Page:Brundtland Report.djvu/253

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A/42/427
English
Page 253


I'm an expert in slum dwelling. We're establishing a small, tiny organization trying to organize slum dwellers, because we see so many slums. Slums in the city, slums in the villages, slums in the forests. I have worked for four years to motivate my fellow slum dwellers to become transmigrants. and they finally migrated ten places all over Indonesia. They are still in very good communication with me. They're still sending me letters, and they say that life is not better in the transmigration area, Living in the shadows in the urban slums or living in the shadows in the transmigration site is just the same.

When I go back to my people, the slum dweller, tonight they will ask me what I have got from this meeting in the big hotel. They won't ask or information. Just 'have you brought some money or us to build new houses?'

Syamsuddin Nainggolan
Founder.
Yayasan Panca Bakti
WCED Public Hearing
Jakarta, 26 March 1985

60. Another poorly used resource is solid wastes. the disposal of which has become a major problem in many cities. with much of it dumped and uncollected, Promoting the reclamation, reuse, recycling of materials can reduce the problem of solid waste, stimulate employment, and result in savings of raw materials. Composting can support urban agriculture. If a municipal government lacks the resources to collect household wastes regularly. it can support existing community-based schemes. In many cities, literally thousands of people already make a living sorting through wastes by hand on municipal tips. Investing in a more capital-intensive, automatic recycling plant could be doubly counterproductive if it unnecessarily consumes scarce capital or if a plant would destroy many people's livelihoods. But an immediate need here is to give health advice and provide health care services to those who are making a living off municipal tips.[1]

III. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

61. The future will be predominantly urban. and the most immediate environmental concerns of most people will be urban ones. The effectiveness of efforts to improve urban life depends largely on the health of national economies. In many developing countries, this is linked closely to the state of the world economy. An improvement in international economic relations (see Chapter 3) would perhaps do more than anything else to enhance the capacity of developing countries to address their linked

urban and environmental problems. But beyond that is the need to strengthen cooperation among developing countries and to increase various types of direct support from the international community.

/…
  1. N. Khouri-Daqher, 'Waste Recyclinq: Towards Greater Urban Self-Reliance', prepared for OCED, 1985.