Forum Looks At Strategies For City Poor

Solving the problems of the urban poor will require a partnership between community leaders and NGOs, participants at a workshop concluded last week.

The workshop in Phnom Penh was sponsored by the UN Center for Human Settlement, and at­tended by NGOs and municipal officials. Its purpose was to develop long-term solutions.

The Tuol Prey resettlement project in Meanchey district in Phnom Penh was cited as a potentially successful model. The municipality has donated land for up to 129 houses, and resettlement is voluntary. Squatters are being lured with home-building loans.

“What the municipality is now doing is assisting the process of volunteer relocation” rather than evicting people, said Michael Slingsby, chief technical adviser for the UN Center for Human Settlement.

 

 

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