The University of Technology, in collaboration with the University of the West Indies, has partnered with UN-HABITAT, the United Nations human settlements programme for the implementation of the Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme (PSUP) in Jamaica.

The project is now in the first stage of execution and involves a Rapid Urban Profiling study on three urban areas in the country - May Pen, Clarendon; Montego Bay, St James; and Old Harbour Bay, St Catherine. Analysis of the study will focus on the themes of governance, slums, gender and HIV/AIDS and the environment.

Dean of the faculty of the built environment at UTech, Dr Carol Archer, noted that the project implementation will look at several variables as it relates to how these areas are developing.

"We will also be looking at disaster management/mitigation because, as a small-island developing state, we are very vulnerable and we want to see the relationship between urbanisation and the issues of land use, housing, infrastructure and transportation," she said.

Dr Archer said this collection of data is necessary, as over the years, the information has been gathered in a "piecemeal approach" and, as such, "some information resides in one agency and another set of information resides in another agency or within a private sector organisation and the information isn't shared."

"So part of this project is to bring the various data sets together, do analysis and give some recommendation as to how we approach the whole issue of urban land use and management and how we can address, effectively urbanisation of these areas, so that some of the negative effects of urbanisation are adequately dealt with," Dr Archer added.

participatory approach

The participatory approach to the project implementation will see the engagement of residents in the various urban areas and representatives from the Parish Councils assisting with the data collection.

As the United Nations agency specifically mandated to tackle human settlement issues, UN-HABITAT is the lead agency in the implementation of the Millennium Development Goal of achieving significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020. Approximately 40 countries are now partnering to incorporate this study and process into their urban management structures to better identify and agree on urban development capacity building and investment priorities.