- Poverty Alleviation in Lagos Urban Informal Settlements: A Sustainable Livelihood Approach   241 kb by    Olajide, Oluwafemi | oluwafemi.olajide@ncl.ac.uk    Short Outline Through the lens of sustainable livelihood framework, this paper examines the issues of poverty in Lagos’ informal settlements. It explores the interplay among location, tenure, settlements, policies and livelihoods, and how they interplay with livelihood vulnerability and access to assets, and the implications for poverty alleviation strategies. Abstract Lagos, one of the fastest growing cities and urban agglomerations in Africa is characterized by a high presence of the urban poor who are mostly accommodated in informal settlements, with a growing multi-dimensional poverty profile. In Nigeria, various poverty alleviation programmes and strategies have been lunched and implemented by both Federal and state governments, including Lagos state. It is evident, based on the current trends of poverty and incidence of informal settlements that the strategies have achieved little or no success. As noted by various researchers and urban analysts, poverty alleviation strategies have been marked with limited success in Nigeria, just like many other African countries, because poverty and poverty alleviation strategies have been narrowly conceived to mean lack of income and economic growth. Since 2006, despite the fact that it relevance has been questioned internationally and nationally, there has been a renewed effort to improve the living conditions and alleviate poverty of informal settlements dwellers (urban poor) in Lagos through land regularisation which is expected to grant formal title to every land owner within informal settlements and uncommitted government land. On the one hand, this strategy is employed against the backdrop that it will facilitate access to official credit and markets, promote individuals’ investment in housing, and lead to poverty alleviation. And on the other hand, to get rid of slum through eviction and demolition of squatter settlements on committed public land This paper however argues that urban poor in Lagos are faced with many vulnerabilities and deprivations, which go beyond land title and tenure insecurity. Therefore, understanding these various dimensions of vulnerabilities and deprivations are important to evolving a holistic and sustainable policy framework for poverty reduction. This argument is in line with the current global thinking that policy framework for poverty alleviation can no longer ignore inclusive strategy, which simultaneously takes into consideration poverty in all its dimensions as well as aspirations and needs of the poor. Against this background, through the lens of sustainable livelihood framework, the current study examines the issues of poverty in informal settlements. It uses four informal settlements, across Lagos, to explore the interplay among location, tenure, settlements, policies and livelihoods, and the implications for poverty alleviation strategies. The need to focus on livelihoods approach is based on the realisation that poverty is multi-dimensional. Sustainable Livelihood Approach (SLA) however, provides a framework which integrates these various dimensions. The current study uses both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods. A total of 400 questionnaires were randomly administered to households’ heads across the four case studies- Ajegunle, Ipaja, Oko-Baba and Sari-Iganmu. In addition, a total of 40 interviews, including both households and key informants interviews were conducted. The study reveals that urban poor have inadequate access to both public and private livelihoods assets. The inadequacy is manifested in both the quantity (generally limited) and quality (generally poor) of livelihoods assets. The study further reveals that, apart from the generic vulnerabilities, urban poor in different locations across Lagos face context (location) specific vulnerabilities, which are, often, either not understood by policy makers or they are deliberately over looked, as not important, when developing poverty alleviation strategies. There is a disconnection between poverty reduction policies, and reality, aspirations and needs of the poor. Institutions, including government, policy makers and even urban planners, through various economic, environmental and urban development policies, work against the ingenuity of the urban poor, thereby undermining their efforts to building sustainable livelihoods and moving out of poverty. This study therefore suggests that one important element in reducing poverty is a policy framework that guarantees inclusive provision of livelihoods assets. It however recognises that provision of assets may not be enough to achieve the desired poverty reduction. Hence, right of access, which is also currently missing, to wide range of livelihoods’ assets, including right to the city, for the urban poor is of necessity. Keywords Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2013: Frontiers of Planning - Evolving and declining models of city planning practice   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper