Overview

Signing of UPDF agreement 
March 98

PARNTERSHIP
SUPF
MUNICIPALITY PP
ACHR

The problems of access to secure land and decent, affordable housing for the poor are too great for any one group to solve alone.  

Solutions to these problems which can work on a large scale must involve a collaboration between many actors.  One of the most important functions of the UPDF is to build a collaborative, flexible, negotiated housing process, in which all the stakeholders are involved, and in which the focus is on making sure solutions are designed which allow all of their needs to be met.  The UPDF supports solutions that are formed on the basis of mutual agreement and practicality, rather than stiff rules and regulations.

The UPDF is a partnership builder.  It brings the key development actors to work together, to work out solutions which everybody contributes to and which solves everybody's problem.  It's important that several kinds of local partnerships develop, between the poor and other local actors, in order to support the people process in different ways.  But it is also important that such partnerships remain balanced, productive and allow the poor to remain the "owners" of the process and the managers of their own development in order to balance these partnerships and build more equitable relationships between the poor and the other development actors and be able to create space where they are able to work together.

Decisions about planning for land and housing the poor can be made in such a way as strengthens the people's process and increasingly ritualizes their involvement in planning decisions in their districts.  The district is the key implementing body, and the UPDF collaborates and facilitates with this mechanism, helps  channel the work in the right direction.

UPDF

THE  URBAN  POOR  DEVELOPMENT  FUND

The UPDF was set up in March, 1998 
with a small capitol of US $60,000
It is a collaboration between

Solidarity and Urban Poor Federation  SUPF
Municipality  of Phnom Penh - MPP
Asian Coalition for Housing Rights  - ACHR   

The idea was to create a revolving fund to provide affordable credit for housing and settlement improvement to poor communities and at the same time develop an institutional mechanism to promote change in the development process of the city. The UPDF aims strengthening communities' capacity to manage their own development process.
  

UPDF Contributors	US$
Solidarity and Urban Poor Federation	3,000
Municipality of Phnom Penh	10,000
ACHR ( SDI, Selavip Caritas, HI )	50,000
MISEREOR (Germany)	40,000
TOTAL	103,000

The collaboration between UPDF, the Municipal Government, community groups, development agencies and NGOs is a significant institutional development fro Phnom Penh and is intended to show that when all the major urban actors join in partnership, and when the poor take the lead role in their own development process, problems of urban poverty can be solved on a large scale.

      CONTACT 

Urban Poor Development Fund (UPDF)

Office :  No. 254AB, Street 180, Sangkat Boeung Raing,  Khan Daun Penh

     Mailing Address :    
PO Box 2242,  
Phnom Penh,  CAMBODIA

Tel / Fax 855-23  720-890

EMAIL   updf@forum.or.kh

Besides providing a much-needed source of affordable credit, the UPDF offers a support system for the poor in several ways:  adding capital to community savings to help people work beyond their financial limitations, supporting community innovations in housing, settlement improvement and tenure negotiations which demonstrate fresh solutions and test new kinds of institutional set-ups.  

The fund provides a development "short cut" which allows people to do things neither their own nor the city's resources can immediately support, without a lot of fuss or bureaucracy, the fund can link needy groups to resources for house-building, water supply, income generation or welfare.    

Provides affordable credit

Supports community innovations

Provides a short cut to development

The fund provides low-interest loans for housing, settlement improvement and income generation to urban poor communities that are actively involved in a community savings process.  Loans are made only to communities, not to individuals, through their savings groups and community federations.  

The fund aims at finding ways to develop the urban poor's capacity to control their own development process.

 The UPDF operates independently, but under the umbrella of the Phnom Penh Municipality, which provides office space, staff support and has actively supported the fund from the start.  
The governing body includes a majority of community leaders, representatives from the Municipal Government, ACHR and other local and international development agencies.  The governing body appoints a fund management team, develops policies for the fund's use, reviews it's operation, sets loan terms and interest rates and raises funds.  In the early stages, it is important to avoid getting bogged down in complex rules and quotas to remain light enough and creative enough to respond to people's real needs, as they arise.  This involves managing the fund with as little bureaucracy and as much flexibility as possible. 

A critical task of UPDF is to use money strategically to make other things happen. 

It's not just a matter of providing micro-credit.  Money is powerful, and if you channel money - and decisions about how money is used - in ways that bring people in communities together and deepens their relationship, it can be a potent people's process booster.  The fund can strengthen the negotiating position of poor communities who use the fund strategically as their own resource in negotiations for land, services and access to other resources.  This is a key to building genuine, working partnerships in the long term, between the poor and the city.  The UPDF is also a morale booster.  When people see clearly that the fund is available to them, and that the fund supports what they are doing, it's like having a cheering section saying "Go ahead!  I'm right here behind you!" 

Provides low interest housing loans

Loans to communities Not individuals

UPDF operates independently

Governing body is a partnership 

maximum flexibility and minimum bureaucracy 

UPDF 
is primarily 
a 

CHANGE 

AGENT

Other pages on CAMBODIA  
Cambodia Summary    Urban Poor Development Fund    Diary of a Relocation   HUN SEN Meets SUPF               Updates  on SUPF and  UPDF HERE