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NEWS ACTIVITIES
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About ACHR
The following article was written in 1998. A revised version will appear
soon. 1. Introduction Summary
Before
the emergence of ACHR there was no common forum or facility for NGO’s,
professionals and grassroots groups working in Asian cities to exchange ideas,
despite an expressed need to share experiences, tackle the large problem of
forced evictions in the regions cities, develop opportunities for organisations
of the poor and consider their place in city planning. It was with these
intentions in mind that ACHR was formed in 1988. Since then, the links between
coalition members have matured, regional programmes have been formalised and
ACHR has become recognized as one of the most important players in urban poor
development in the region by international agencies and urban actors.
1. IntroductionIn June 1988 a group of professionals and social activists involved with urban poor development activities in various Asian countries established the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (to be called in short, “ACHR” onwards). The first activity the group implemented was a Regional Campaign against evictions in Korea. This led to a number of new regional activities with a larger number and broader range of contact groups. ACHR evolved into a regional network and representative for Habitat International Coalition, for Asia. It has also become the main regional network on human settlements and urban issues consulted by many UN agencies such as UNCHS, UNDP and ESCAP. Since its inception the ACHR secretariat has been located in Bangkok, keeping itself small, low-cost, and with only a few full-time staff. It has encouraged the decentralization of various regional activities and related coordination to other member groups in the region, as far as possible. In Bangkok, which is centrally located in the region, communication costs are efficient and cheaper and related services such as foreign exchange and finance are flexible. These factors make Bangkok a convenient location for the secretariat. Because of this, the secretariat has gradually taken more and more coordinating functions as ACHR has grown. Today ACHR has the strength of being an effective regional network to promote necessary changes for people. This depends on the ACHR secretariat's coordinating capacity to promote many activities in collaboration with its diverse number of contact organizations. In the past several years, ACHR regional activities have grown considerably. This is mainly due to the implementation of the Training and Advisory Program (TAP) which in its first 3 years organized more than fifty regional activities of various kinds. In parallel with the growth of TAP, was the emergence of some common key issues / themes in the region affecting most countries, and thus Regional Functional Units were set up to provide a clearer scope and focus for a regional sharing / working on these themes. As of April 1998, the following have become ACHR's active Regional Functional Units
The larger the organization, the
more challenges, and promises / potential for better opportunities to change the present situation,
and we are all committed to such change.
However, with such growth there is also potential for more problems to
emerge: differences
of interests, theories, beliefs, and expectations.
These have to be accounted for, and compromises made at certain levels.
Since its establishment, we have adopted a decentralized system to
share tasks to organize various regional activities among members. Decentralised
coordinators are
expected to develop constructive working relationships with other groups in the
region. Another interesting aspect which has emerged over the past
several years is a clearer national process in many countries; with the spontaneous formation of
national ACHR networks amongst contact groups in each country.
This means better facilitation and stronger connections and actions both at national and
regional levels. The following
countries have a defined national contact facility or form of organizational set-up to
coordinate within their countries/cities: It is now evident that the role of ACHR coordination has increased considerably. The range of its activities has grown rapidly. Recently ACHR has been involved in various regional grassroots exchange programs, training workshops, meetings, seminars, fact finding missions, publications, extensive information dissemination. ACHR also presents itself at various UN and international meetings. In this connection, the secretariat office in Bangkok has taken most of the general coordinating roles. It is necessary and important that the present regional coordinating and facilitating functions of ACHR Secretariat in Bangkok continue to be effective. However, the present situation is regarded as a transitional stage to a new form of regional coalition and networking which aims to be more decentralized, action-oriented and with a clear direction to promote changes and the initiatives of people. This requires broad participation and unified involvement of groups in the region. This can happen in various forms but needs to be firmly based on local contexts to be sustainable in the future. 2. Development of Activities
- ACHR's path for the decade 1988-19982.1
Regional Action in Korea - Forming “the spirit ” of ACHR - ACHR was inaugurated in June 1988 after a regional meeting of Asian NGOs working on urban housing issues in the region. It was first intended to make an immediate response to the case of eviction in Seoul, Korea. Regional Eviction Campaign was organized to send a fact finding mission to Korea. The campaign drew broad participation from most concerned groups in the region and in the world, which consequently brought some impact on the country’s situation. This action also gave the form to what ACHR is: action-oriented, serious concern for the urban poor and emphasis on actions to bring concrete positive changes to the people’s lives. It is different from other regional organizations whose members tend to speculate on benefits from such serious activities. ACHR aimed at facilitating a process where participating groups can perceive commonness with each other in their problems and actions. These are some special and genuine elements that helped form ACHR. 2.2 Asian People’s Dialogue - Forming “ a grassroots oriented approach” Major activities of the second year 1989 were; Asian People’s Dialogue (APD meeting) in Seoul Korea, Women’s Grassroots Workshop in Bombay India and follow-up activities of the campaign program in Korea. The Asian People’s Dialogue was an historic even for the urban poor in Asia. It involved 100 participants, two-thirds of whom were leaders of grassroots organizations in urban slum settlements throughout Asia. Thus it required a lot of organization work including 2 preparatory meetings within the region. The Women’s Grassroots Workshop in Bombay were attended by more than 100 leaders from grassroots organization. It made an important bench mark sparking off a grassroots direction. The first ACHR regional meeting was organized on the last day of the APD meeting in Korea: 22 organizations from 9 different countries participated. The meeting came up with an outline of regional activities to be launched in 1990. The first ACHR regional committee was also established then to share responsibilities for different activities. 2.3
Attempt to Diversify Regional Activities 1990-1991 At the end of 1989, the ACHR secretariat office was set up in Bangkok. It was a sign of a commitment for a more unified regional activities for people and by people. The second ACHR meeting held in Bombay India at the end of 1989 was a changing step from the first two years. It mapped out 11 different regional projects to be implemented from 1990- 1991. With financial support from external agencies, the following activities were organized in 1990
More projects materialized during 1991-1992
This project was implemented jointly with UN-ESCAP in cooperation with Land and Housing Department of Ho Chi Minh City. It was intended as a move to introduce alternative housing solutions by promoting a community-based improvement approach. Hiep Thanh Community was selected as a pilot community for the project. The initiative brought a significant new dimension to the ACHR process. It is another form of collaboration toward change in policies and approach based on local context, Viet Nam in this case. In the beginning, the regional intervention seemed to have brought changes to perceptions and policies up to a certain level. Later, changes in the local organizations, leadership and the whole urban situation caused stagnation to the implementing model, and this continues up until now. However, there has been intensive collaboration and experiences of drawing inputs from the region for the project. They were all aimed at developing an appropriate solution for the local processes which were very much in need of support. These efforts have added another lively dimension to the ACHR process. New efforts for interventions are being explored. 2.5 Emergence of Regional Training and Advisory Program Considerable changes in the ACHR process emerged with the implementation of a three year Training and Advisory Program (TAP). The program is financially supported by ODA-UK (presently called Department For International Development-DFID). TAP aims to improve the living conditions of urban slum dwellers by developing new ideas and practices of community based organizations through sharing of experiences with similar organizations in other countries in the region. The process involves collective learning and exposure trips for combined groups of grassroots organizers, NGOs, professionals, and government officials to successful urban processes and projects in Asia. 2.6
Emergence of Functional Units During this period other independent activities such as the Regional Eviction Watch and Housing Rights Program and the Asian Women and Shelter Program have been slowly consolidating their particular regional activities and projects. Functional units were formed to enable a more organized and independent regional processes and programs while maintaining close links with all existing regional contacts. This paved a clearer way to coordinate diverse regional activities into a more organized manner based on participation of various interest groups in the region. 2.7
Fact Finding Mission to Central Asia;
Kazakhstan and Kirgyzstan 2.8 Support for
Strengthening of Urban Community-based Initiatives in Phnom
Penh, Cambodia
Support to Cambodia started in February, 1994 under the New Initiatives
Component of TAP. ACHR-TAP
then helped organize survey
activities of urban poor communities of Phnom Penh with a team of slum dwellers
from Bombay, India. Squatter
communities of Phnom Penh, local and international NGOs actively participated in
the activities. The outcome of the
surveys were presented for representatives of the Municipality
of Phnom Penh and the Cambodian Government.
The process provided an opportunity for communities and, local NGOs,
international NGOs and the government representatives to come together to
discuss the concerns of the urban poor for the first time after twenty years of war and internal conflicts. 2.9
Inter-regional and intra-regional exchange
and networking
ACHR groups have been closely in touch with South African Homeless People’s Federation (SAHPF) and People’s Dialogue since March 1991. They have been engaged in a “people-to-people” learning process. This has resulted in the amazing growth of a community people’s process and brought a tremendous impact on formulating government policies and programs for the homeless poor. When the groups from Asian and Latin America joined the SAHPF’s anniversary last year (1997), the participants decided to set up “ Shack Dwellers International “. The network is a child of South-South cooperation. The fund was provided by Miserior as the seed fund to support inter-regional activities.
For the past few years, exchanges within the sub-regions have been active. There have been exchange of experiences between Korea and Japan, Nepal and Pakistan, India and Cambodia, Philippines and Cambodia. There is much to share and learn from each other when those in similar contexts and situations come together. Intensive and concrete learning can happen through these exchanges. ACHR intends to give further support to this approach in the future. 3. Recent ACHR
Activities: 1994-1998
4. Involvement and Influencing UN and International
Agencies
ACHR has become a major regional network on human settlements and other related urban issues and is acknowledged as such in official documents of various UN and international agencies. 4.1
Nature of involvement
4.2
Types and Methods of involvement
UN-ESCAP
CITYNET CITYNET is the Regional Network of Local Authorities, NGOs and CBOs working on human settlements. The secretariat is based in Yokohama, Japan. ACHR, as a regional NGO is one of the executive committee member of CITYNET. Joining the executive committee is intended to help establish contacts for better dialogue among NGOs and local municipalities. Being an executive committee member, ACHR has involved in all activities of the network. UNDP UNDP has supported various regional activities and initiatives so far. For example, UNDP has been supporting video production of exchanges between South Africa and India. Not only receiving support, ACHR has co-organized some regional activities of UNDP on urban issues. Habitat International Coalition (HIC)
UNCHS/Habitat
ACHR also collaborates with other International organizations including: IIED, ACFOD, the Ashoka Foundation ..... and many others. 5.
Roles and Functions of ACHR
6. ACHR’s Structure - 5 elements
While ACHR has a "membership" of nearly 500 contact
organisations and professionals throughout the region: there is no strict
membership as such. Membership is open to
any who wish to become involved. National focal
points in countries throughout the region are expected to identify active
NGO’s, CBO's and even government and private sector professionals, irrespective
of their organisational status so that they can be included in the national
processes supported by ACHR and linked into the ACHR regional network
Over the past decade, particular group members of ACHR have emerged as focal points in their respective countries. These focal points, are the key contacts for the secretariat and members in other countries and coordinate national activities and inputs into ACHR meetings, policies, programmes etc. In some countries the ACHR National Focal Points provide regular platforms for discussions, exchange of ideas amongst various national groups.
Through ACHR’s decentralised structure, various ACHR national groups volunteer to manage and implement particular regional ACHR programmes or activities throughout the region on behalf of ACHR. These groups volunteer on the basis of their strength, experience, and interest in the particular programme activity. For example the Savings and Credit activities have been managed by UCDO, Bangkok, SPARC, Bombay and the Women’s Bank, Sri Lanka.
For the most part, ACHR does not have many formal committees and is flexibly and informally managed through a process of consultation with ACHR coalition groups. Nevertheless, there is what could be referred to as an active “Executive Committee”, which meets annually to review ACHR’s overall activities, make recommendations and provide broad guidance and planning. Members of the Executive Committee also function as advisors to regional activities. When required, the executive committee establishes “Special Committees” to examine issues in greater detail.
In the future, ACHR would aims to more constructively and proactively evolve into a Regional Facility, which facilitates innovation amongst its groups as well as implementing meaningful and effective activities to intervene in development directions in countries in the region, and in the region itself. This means that its Secretariat must continue to be effective and facilitative and that management of regional activities become more decentralised, self-managed, and action-oriented to promote change initiatives in people. 7. Financing/Funding Support
Financial support for ACHR activities as at 1998
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Send mail to Maurice Leonhardt achr@loxinfo.co.th with
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