One of the major inadequacies in taking forward the agenda of inclusion and active participation of the urban poor in urban development programmes is weak civil society engagement with issues of urban poverty and urban governance. There are just a handful of civil society organizations in the country which have focused on organizing and mobilizing the urban poor to claim their rights and thereby to secure active participation and ownership of urban development programmes. There is no national network of civil society, or even a sub- sectorial coalition, that focuses on these issues on a sustained basis.
Under the project ‘Strengthening Civil Society Voices on Urban Poverty in India’, funded by Rockefeller Foundation and Ford Foundation, PRIA and Society for Promotion of Area Resource Centre (SPARC) have come together to initiate an effort based on the experiences that each has had in addressing the issues of urban poverty. The project aims at facilitating and synthesizing engagements at the city (micro), state (meso) and national (macro) levels; and bringing together the broad spectrum of civil society actors – organizations of the urban poor, local NGOs, research institutions, media and other coalitions – that needs to be enabled to work together specifically in operationalizing Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY).
Project UpdatesObjectives
Geographical spread
S.No | States | Cities intervened under the project |
1 | Bihar | Patna, Bodh Gaya, Muzaffarpur, Chhapra and Bihar Sharif (NGOs from Bhagalpur regularly seek information support to do things on their own; the project provides information support) |
2 | Chhattisgarh | Raipur, Bilaspur (information support to Durg and Korba) |
3 | Rajasthan | Jaipur, Ajmer, Pushkar, (information support to Jodhpur and Kota) |
4 | Karnataka | Bengaluru, Mysore |
5 | Orissa | Bhubaneswar, Cuttack |
6 | Maharashtra | Ahmednagar, Nashik, Nanded |
7 | Andhra Pradesh | Hyderabad, Vizag |
8 | Tamil Nadu | Chennai, Madurai |
9 | Kerala | Thiruvananthapuram and Kollam |
10 | Madhya Pradesh | Ujjain, Bhopal (information support to Panna and Jabalpur) |
11 | West Bengal | Kolkata, Siliguri |
Key components
Key outputs
The project has reached 34 cities across 11 states