City development under focus

Slums in Syria could soon receive help, following a recent meeting of town planners and experts, where the issue was raised and highlighted. The country's capital, Damascus, recently hosted a workshop with the theme "City Development Strategy" in which participants from various international organisations came up with a number of recommendations for the development of the city to attract foreign investors and tourists. According to the government, a quarter of the city's inhabitants live in informal settlements or slums, which lack basic services or access to clean water and where housing is poorly constructed and overcrowded. "Slum-related challenges are very important and a lot of people are living in informal settlements in very bad and dangerous conditions," Charles Henri Malecot, an urban specialist from the World Bank, told IRIN in Damascus. He added that funding was an essential part of the process. "The challenge is the question of money. However, if there is a political will, you will find money. We have to amend some rules, laws and legislation." The issue of renovating slums in Damascus and the city of Aleppo had been discussed, Malecot said, noting that the rehabilitation of old city had been directly linked to tourism. Dr Nabil Al-Ashraf, deputy minister of local administration and environment, told IRIN that they were paying serious attention to the issue of informal settlements. Referring to Law No. 26 issued in 2000 on urban maps and informal settlements, Al-Ashraf said the ministry had already defined slum areas in urban centres throughout the country. Consequently, the ministry had started conducting two kinds of detailed studies: developing informal settlements and ensuring substitute houses located near the slums area. Al-Ashraf said investment was needed in this area. "The size of the issue of informal settlements is big, as 25 percent of city inhabitants in Syria live in slums. This issue needs studies, land and funding, as making an organisational study of one hectare costs about 30,000 Syrian pounds [about US $577]." Malecot added that it was important to know where to build and to implement strategic town planning. Aleppo and Damascus, he gave as prime examples, were two of the oldest cities which retained beautiful and historic architecture. A project to rehabilitate old houses and the market place in Aleppo is already under way in cooperation with a German NGO, GTZ. Damascus, the oldest city in the world still inhabited today, will be pronounced a "cultural city" by the year 2008, for the 18,000 traditional houses inside and outside the old part of the city. However, there was still a lot of work needed in Damascus, according to Malecot. He pointed out that the restoration of a number of cafes and restaurants was a good example of what the private sector could do to renovate old houses and enhance economic activity. "We should find a way to help Damascenes finance the renovation of their houses. In France, we had the same problem 20 years ago. We created a financial system to help the inhabitants finance and rehabilitate their old houses," he explained. "We have to think about what we want the city to be in 15 years and mobilise civil society so that we do not decide by ourselves, but mobilise university teachers, businessmen, NGOs and trade unions. Everybody involved in the economic and cultural life must be mobilised," he stressed. Government officials said the conference would hopefully also help generate new funds. "The workshop is an opportunity to contact the World Bank to discuss a number of vital projects in the old city of Damascus and to receive suitable funding to support the government's performance in this connection," Dr Muwafak Deghman, director of the old city in Damascus, told IRIN. "City strategies are important for poverty reduction. The unemployment rate in the Arab world went up from 8 percent in the eighties to 14 percent in the nineties. Hence, the role of cities is vital in this regard. Cities are the major catalyst for economic activity in the Arab region," Peter Palesch, senior city strategy adviser for Cities Alliance, an international organisation, told IRIN.