H. Cottam, A CONCRETE RESPONSE TO POVERTY - RETHINKING APPROACHES TO URBAN POVERTY AND INFRASTRUCTURE - A ZAMBIAN CASE-STUDY, IDS bulletin, 28(2), 1997, pp. 68
This article looks at definitions and concepts of urban poverty and th
e ways in which they inform the infrastructure debate. Parallels betwe
en the treatment of poverty in classical literature and the treatment
of urban poverty in the current orthodoxy (notably as developed in the
World Bank's World Development Report (WDR 1990)) are examined. This
article suggests that this orthodox way of approaching and addressing
poverty may not be producing either the most appropriate or sustainabl
e response. The arguments are explored through an analysis of urban in
frastructure provision with reference to an alternative approach to wa
ter services in urban Zambia.