Slummien nousevan yrittäjyyden tukeminen digitaalisilla palveluilla

Digital services have been used to solve social issues in the informal settlements of the global south with varied results. One of the most serious issues facing the informal settlements is the unemployment, which has commonly been mitigated by supporting entrepreneurship. The digital services have focused on solving the individual issues hindering the entrepreneurship, such as lack of training or funding, but a more holistic view to the topic has been missing. The objective of this thesis is to explore, how the emerging entrepreneurship in the informal settlement could be best supported with the digital services. This problem is divided to two research questions, “How is an emerging entrepreneur from the informal settlement?” and “What are the user requirements of the entrepreneurs for digital services?”. To answer these questions, we have used various qualitative methods, such as interviews and workshops. The field work was done in the Namibian informal settlement of Havana. The results indicate, that the people of Havana are interested about the entrepreneurship, but the problems in their environment, for example the bad infrastructure and the lack of successful examples, hamper the creation of the enterprises. The entrepreneurs also operate with various motives, which has to be considered before any supporting actions. The locals are interested about the digital services, but the accessibility to those is often problematic. Based on these observations, a framework for guiding the usage of digital services in supporting the emerging entrepreneurship is presented. The framework is generalizable, and thus applicable for other similar locations also. The framework aims to better direct suitable actions to be taken with the right entrepreneurs. The digitalization offers many opportunities for the developing countries, but harnessing these opportunities requires designated measures to be taken.Digitaalisia palveluita on käytetty kehittyvien maiden slummien sosiaalisten ongelmien ratkaisuun vaihtelevalla menestyksellä. Yksi vaikeimmista slummeja kohtaavista ongelmista on työttömyys, jota on yleisesti yritetty helpottaa yrittäjyyttä tukemalla. Digitaaliset palvelut ovat keskittyneet ratkaisemaan yksittäisiä yrittäjyyttä vaikeuttavia tekijöitä, kuten koulutuksen tai rahoituksen puutetta, mutta kokonaisvaltaisempi näkökulma aiheeseen on puuttunut. Tämän diplomityön tavoite on tutkia, kuinka slummien nousevaa yrittäjyyttä parhaiten voisi tukea digitaalisilla palveluilla. Tämä ongelma on jaettu kahteen tutkimuskysymykseen, ”Millainen on slummien nouseva yrittäjä?” ja ”Millaisia käyttäjätarpeita yrittäjillä on digitaalisille palveluille?”. Näihin kysymyksiin vastataksemme olemme käyttäneet erilaisia kvalitatiivisia metodeja, kuten haastatteluja ja työpajoja. Kenttätyö on tehty Havanan slummissa Namibiassa. Tulokset osoittavat, että Havanan ihmiset ovat kiinnostuneita yrittäjyydestä, mutta ympäristön ongelmat, kuten huono infrastruktuuri ja menestyksekkäiden esimerkkien puute, hidastavat yritysten luomista. Yrittäjät myös toimivat erilaisista motiiveista, mikä on tärkeää huomioida ennen tukevia toimenpiteitä. Paikalliset ovat kiinnostuneita digitaalisista palveluista, mutta niiden saavutettavuus on usein ongelmallista. Näihin tekijöihin pohjautuen esittelen kehyksen, jonka tarkoituksena on ohjata digitaalisten palveluiden käyttöä nousevan yrittäjyyden tukemisessa. Kehys on yleistettävissä, ja soveltuu myös muihin vastaaviin olosuhteisiin. Kehys tähtää sopivien toimenpiteiden kohdentamisen ohjaamiseen paremmin oikeille yrittäjille. Digitalisaatio tarjoaa monia mahdollisuuksia kehittyville maille, mutta mahdollisuuksien hyödyntäminen vaati harkittuja toimenpiteitä

Promoting Entrepreneurship amid Youth in Windhoek’s Informal Settlements: A Namibian Case

Considering the high unemployment rate among Namibian youth and a lack of job opportunities, the promotion of entrepreneurship has gained wider attention in the country. A number of initiatives have been started such as entrepreneurship trainings and workshops, business idea competitions, etc. All these aim to inspire young people to think of alternative income sources. As part of a two-year funded community outreach research and development (R&D) project, we have investigated participatory approaches to engage marginalized youth into conceptualizing their own context, imparting skills, and deriving new career paths. This article reports and reflects on one of the interventions we have recently concluded with a group of youth in Havana, an informal settlement in the outskirts of Windhoek. We conducted what we entitled “The Havana Entrepreneur”, a series of interactions inspired upon the model of the American reality game show “The Apprentice”. Over a number of weeks two youth groups were given challenges to tackle by means of competing against one another. After completion of each challenge, groups were rated by a number of judges on skills demonstrated such as marketing, presentation, reflection and creativity among others. We observed an increase in, and improvement of skills revealed along tasks’ completion, besides an openly expressed self-realization and discovery of abilities by participants. Moreover, the youth are currently engaged in the continuation of activities beyond the initial entrepreneurial interactions. Thus we suggest replicating “The Havana Entrepreneur”, including the recording on camera of it by the youth themselves as a new mode to instigating a wider entrepreneurial spirit in informal settlements

The Formal, the Informal, and the Precarious: Making a Living in Urban Papua New Guinea

For many Papua New Guineans, the dominant accounts of 'the economy' � contained within development reports, government documents and the media � do not adequately reflect their experiences of making a living. Large-scale resource extraction, the private sector, export cash cropping and wage employment have dominated these accounts. Meanwhile, the broader economic picture has remained obscured, and the diversity of economic practices, including a flourishing 'informal' economy, has routinely been overlooked and undervalued. Addressing this gap, this paper provides some grounded examples of the diverse livelihood strategies people employ in Papua New Guinea's growing urban centres. We examine the strategies people employ to sustain themselves materially, and focus on how people acquire and recirculate money. We reveal the interconnections between a diverse range of economic activities, both formal and informal. In doing so, we complicate any clear narrative that might, for example, associate waged employment with economic security, or street selling with precarity and urban poverty. Our work is informed by observations of people's daily lives, and conversations with security guards (Stephanie Lusby), the salaried middle class (John Cox), women entrepreneurs (Ceridwen Spark), residents from the urban settlements (Michelle Rooney) and betel nut traders and vendors (Timothy Sharp). Collectively, our work takes an urban focus, yet the flows and connectivity between urban and rural, and our focus on livelihood strategies, means much of our discussion is also relevant to rural people and places. Our examples, drawn from urban centres throughout the country, each in their own way illustrate something of the diversity of economic activity in urban PNG. Our material captures the innovation and experimentation of people's responses to precarity in contemporary PNG.AusAI

Squatters, Pirates, and Entrepreneurs: Is Informality the Solution to the Urban Housing Crisis?

Giving the poor legal title to the lands they occupy extra-legally (informally) has been widely promoted by the World Bank and by best-selling author Hernando de Soto as a means of addressing both poverty and the scarcity of affordable housing in the urban centers of the global South. Using Bogota, Colombia, as a case study, this article interrogates de Soto\u27s claims about the causes of informality and the benefits of formal title. The article concludes that de Soto\u27s analysis is problematic in three distinct respects. First, de Soto exaggerates the benefits of formal title and fails to consider its risks. Second, de Soto constructs informality as a uniquely Third World phenomenon, and neglects to address the growth of poverty, inequality, and informality in both the global North and the global South as a consequence of deregulation, privatization, and other neoliberal economic reforms that de Soto advocates. Third, de Soto\u27s attribution of informality to the failure of law in the global South reinforces the narrative of Latin American inferiority, thereby justifying the imposition of disadvantageous market-oriented legal reforms on Latin American nations and discrediting Latin America legal innovations that might better alleviate poverty and address the shortage of affordable housing. Contrary to de Soto\u27s policy prescriptions, the advantages and disadvantages of formality and informality will vary from location to location, and must be evaluated on a case by case basis. De Soto\u27s ideas are dangerous to the extent that they persuade policy-makers that the free market will solve the problem of poverty and housing scarcity if the urban poor are simply given legal title to the lands they currently occupy informally

Squatters, Pirates, and Entrepreneurs: Is Informality the Solution to the Urban Housing Crisis?

Giving the poor legal title to the lands they occupy extra-legally (informally) has been widely promoted by the World Bank and by best-selling author Hernando de Soto as a means of addressing both poverty and the scarcity of affordable housing in the urban centers of the global South. Using Bogota, Colombia, as a case study, this article interrogates de Soto\u27s claims about the causes of informality and the benefits of formal title. The article concludes that de Soto\u27s analysis is problematic in three distinct respects. First, de Soto exaggerates the benefits of formal title and fails to consider its risks. Second, de Soto constructs informality as a uniquely Third World phenomenon, and neglects to address the growth of poverty, inequality, and informality in both the global North and the global South as a consequence of deregulation, privatization, and other neoliberal economic reforms that de Soto advocates. Third, de Soto\u27s attribution of informality to the failure of law in the global South reinforces the narrative of Latin American inferiority, thereby justifying the imposition of disadvantageous market-oriented legal reforms on Latin American nations and discrediting Latin America legal innovations that might better alleviate poverty and address the shortage of affordable housing. Contrary to de Soto\u27s policy prescriptions, the advantages and disadvantages of formality and informality will vary from location to location, and must be evaluated on a case by case basis. De Soto\u27s ideas are dangerous to the extent that they persuade policy-makers that the free market will solve the problem of poverty and housing scarcity if the urban poor are simply given legal title to the lands they currently occupy informally

Addressing developmental needs through energy access in informal settlements

Integrated Energy Centres, solar power community hubs for need based services, have been operationalised by SELCO Foundation for informal migrant communities in Karnataka, India since 2011. There are 26 IECs till date, offering 22 different services. Through the interventions, 6074 households have been impacted. The paper describes three different models through case studies illustrating their operational and financial aspects

Institutions and the Urban Environment in Developing Countries: Challenges, Trends, and Transitions

The paper discusses challenges, trends, and transitions in the urban environment field and offers an approach to meeting Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets in water supply and sanitation in urban areas. It updates the author’s 1994 publication Urban Environmental Challenges: New Directions for Technical Assistance to Cities inDeveloping Countries, published by the World Resources Institute. This paper begins by describing governance, decentralization, and privatization trends and drawing lessons from international development experiences in cities in developing countries. It argues that pervasive governance problems have led to environmental service deficits, particularly amongst the poor, who, at the same time, have demonstrated tremendous ingenuity in obtaining for themselves what their municipalities have not provided. The paper examines the global urban environmental agenda through a review of summit meetings and key initiatives of major international development agencies. This review of the global agenda – from Rio to Johannesburg – leads to the judgment that the most important urban environmental challenges today are defined by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It argues that meeting MDG targets related to poverty alleviation, access to water and sanitation, and improvements in the lives of slum dwellers will provide the greatest improvement to environmental quality in urban areas. In light of the current retrenchment of multinationals in the water sector, and the financial limitations faced by governments and international donor agencies, this paper offers an alternative that involves promoting the integration and optimization of water supply and sanitation services being provided by Small Scale Independent Providers (SSIPs) in order to meet MDG targets in urban areas. The paper argues that, to unleash SSIP/informal sector potential and resources, several barriers need to be eliminated – informal sector entrepreneurs operating in a difficult environment, with lack of recognition, police harassment, insecure tenure, and lack of access to credit being among the most common constraints and disincentives. It suggests that national and local governments, with the support of international development agencies, can achieve the flexibility in the policies, standards, and regulations that would allow the integration and optimization of informal sector potential. A merger of informal sector“bottom-up” and formal sector “top-down” approaches would mark one of the most significant transitions in the international development field today. Long-term commitments will be necessary from governments, donors, and independent private organizations to implement this approach

Connecting the dots: information visualization and text analysis of the Searchlight Project newsletters

This report is the product of the Pardee Center’s work on the Searchlight:Visualization and Analysis of Trend Data project sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation. Part of a larger effort to analyze and disseminate on-the-ground information about important societal trends as reported in a large number of regional newsletters developed in Asia, Africa and the Americas specifically for the Foundation, the Pardee Center developed sophisticated methods to systematically review, categorize, analyze, visualize, and draw conclusions from the information in the newsletters.The Rockefeller Foundatio

Mapping and Modeling Illicit and Clandestine Drivers of Land Use Change: Urban Expansion in Mexico City and Deforestation in Central America

abstract: Anthropogenic land use has irrevocably transformed the natural systems on which humankind relies. Understanding where, why, and how social and economic processes drive globally-important land-use changes, from deforestation to urbanization, has advanced substantially. Illicit and clandestine activities--behavior that is intentionally secret because it breaks formal laws or violates informal norms--are poorly understood, however, despite the recognition of their significant role in land change. This dissertation fills this lacuna by studying illicit and clandestine activity and quantifying its influence on land-use patterns through examining informal urbanization in Mexico City and deforestation Central America. The first chapter introduces the topic, presenting a framework to examine illicit transactions in land systems. The second chapter uses data from interviews with actors involved with land development in Mexico City, demonstrating how economic and political payoffs explain the persistence of four types of informal urban expansion. The third chapter examines how electoral politics influence informal urban expansion and land titling in Mexico City using panel regression. Results show land title distribution increases just before elections, and more titles are extended to loyal voters of the dominant party in power. Urban expansion increases with electoral competition in local elections for borough chiefs and legislators. The fourth chapter tests and confirms the hypothesis that narcotrafficking has a causal effect on forest loss in Central America from 2001-2016 using two proxies of narcoactivity: drug seizures and events from media reports. The fifth chapter explores the spatial signature and pattern of informal urban development. It uses a typology of urban informality identified in chapter two to hypothesize and demonstrate distinct urban expansion patterns from satellite imagery. The sixth and final chapter summarizes the role of illicit and clandestine activity in shaping deforestation and urban expansion through illegal economies, electoral politics, and other informal transactions. Measures of illicit and clandestine activity should--and could--be incorporated into land change models to account for a wider range of relevant causes. This dissertation shines a new light on the previously hidden processes behind ever-easier to detect land-use patterns as earth observing satellites increase spatial and temporal resolution.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Geography 201