Profile:
Dr. Shiraz Wajih is President of GEAG and Associate Professor at Gorakhpur University has more than 30 years of experience on sustainable livelihoods in ecological stress situations in rural and urban areas through participation of community institutions. He has been part of ACCCRN, the Risk to Resilience project, and climate smart disaster risk reduction activities
Outline:
I was thinking on my inputs in the proposed panel, especially focussing on the sustainable livelihoods of urban poor and marginalised communities in the urban areas. My story line can be narrated as follows:
In developmental processes, both in rural and urban areas, the approach has been largely top down where needs and priorities of poor and marginalized are largely ignored. The schemes and programmes related to livelihoods of poor are also more in rural areas as compared to urban set-ups due to the mindset that urbanites are economically and socially better off. It is also because the assets and resources are generally in control of communities with better scope of risk taking whereas urban dwellers are largely dependent on service sector.
