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Introduction
Emerging Urban Issues
• Urban Infrastructure
• Environmental Issues and Health
• Decentralizing Towards Economic Progress
• Lacking Disaster Mitigation, Drug Crime and Youth Intervention
Urban Fact Sheets: Eastern Europe & Eurasia
Introduction
The Southern Caucasus Region continues to experience heavy transition from a centrally planned economy to a free market economy. During this transition period, urban areas are trying to manage issues that are occurring as a result of stiff, national policies, which are not well suited to solve urban problems. Urban populations have been steadily growing throughout this transition period and have led to increased needs for infrastructure, business development support, and environmental policy reform and recovery.
Emerging Urban Issues
Urban Infrastructure
Attention to urban problems has been sporadic and the reform of urban policy has been insufficient. As a result, many issues in urban areas have gone untreated and citizens are now beginning to suffer. There has been a lack of maintenance for basic infrastructure and the increased stress placed on the current systems, especially water and waste removal, housing, and transportation.
A growing lack of safe water is one of the main problems for cities in the Southern Caucasus. While many urban areas have water supply systems, water is being pumped through city pipes for a few hours each day. For example, in Baku, all urban residents are technically connected to a water supply network, but may only receive water an average of 22 days per month and for only 11 hours per day.2 Access to water in some areas is restricted to public pumps and when the electricity fails, the city pumps fail as well. Some residents have access to water sold by vendors and have voiced their willingness to pay for improved water service, should it ever be made possible.3
Having poor water facilities is also an economic burden for cities. The lack of working meter equipment and illegal tapping cause cities to be unable to collect revenues for the water service they provide. In Baku, the city only collects 40-60 percent of the fees that should be paid for its water service.4 This lack of revenue worsens the cities' financial position and limits its ability to provide safe, continual water service.
Waste removal practices are also questionable in the cities of the Southern Caucasus. One example is in Tbilisi, where waste is removed from multi-family housing units, but it is unknown where this waste is taken. Other private dwellers and businesses have resorted to using roadside dumps and open urban spaces.
The cities of the Southern Caucasus continue to face a severe housing shortage. There are families that have waited more than ten years for housing in Baku, while some housing has been given away to IDPs, creating tension amongst the urban populations.5 Families often create unsafe and unsanitary conditions by having too many people co-habitating in one apartment.
Urban transportation is also a major issue in the cities of the Southern Caucasus. In Tbilisi and Kutaisi high gasoline prices and the lack of electricity often cause the cities' trolleys, trams and buses to come to a complete halt.6 During the very cold winter months, urban dwellers suffer from electricity and energy shortages because they have limited access to heating alternatives like firewood. Thus, they resort to unsafe and unhealthy heating methods like burning fuels in heaters within very small spaces, crowded with many family members. The lack of energy and electricity reliability also hinders foreign investment in the region, further impeding economic progress.
Environmental Issues and Health
Communicable diseases have been increasing in the urban areas due to paltry living conditions. Incidences of hepatitis, diarrhea-based illnesses, tuberculosis, sexually transmitted diseases and respiratory infections are rising and causing deaths in areas like Adjara.
Illegal pipe tapping causing cross contamination, and a lack of sanitary facilities contribute the most to the occurrence of urban illnesses. In the urban areas of Georgia up to 150 families are forced to share one toilet facility, which is not maintained, cleaned or monitored by the municipality.7 Other infectious diseases like malaria have been on the rise in the cities of Baku, Sumgait and Bilasuvar, as reported cases have been in the thousands. Viral hepatitis is very prevalent in the urban areas and some cities have reported cases of anthrax and brucellosis. Cardiovascular disease is a main cause of mortality in the urban areas across the entire region.
The lack of electricity has also caused sewerage treatment systems to fail and no longer process waste water, causing backups and overflowing of the storage and treatment facilities. Most of the sewage flowing from Sumgait, Gandja, Mingechaur, Ali-Bayramli and Nahichevan is untreated before it reaches rivers and other destinations.8
Dangerous airborne industrial pollutants are quite common in Southern Caucasus cities. Air pollution is reported to be the highest in the Georgian the cities of Tbilisi, Zestaphoni, Rustavi and Kutaisi. In Azerbaijan, more than 2 million tons of contaminants pollute the air of Baku, Sumgait and Mingechaur, which include dioxides, auto fuel emissions, chlorine and metal compounds.9 The river that supplies Baku with water is unsafe to drink as it contains unacceptable levels of metallurgical pollutants coming from Georgia and Armenia.
Decentralizing Towards Economic Progress
As the countries work to privatize their industries, liberalize their markets, and write new economic policy, the region is experiencing a slowdown in economic growth. Natural resources like oil and fossil fuels provide the region with the greatest potential revenues, while continued civil unrest and natural disasters represent the biggest impediments to faster economic reform. A primary example is in Armenia where conflict has led to border closures and thus suspension of the transit across the region.
Through increased decentralization, municipalities find themselves increasingly unable to accommodate populations of the poor and unemployed. No formal training programs exist for unemployed persons, who need the training the most in order to gain employment in newly privatized, more competitive companies.
In Baku, 30-40 percent of the urban population is considered poor and in Shirak, Armenia 75 percent of the urban population is poor.10 One new poverty trend shows the elderly in the region's cities have become poor due to the decentralization of their pension-based incomes over the last decade. Cities lack both the funds for pension payments and social services to support this aging population.
This growing level of poverty throughout the region is greatly related to increasing levels of unemployment, a by-product of the privatization of factories and enterprises. Most of these larger businesses being privatized are located in urban areas, directly impacting their populations. Those who have been able to remain employed are typically underemployed and may only receive a fraction of their wages up to two years in arrears.11
Lacking Disaster Mitigation, Drug Crime and Youth Intervention
Urban areas like Adjara in Georgia and Baku in Azerbaijan are often struck with devastating landslides, which level homes and businesses. Other natural disasters affecting urban areas include floods, avalanches and severe hailstorms. Earthquakes in the region leave thousands of urban dwellers without homes due to the damage level and the lack of housing alternatives in the cities.
In Svaneti, Georgia alone, 330 avalanches were recorded within only one month of 1987. With this frequency, recovery efforts from these disasters keep the urban areas in a constant state of repair instead of emphasizing preventive measures. The explanation for the extensive, avoidable damage caused by these disasters is that urban dwellers, facing space and housing shortages, develop and settle in areas that traditionally had been avoided. In addition to inhabiting danger zones, the lack of adherence to disaster building codes, improper architectural plans and emergency preparedness procedures cause more damage and death than is necessary.
Role for USAID Assistance
Urban Infrastructure Services. Assistance on how to expand and improve the basic urban utilities structures will provide better services for urban dwellers. Provision of safe water and sanitation will help to reduce the level of illness and disease. Housing development will alleviate dangerous living conditions and overcrowding in the cities and alleviate the populations of internally displaced persons and refugees.
Urban Environmental Reform and Recovery. Technical assistance and aid directed the recovery of a healthy environmental status will reduce disease and illness, and increase economic productivity. Efforts should be aimed at preserving the region's valuable water resources, primarily the Aral and Caspian Seas. Assistance with environmental reform and intervention will increase participatory efforts at protecting the environment.
Health. Health care assistance and personnel training will help reduce the level of untreated disease. Technical assistance on health care reform will create better health care systems that can both treat and educate against disease.
Economic Growth. Efforts aimed at economic unification of the region will open borders and increase attractiveness of the region to foreign investment.
Strategic planning assistance aimed at maximizing the region's economic potential from the industrial sector will stimulate the economy. Assistance with market economy development and privatization of major industries will create industrial activity, reduce unemployment and improve the business climate in the region.
Disaster Mitigation: Efforts to assist municipal and national governments in disaster preparedness and planning will help to decrease the damaging impact of disasters. Efforts should aim at involving and training urban residents so they can learn to protect themselves and their assets, as well as provide assistance to their communities in the prevention and recovery process.
1 UN Human Development Report, Azerbaijan, 1996
2 www.Worldbank.org, Social Assessment and the Baku Water Supply Project, 1998
3 ibid
4 ibid
5 UN Human Development Report, Azerbaijan, 1996
6 UN Human Development Report, Georgia, 1996
7 ibid
8 UN Human Development Report, Azerbaijan, 1996
9 ibid
10 World Bank Country Assistance Strategy, Armenia, 2001
11 www.ilo.org " The Employment Impact of Privatization and Enterprise Restructuring in selected Transition Economies"
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