ABSTRACT
In November 1989 a special departmental section in charge of urban poverty alleviation was created within the Netherlands Ministry for Development Cooperation. This was quite an important break with the past, as Dutch aid policy had almost exclusively been aimed at rural development, to the neglect of urban issues - until then. The new urban unit was named Spear head Program for Urban Poverty Alleviation, thus emphasizing the focus on poverty - rather than on urban development in general - in developing countries. The name implied an expectation that the unit would somewhat forcefully draw attention to issues of urban poverty, and develop and main stream effective policy to that effect.
