Supporting the social mobility of trapped populations in very poor urban areas

城市化是全球人口分布的决定性特征。至少到2050年，城市增长将集中在发展中国家，其中大部分增长将来自农村地区的移民。许多贫穷的农村移民最终将生活在这些城市最贫穷的社区。这些人口流动一直是导致贫困的重要途径，但由于城市化步伐日益加快，以及城市中心易受气候变化影响等重要的新情况，这种情况更加恶化。英国政府科学办公室最近的一份报告强调了移民被“困”在这些贫困环境中的可能性，因为他们的极端贫困意味着他们无法返回他们来自的地区或搬到城市的其他地方。与此相反，最近的其他研究表明，城市地区为移民提供了宝贵的机会，这通常比他们中的许多人留下的农村贫困更可取。本项目调查从农村向城市地区的移徙何时成为贫穷的一条途径，以及政策如何能够支持农村向城市的移徙者获得城市机会和摆脱贫穷。有三个核心问题。首先，研究考虑在何种情况下农村向城市的移徙为穷人提供了机会，以及哪些因素导致他们“陷入困境”。第二，该项目调查了物质流动与社会经济流动之间的关系。这将考虑到城市内部的流动性以及与移民农村家庭的持续联系。它特别侧重于移民自己对他们认为成功融入城市的看法。最后，该项目评估了市政府和其他重要行为者，如社区组织、警察、非政府组织和国际组织的态度。这将侧重于这些机构促进或阻止新移民融入城市生活的方式。为了回答这三个问题，该项目采用了一系列创新方法，结合深入的个人访谈和广泛的调查，了解移徙者自己对移徙的态度。最近对这些问题的有限研究往往集中在单一时期的单一城市地区。该项目有助于这一最近的研究与比较，纵向的方法。该项目调查了四个不同国家的四个城市的移徙者的成功情况：哈拉雷（津巴布韦）、哈尔格萨（索马里兰）、达卡（孟加拉国）和科隆博（斯里兰卡），调查时间间隔为一年，此外还在一年中进行了访谈。这四个城市允许在非常不同的背景下调查相同的过程，但有足够的相似之处，使比较值得。所有四个城市都面临着持续的农村-城市移民，政治冲突和气候变化是鼓励这种移民的重要因素，因此所有四个城市都面临着快速的城市发展。该项目是与所有四个城市的研究中心密切合作进行的。它还与从事边缘地区移民研究方案的皇家地理学会（与英国地理学家研究所合作）建立了伙伴关系。区域总秘书处-国际广播集团将通过教育宣传和传播专门知识为该方案提供额外支助。该项目将产生三大影响。首先，它将产生关于农村向城市移徙如何有助于提供脱贫途径的新知识。第二，它将把这项研究的结果传达给各种受众，他们将能够利用它来为新的政策干预提供信息。最后，它将有助于建立能力，在未来与国际合作者和社区组织在研究社区进行类似的研究。

Urbanisation is the defining feature of global population distribution. Until at least 2050, city growth will be concentrated in developing countries and most of that growth will come from migration from rural areas. Many poor, rural migrants will end up in the poorest neighbourhoods of these cities. These population movements have always been important pathways into poverty, but this is exacerbated by the increasingly rapid pace of urbanisation and by important new contexts such as the vulnerability of urban centres to climate change. A recent UK Government Office of Science report highlighted the potential for migrants to be 'trapped' in these impoverished environments since their extreme poverty means that they unable to return to the areas they have come from or move elsewhere in the city. In contrast, other recent research suggests that urban areas provide valuable opportunities for migrants which are typically preferable to the rural poverty many of them have left behind. This project investigates when migration from rural to urban areas becomes a pathway into poverty and how policy can support rural-urban migrants to access urban opportunities and escape from poverty. There are three central questions. First, research considers under what circumstances rural-urban migration presents an opportunity for poor people and what factors contribute to them becoming 'trapped'. Second, the project investigates the relationship between physical and socio-economic mobility. This will consider both mobility within the city and ongoing connections with migrants' rural households. It focuses particularly on migrants' own perspectives of what they consider to be successful integration in the city. Finally, the project assesses the attitudes of city government and other significant actors, such as community organisations, police, NGOs and international organisations. This will focus on ways in which these institutions facilitate or prevent new migrants integrating into city life. In order to respond to these three questions, the project draws on a series of innovative methods to capture migrants' own attitudes to their migration, combining in-depth, individual interviews and broad surveys. The limited recent research on these issues has tended to focus on a single urban area at a single time period. This project contributes to this recent research with a comparative, longitudinal approach. The project investigates the success of migrants to four cities in four different countries: Harare (Zimbabwe), Hargeisa (Somaliland), Dhaka (Bangladesh) and Colombo (Sri Lanka) at two time points one year apart, in addition to interviews during the course of the year. These four cities allow investigation of the same processes in very different contexts, yet there are sufficient similarities to make comparison worthwhile. All four cities face significant ongoing rural-urban migration, both political conflict and climate change have been important factors encouraging this migration and all four face rapid urban development as a result. This project is conducted in close collaboration with research centres in all four cities. It has also developed in partnership with the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) associated with the Migrants on the Margins research programme. The RGS-IBG will provide additional support for the programme through educational outreach and communications expertise. The project will have three main impacts. First, it will generate new knowledge about how rural-urban migration can help to provide a route out of poverty. Second, it will communicate the results of this research to a variety of audiences who will be able to use it to inform new policy interventions. Finally, it will help to build capacity to conduct similar research in the future with international collaborators and community organisations in the research neighbourhoods.