Slum Dwellers International (SDI) is a global NGO that manages networks of the urban poor and slum dwellers that are organised into federations and which are usually based in the the Global South. SDI states that it acts as an advocacy group for the poor in urban planning and decision-making, and that it has a strong grassroots philosophy. However critics argue that it is very well rewarded for functioning as an embedded and co-opted simulated civil society partner for governments that have anti-poor policies and are violently repressive to membership based and directed shack dwellers organisations. SDI is enthusiastically supported by a number of prominent World Bank intellectuals such as Arjun Appadurai[1] and recently joined the World Bank and UN Habitat project 'Cities Alliance'. [2] Sheela Patel, the Chair of SDI, is on the Board of the Cities Alliance.[3] SDI also has strong support from USAID and the Gates Foundation. Some SDI leaders have worked closely with the Peruvian neo-liberal economist Hernando de Soto. Some analysts argue that SDI's position as an embedded organisation with local and national governments, and with international organisations like the World Bank and USAID, gives it the opportunity to make real deals that help real people. In 2005 it was estimated that its 5.6 million members across 14 countries had amassed nearly $32 million in savings, helped secure land for 125,000 families and created 79,500 new housing units.[4] However others point to academic research[5] to argue that civil society is now a key target area for imperial interventions and that SDI really functions as a 'sweet-heart' partner for governments giving them the illusion of credibility and thereby enabling genuinely popular shack dwellers' organisations to be marginalized or even, as in South Africa, criminalized. In South Africa the membership based and driven shack dwellers' organisation Abahlali baseMjondolo reports that in late 2006 it was given a simple choice by Mxolisi Nkosi of the provincial government in KwaZulu-Natal: "join SDI or continue on your own and face arrest."[6] Abahlali declined to join SDI and since then have been subject to virulent illegal police action and regular arrest. This has been confirmed in various newspaper and academic articles and recent police beatings are confirmed by a statement by prominent church leaders[7] SDI has a official partnership with the local Municipality in which these abuses have occurred but has never spoken out against them resulting in serious antagonism towards SDI from local civil society. SDI affiliates range from groups of a few hundred (at present) in Zambia to more than a million-and-a-half in India. Some are decades old, others have been in existence for less than a year. SDI has a presence in the following countries; Cambodia, India, Kenya (see "Camp of Fire" project), Namibia, Nepal, Philippines, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Thailand, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Uganda, Colombia, Indonesia, Malawi, Lesotho, Tanzania, Zambia, Argentina, Brazil and Ghana.[8]
References
- ^ See for instance Culture & Public Action edited by Vijay Rao & Michael Wlaton, World Bank, 2004, Washington
- ^ Announcement about SDI joining the Cities Alliance on the Cities Alliance website
- ^ [1]
- ^ Ford Foundation: Bricks, Mortar and Mobilization, Robert Neuwirth, Spring-Summer 2005
- ^ [See William Robinson's 'Promoting Polyarchy, Cambridge, 1996]
- ^ [See the various articles on the arrest and beating of S'bu Zikode and Philani Zungu at http://www.abahlali.org many of which make reference to Nkosi's threats]
- ^ [See the article on the 'March on Mlaba' at http://www.abahlali.org from where there is a link to the church leaders statement]
- ^ Slum Dwellers International: SDI Synopsis Misereor
