Abstract

We highlight how the intentions of a government to improve services and transparency across a city, by providing an enhanced right to the city for the urban poor can be futile when political gatekeeping is not relinquished at the grassroots level and the poor are not mobilised and educated about their rights. A qualitative case study of poor informal settlements was conducted in Rajshahi Bangladesh, to investigate a greater right to the city as the result of a ‘citizens charter’ initiated by local government. This research focusses on the poorest of the poor, who are often overlooked in community-based research due to their inability to attract the support of NGOs and donors means they are particularly vulnerable to this system of urban patron-clientism. We find that attempts by the city government to improve services to the poorest of its citizens is hampered by entrenched patron client practices perpetuated by local political representatives of the city government acting as gatekeepers, blocking access to services for the urban poor.

摘要

我们强调，当基层没有放弃政治把关，穷人没有得到动员和教育时，政府通过为城市贫民提供增强的城市权利来改善整个城市的服务和透明度的意图是徒劳的关于他们的权利。孟加拉国拉杰沙希对贫困的非正规住区进行了定性案例研究，以调查由于地方政府发起的“公民宪章”而获得的更大的城市权利。这项研究关注的是穷人中最穷的人，他们在基于社区的研究中经常被忽视，因为他们无法吸引非政府组织和捐助者的支持，这意味着他们特别容易受到这种城市赞助-客户体系的影响。