The Urban Poor, the Informal City and Environmental Health Policy in Nigeria

Nwaka GI¹*

1. Abia State University, Uturu, Abia State, Nigeria

Poverty reduction dominates the international development agenda of the 21st century highlighted in the Millennium Development Goals. The main policy challenge addressed by the paper is how to support and regulate the urban informal sector in a way to promote shelter and livelihood for the poor, and at the same time ensure a safe, healthy and socially acceptable environment; how to ensure that the struggle against urban poverty and slum dwelling does not result in a campaign against the urban poor and slum dwellers.

The paper examines how urban poverty and the informal city have developed in Nigeria over the last 50 years; the extent to which government policies and programmes have helped or constrained the poor, and how the urban slums and irregular settlements can be upgraded and progressively integrated into the urban mainstream. It considers how housing and planning codes, standards and regulations inherited from the discriminatory policies and segregation of the colonial period have continued to inhibit the access of the poor to affordable housing and tenure security; how the inadequate provision of water, sanitation and waste management has led to the spread of a wide variety of water-borne and filt-related disease.

The concluding section considers the essential elements of a strategy to improve the informal sector and the conditions of the poor, paying particular attention to the roles which state and local authorities, the international development community and the urban poor themselves could pay in a collaborative effort to build safer, healthier, more inclusive and more equitable cities.

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