inability to "nd suitablelegally-owned settlements rather than to its desire to break the normal pattern. Each pourashava isobligated and held accountable to the CCC for timely utilization of SIP funds.

7.3. Accountability

Accountability ofpourashava authorities plays a key role in establishment of entitlement.Proper project implementation, seen in SIP, without any "nancial and functional aberration, is

no small feat in Bangladesh. Accountability of local authorities plays a key role in establishinghousehold entitlement. However, the form which this accountability takes is not through citydwellers (bene"ciaries in SIP) having easy access to service providers and a better understanding byhouseholds of how institutions work (UNCHS, 1996, p. 162). Accountability in implementing SIPis ensured by a pourashava's strict adherence to project guidelines, set and monitored by the centralgovernment and donors, but not by the bene"ciaries; accountability is achieved through monthly

project reports, and periodic visits by central government and UNICEF sta!s to projects. Thebene"ciaries are given a token representation on the city-speci"c Project Implementation Commit-tee (PIC), but actually, this is nothing more than passive recipient status, and a listening role. Theterms of reference of PIC, show that the main executive authority is entrusted to the respective

pourashava's chairman. The chairman is no doubt a public representative of his constituents, buthis accountability is more inclined towards central government, as required by UNICEF, than tohis project bene"ciaries. The inclusion of a large number of (educated) o$cials means that themanner in which meetings are held, topics discussed, and decisions approved is not helpful to thetwo/three (less, or uneducated) community-level Sub-Project Implementation Committee (SPIC)chairman participating and contributing to the meeting.

7.4. Enfranchisement of the community

Partial accountability does not promote enfranchisement of the community.If the notion &enfranchisement' means the ability of an individual or groups of households

to participate legitimately in the decision-making process, to negotiate, extract, request orplace demands to claim their entitlement for SIP in a given context, then households becomedisenfranchised in both entitlement established and failure situations. Root causes for lack ofenfranchisement are embedded in both institutions and the community. The process of disen-



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Fig. 3. Household perceptions on pourashava role: were their opinions sought?

franchisement starts with the public institution identifying household &felt needs'. Felt needs of theurban poor are identi"ed as &practical gender needs' (Moser, 1993) by the central authority on theassumption that needs relevant to households in metropolitan cities are the same everywhere.

The apparent sense of responsibility #owing down from UNICEF to central government leadsto felt needs being identi"ed by these institutions; this no doubt gives certain advantages inimplementing a nationally conceived (and planned) top-down programme like SIP. However, ite!ectively ignores households' ability to identify their own problems. Moreover, disenfranchise-ment is institutionalized by the existing nature of the service mechanism in which the communityis conceived only as a passive recipient. Identi"cation of felt needs by-passes the possibility ofthe pourashava playing an &enabling' role; viewed from an enabling perspective, the outcome of the

pourashava-community relationship is rather confusing; here, the question rather lies in how thecommunity "ts into a government-sponsored programme. Authorities are not willing to allowa community to air its views and implement its decisions even if that community comes forwardwith its unique idea.

In all three cities, when respondents were asked whether their opinions were sought by

pourashavas, on social and development works in their neighbourhoods, their initial reaction onmany occasions was complete ba%ement; what did this question mean? To most respondents, itwas obvious that they were usually approached and met by chairman and ward commissionercandidates only before the pourashava election. Their response is categorized in terms of allhouseholds and SIP/non-SIP in Fig. 3.

For all households, a response of &always' and &sometimes' constitutes 15.5 and 20% of replies,respectively; but these two responses di!er between SIP and non-SIP households. In SIP house-holds, development of social awareness has resulted in household realization of what pourashavashave been, or have not been, doing for them; this collective perception is clearly re#ected in onlya 4% &always' and a 58% &never' response and in only a 5% &do not know' response. Even though

SIP is a pourashava intervention and urban poor households are its bene"ciaries, households feltthat in other pourashava activities, inside and outside respective neighbourhoods, their opinion islargely ignored. On the other hand, a comparatively high response, 27% of&always', and a very low6% of&sometimes', and high 18.5% of&do not know' responses among non-SIP households suggesttheir lack of clear understanding of what their relationship with pourashava is; this apparent lackre#ects the households' unorganized pro"le, observed to have been weakened further by poverty,factionalism and feuds. The (individual and collective) isolation and deprivation that result fromexclusion of households from the decision-making process, made the communities reluctant and



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unwilling to appropriate whatever social development facilities are available and accessible tothem. This disenfranchisement has to be understood in the existing hierarchy}patronage relation-ship and is discussed next.

7.5. Hierarchy}patronage relationship

Disenfranchisement implies urban poor households' dependence on authorities, and this entailsperpetuation of the pre-existing hierarchy}patronage relationship.

The discussion above reiterates the observation that SIP can best be judged as a centrallyplanned welfarist intervention. In SIP, pourashava involvement, like any other local governmenthas to be seen, as an instrument to implement a &nationally formulated uniform programme'. Thecentral state has been seen to be engaged, via di!erent pourashavas, in contributing to the&production of the general condition of social production' (Folin, 1981), but the speci"c course ittakes is di!erent from that in developed countries. The predominance of the informal sector inthree cities in Bangladesh, as in many other peripheral capitalist countries, bears witness to the fact

that urban services are not provided by local government for the reproduction of labour to beconsumed by, or for the interests of, large private or multi-national (capitalist) companies. On thecontrary, donor assistance and local "nance are utilized to provide the &means of consumption' toreduce the costs of the reproduction of households and contribute to an increase in theirproductivity.

Due to centuries of social and political disenfranchisement and acceptance of a dependent role inthe decision-making process within pourashavas in Bangladesh, urban low-income people werenever organizedto obtain items of collective consumption from local governments to improve theirlivelihoods and living environments. In SIP, the social construction of the collective expectation (of

entitlement to patronage) contributes to the development of a speci"

c hierarchy-patronage rela-tionship between households and urban local government. Within this relationship, the institu-tional format ofpourashava does not enfranchise households to claim legitimately required items ofurban services for household reproduction. The selection of bastees for SIP intervention by cityauthorities (headed by the pourashava chairman) and the local elite is a de jure outcome in responseto household expectations, made possible by external resources and authorities' strict adherence totop-down project guidelines. In the absence of bene"ciary participation in the selection of bastees,the provision of services becomes a de facto recognition of household aspirations. On the surface,SIP no doubt serves the cause of the poor, but in reality, service provision is also a patronagedistribution e!ort which intends to secure the support of local power structure (and households) for

the central government.

7.6. Women's claims to entitlements

Hierarchy}patronage relationship outlines bene"ciary women's claims to entitlements.Bangladesh is a &patriarchal' society in addition to being an economically di!erentiated class

society. A bene"ciary urban poor household, as a social unit, lacks the capacity to claim its de factoentitlements (of SIP), and is conditioned "rst by &class'. In addition to class, the speci"c bene"ciary,i.e. urban poor women are then a!ected by the gender division of labour } the speci"c manifestation



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Practical gender needs are the needs women identify in their socially accepted roles in society; these needs do not

challenge the existing divisions of labour, or women 's subordinate status. The needs are practical, i.e. in response to

women's immediate perceived (by women) necessity, and are concerned with inadequate living conditions and liveli-

hoods, e.g. water, sanitation, health care, and income-earning opportunities; they exist within the speci"c context of the

spatial setting of households (Moser, 1993, p. 40}41).

of patriarchy. The process that has led both to establishment and to failure of their entitlement toSIP relates to the &traditional moral social order'. An examination of this topic suggests thatwomen have a subordinate role in the whole process of implementation of SIP (Ghafur, 1997); thisprocess perpetuates rather than contests the existing social norms and division of labour. Inconsidering the speci"c nature of the components of SIP, the establishment of entitlement impliesthat women meet their &practical gender needs' by their alliances with and through the mediationof male members of their households, community, and authorities in the local government. Criticalexamination of the premises within which donors and government intervene suggests that they seekto ful"ll practical gender needs; implicit in this is their assumption that this provides an entry pointfor meeting &strategic gender needs' in the future.

8. Conclusion

Urban poor households' claims to SIP in three intermediate-sized cities in Bangladesh do nottake place in a value-neutral setting: SIP bene"ciaries develop a dependent relationship with thelocal government. This relationship has been rooted in the social construction of de factoentitlements, which "nd expression in and are mediated by the existing social situation inBangladesh. This "nding has important implications for future urban local interventions inBangladesh. It suggests a need to reorient our focus away from &availability' of services (byprovision) and towards the household &ability' to claim them.

Though unfortunate, top-down local urban interventions initiated by agents external to lower-income communities to provide basic urban services will remain crucial, at least in the near future,for urban poor households in Bangladesh. If this appears undesirable, as most &bottom-up'

protagonists would argue, then the immediate alternative is the autonomous grass-roots initiatives.But it is unrealistic to suggest that these communities could become self-su$cient overnight,mobilizing resources and acquiring technical knowledge to design and implement di!erent pro-

jects. Considering the resource scarcity and lack of technical knowledge, this paper also does notclaim that low-income communities should not continue to depend on external resources andtechnical assistance in addition to that provided by local and central governments. What thismeans is that the state has a role to play. Poor people, in particular, are entitled to state patronageto improve their living environment and livelihood.

To reverse the case of the urban poor, a state can be suggested to pursue two broad courses ofactions within an entitlement framework (Sen, 1985): "rst, better functioning of the (urban)

economy; second, provision of integrated basic services to the vulnerable groups. Our conclusionrelates to the latter. From state-initiated and donor-assisted urban local intervention to bene"t



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genuine urban poor, two possible scenarios are possible:

E Culture of patronage: An increased institutional ability for (top-down) service provision butunchanged household social ability to claim; it ties the bene"ciaries into a dependent relation-ship with the local providers by making them passive recipients. This re#ects the case of SIP.

E Entitlement to patronage: Here the pourashavas not only have the ability to initiate a top-downintervention but also have the scope to modify the claiming environment in which householdsparticipate. Urban poor households are empowered to come in contact and negotiate with thelocal authorities implementing a top-down initiative, and make an intervention more bene"ci-ary-responsive than the former scenario. In addition, it harnesses the possibility of households totranscend the institutional constraints by taking self-motivated initiatives in partnership withgovernment and non-governmental institutions. This would be the case for going beyond SIP.

We should try to avoid the former to work progressively within the latter.

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Entitlement to Patronage