Preparation of a Proposal for Slum Upgrading Strategies and Investment Program

Background and Objectives

Historically, slums and squatters were not considered a major urban development issue in Nepal, because the percentage of urban population living in such settlements was low. However, due to their unprecedented growth in recent years and especially since early 1990s, urban informal settlements started to become an important urban development issue. In view of the increased importance of the upgrading of slums and squatter settlements, the Government of Nepal has recently adopted the Habitat Agenda, and is fully committed to the goal of "Shelter for All" and the achievement of the MDGs. The objective of the proposed activity is to prepare a grant proposal for submission to Cities Alliance, for developing slum upgrading strategies and investment programme in Nepal.

The proposal, to be prepared, will respond to the government’s request for technical assistance on the issues of slum upgrading and tenure security for the urban poor; provision of assistance to a few (up to three) motivated local governments in developing and testing institutional frameworks aimed at upgrading of slums and squatter settlements; developing a national level policy framework on slum upgrading in view of MDG 7/11; and development of monitoring and evaluation systems to measure the impact of national and local slum upgrading and shelter programmes.

Activities

The main activities include:
* Conduct consultations with the key government agencies (national and local), stakeholders and donors;
* Provide a brief overview of the slum and squatter upgrading issues and their magnitude in the country and trends, and the lessons learned from the development initiatives and previous efforts;
* Conduct consultations for the selection of municipalities where the initial technical assistance can be provided for testing out the implementation of slum upgrading strategies and related delivery mechanisms;
* Hold consultation with donors to map/identify their current and future activities in order to coordinate these to develop a "partnership strategy", including identification of co-sponsors;
* Develop a grant proposal for Cities Alliance funding on "slum upgrading strategies and investment programme in Nepal".