ABSTRACT
Urban governance can be defined as the ‘interactive relationship between and within government and non-government forces’ (Stoker 1998: 38). It implies the existence of multiple actors and their roles too may be varied. ‘It encompasses the institutions and processes, both formal and informal, which provide for the interaction of the state with a range of other agents or stakeholders affected by the activities of government’ (Satterthwaite 2005). The notion of governance underlines the fact that the range of actors involved has expanded in all aspects of urban development, including poverty alleviation. This is not to say that these actors did not exist before, for some of them were active in a more informal ways, but their contribution was not acknowledged in the formal approach to urban problems. Now the contribution of extra-governmental institutions is not only encouraged, their role in development programmes is invited and institutionalised. Civil society groups, including NGOs, community organisations and private companies, are being roped in by governments as partners in facing urban challenges. But while governance does imply interdependence, it does not prejudge the locus or character of real decisional authority (McCarney et al. 1995). Therefore, it is to be seen how actors who are located beyond governments are involved in real decision-making on urban governance issues.
