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Strategies |
Citizen Networks to
Address Urban Poverty
Experiences of Urban Community Development Office, Thailand
Somsook Boonyabancha, UCDO, ACHR |
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Part |
1.
Key Issues in Addressing Urban Poverty |
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Part |
2
Experiences from UCDO Thailand |
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Previous |
3.
The Forms and Functions of Community Networking to
Address Urban Poverty |
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Part 4 |
CONCLUSION |
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If any kind of development direction is to
multiply the development capacity of the poor to address urban poverty
effectively and realistically, it is important to allow multiple
mechanisms by the urban poor themselves to emerged and grow.
Citizen networks will become a more a more significant development
mechanism to link, to provide communal direction, to learn together and to
gradually dissipate the considerable constraints from several structural
problems which work against the poor.
Whether or not this development direction is possible depends largely on
the following ingredients :
 | The belief that urban poor people can think
and do things, that they have strength in their own way and can
organize themselves to develop their activities together. |
| The pro-active, positive approach which makes
room for opening up new possibilities. |
| Community savings and credit activities to be
developed as the backbone for a development process, as long as it is
viewed clearly as a tool to be used by the poor to address their
problems together, not in isolation or as an end in itself. |
| Belief in the direction of making linkages,
among urban poor people, among communities, among networks, between
networks and other development organizations, bearing in mind to
develop from symptoms appeared into the causes of those problems |
| To develop proper and participatory community
and network organizations, those organizations have to develop new
skills and capacities to address problems of their poor members
effectively and also learn how to work with other related
organizations and municipalities. |
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Somsook Boonyabancha
Director of the UCDO Thailand
Secretary General of ACHR
achrsec@email.ksc.net
copies available on request
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