Cities and Children: the challenge of urbanisation in Tanzania

Cities are becoming home to a growing proportion of Africa’s children. In Tanzania, already one in four lives in an urban centre – and\ud many more will in coming years. Within the short span of a generation, more than one-third of Tanzania’s children will be raised in a city\ud or town. Growing up urban can offer these children the chance for a brighter future, or the grim conditions in which so many are now\ud living in the sprawling cities of the continent.\ud \ud Increasingly urban\ud Tanzania is more urbanised than it perceives itself to be. Urban Tanzanians feel emotionally rooted in their villages of origin, rather than\ud in the cities and towns where they live. Despite this perception, conditions that are typical of urban areas are more widespread across\ud Tanzania than official figures disclose. Extensive, heavily populated areas are often counted as ‘rural’ simply because they are not\ud officially classified as ‘urban’. Nestled in one of the world’s fastest urbanising region, Tanzania itself is urbanising fast. Nearly half of its\ud urban population is already, and will continue to be, made up of children younger than 18 years.\ud As urbanisation rapidly transforms Tanzania’s physical, social and economic landscape, attention must be paid to the conditions in\ud which new generations of Tanzanian children will be raised. Far too many are living in overcrowded informal settlements that lack\ud clean water and adequate sanitation. They play in heaps of garbage littered with dangerous and even toxic materials. Their families\ud cannot afford quality food, schools or health care; their health and well-being are constantly at risk from mosquitos and other pests that\ud thrive in unsanitary environments – as well as human predators that prey on those least able to defend themselves, exposing children\ud to violence, abuse and sexual assault that increase their risk of HIV infection. Tanzania’s urban children today are more often exposed\ud to the ugly underbelly of city life than to its potential advantages. Fulfilling the rights and aspirations of these children will be a major\ud challenge; careful and timely preparation is needed to address it adequately.\ud \ud Urban advantage\ud The challenges posed by urban growth continue to receive scant attention from policy makers, due partly to widespread belief in\ud an ‘urban advantage’ – the idea that compared to rural residents, city dwellers are invariably better off. It is true that cities enjoy an\ud edge: high concentration of people, proximity and economies of scale permit cities to become engines of growth. Facilities, services,\ud infrastructure and amenities are more readily available in urban than rural settings. Urban centres offer more avenues for jobs and\ud education, and can provide children with greater opportunities for survival, growth and development. Economic resources and political\ud visibility enhance the scope for investments in critical services and infrastructure that can make service provision less costly and more\ud widely available than in Tanzania’s vast and sparsely populated hinterland. Urban areas are also hubs of technological innovation and\ud social interaction. It is no wonder that children and young people are often attracted to cities, where they can draw from resources that\ud are denied to their rural peers.\ud \ud City promises… and realities\ud But for many urban children, the notion of an unqualified ‘urban advantage’ simply does not hold true. Life in the sprawling, unplanned\ud informal settlements of most Tanzanian cities does not match the promise that urban life is supposed to fulfil. The misconception\ud according to which urban dwellers must invariably be better off than rural people stems partly from the tendency to equate availability\ud of services with access to them. But in most cities adequate facilities and quality services are distributed unequally across the urban\ud space, concentrated in affluent areas that tend to attract the most qualified teachers, health workers and other service providers.\ud Meanwhile, the less well-endowed schools and health facilities are located in the poorer parts of a city – the unplanned settlements\ud where up to 80 per cent of urban residents live, most of whom cannot afford to pay fees and other costs for services. The truth is that\ud the ‘urban advantage’ is not shared by all city dwellers.\ud Only a limited few can afford services and amenities that would be unthinkable in a rural setting; the majority not only experience levels\ud of deprivation not unlike those affecting rural children, but a host of social, physical and environmental ills that are specific to an urban\ud context – contaminated water and polluted air, traffic congestion and noise, cramped living conditions in substandard shelters built\ud along riverbanks, on steep slopes or dumping grounds, untreated waste washing away into waterways, lack of safe places for children\ud to gather and play, among other troubling signs of urban malaise.\ud \ud Narrowing gaps\ud Official statistics that compare overall conditions in rural and urban areas tend to mask the actual living conditions of poor urban\ud dwellers. Even so, they indicate that the vaunted urban edge is eroding with the passage of time. For many dimensions of child wellbeing,\ud Tanzania’s rural areas are catching up with cities, where the provision of social services and infrastructure has not kept pace\ud with the growing demand generated by rapid urban growth. For instance: Availability of basic services, expected to be higher in urban centres than remote rural areas, has been declining. Consequently, thetraditional performance gap across the rural/urban divide has narrowed for many indicators in education, health, nutrition, water and sanitation. In some cases rural areas now outperform urban centres.\ud As urban performance stagnates and even declines, it is likely that poor, under-serviced communities are being hit hardest. Although\ud aggregate figures for urban and rural areas prevent detailed analysis of intra-urban disparities, evidence from low-income urban\ud communities – on access to basic services and on health and education outcomes – suggests that poor urban children may often\ud be faring worse than rural peers.\ud \ud Hidden poverty\ud Despite these trends, national policy and programme frameworks continue to mostly target rural poverty, perceived as the nation’s core\ud development challenge. Urban poverty, growing alongside urban affluence, remains mainly unnoticed and, therefore, unaddressed.\ud By depicting rural and urban averages that obscure the disparities so prevalent in cities and towns, official statistics largely miss out\ud on the conditions of the urban poor and their children. Moreover, standard measures of poverty typically underestimate its true extent\ud in urban settings, where families have to incur high costs to afford not only food, but also housing, schooling, health, transport and\ud other necessities. In a monetised urban economy, all necessities have to be purchased with cash, a rare commodity when jobs are\ud irregular and poorly paid. Hidden in official estimates and tucked away in peripheral urban fringes, poor children thus run the risk of\ud remaining invisible in development policy and investments. Gathering and analysing sub-municipal data must be a priority for planners,\ud service providers and communities; local-area data can help to reveal the actual conditions in which poor children live, as well as the\ud inequalities that exist side by side within the confines of a city.\ud \ud An urban future\ud Urban growth is projected to continue in coming decades, and could even accelerate. If the current predicament facing Tanzania’s\ud urban centres is not addressed now, conditions will likely deteriorate. As density increases and unplanned settlements become more\ud congested, investments in facilities, services and infrastructure are likely to become costlier, both financially and socially. Unless it is\ud leveraged properly, the potential advantage that cities can offer could turn instead into a disadvantage. Already Dar es Salaam has one\ud of the highest proportions of urban residents living in unplanned settlements in all of sub-Saharan Africa. If present trends continue\ud unabated, Tanzania could then find itself facing a daunting scenario: not only are today’s urban children exposed to one of the most\ud hazardous environments imaginable, but climate change is poised to further increase their vulnerability. Clearly the future need not\ud pose a threat. It is ultimately up to the current generation of Tanzanians to ensure that their children will get the best, while avoiding the\ud worst that cities have to offer.\ud \ud Urban governance\ud Urban centres must seek ways to exploit their edge – or watch it disappear. The difference will lie in how access to resources is\ud managed in Tanzania’s towns and cities. A competent, accountable and equitable system of local governance can make that difference.\ud Good local governance can help overcome the disparities that bar access by the urban poor to resources, services and infrastructure:\ud secure land tenure and decent housing, safe water and sanitation, quality education, adequate health care and nutrition, affordable\ud transport. Good local governance can make the difference between a city friendly to children and one that is indifferent to their needs\ud and rights. Municipal governments have the advantage of being close to their constituents; they could make the most of this situation\ud by forming alliances with civil society groups, the media, private sector, community organisations and others, with the aim of improving\ud the conditions in which poor urban families live. Accountable local authorities, proactive communities and children are key actors in a\ud governance process seeking to create an urban environment fit for children.\ud \ud Citizenship and participation\ud Children and adolescents have a right to express their opinions in both defining their problems and providing solutions. This is a right\ud enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Today, Tanzania’s children and adolescents already take part in local governance\ud processes. Some are active in Children’s Municipal Councils, School Barazas and other grassroots institutions. But the majority are\ud rarely consulted – at home, at school or in their communities. Listening to children’s voices can inform local decision-makers about the\ud world in which they live and how they see it, thereby offering a more nuanced understanding of “childhood” and how specific social,\ud cultural and economic realities condition children’s lives. Their scale and proximity makes cities and communities the most relevant\ud place for genuine participation by children.\ud \ud Child-friendly cities\ud It is ultimately in Tanzania’s local communities that children’s rights will be realised and global development goals will be met – in the\ud family, the school, the ward, and the city. Cities offer an ideal platform for convergence of development interventions that normally\ud target children independently, in a fragmented manner. Instead, they need to be delivered holistically, which is easier at the level where\ud children live. Children’s horizon is local. If development goals and children’s rights are not implemented locally, they are likely to remain\ud abstract declarations of intent, without practical translation.\ud Creating an environment friendly to children in every town and city of Tanzania is not only a laudable goal, but a sensible choice for\ud municipal authorities around the country. Local authorities, communities, families and children can and must work together to transform\ud today’s often hostile urban settings into child-friendly cities – as cities friendly to children are ones that are friendly to all.\u

United Nations Children’s Fund

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Hak dan perlindungan anak dalam Islam : pandangan Islam tentang perlindungan anak dari kekerasan dan tindakan-tindakan berbahaya

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