This photo-essay shows how the urban poor and their organizations are working with government agencies, NGOs and international donors in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital, to develop homes and neighbourhoods and income generation and, where needed, to manage relocation schemes. It also describes how the city’s urban poor developed their own Solidarity and Urban Poor Federation, drawing on the advice of similar federations from other countries. The process was much helped by the interchanges between urban poor groups within the city and by the visits by urban poor representatives and city officials to projects managed by urban poor federations in other countries. The Federation’s work centres on linking and supporting community savings groups that develop their own schemes. The Federation also supports community-mapping and surveys to document conditions in the city’s many low-income settlements. The essay emphasizes the strengths and resources that the urban poor can bring to developing housing and jobs if external agencies allow them to do so and support their organizations.
Resource collections
- Accountability to affected populations (AAP)
- Topics
- UN Habitat - Urban Response Collection
- Urban Response - Urban Crisis Preparedness and Risk Reduction
- Urban Response Collection - Community Engagement and Social Cohesion
- Urban Response Collection - Economic Recovery
- Urban Response Collection - Environment and Climate Change
- Urban Response Collection - Housing, Land and Property
- Urban Response Collection - Urban Crisis Response, Recovery and Reconstruction
- Urban Response Collection - Urban Resilience