UPP Social and Participation: How Not to Integrate Rio
“Now, we will pay our historic debt to Rocinha. The UPP Social will be here every day, represented by our local managers. History has changed: the city will no longer be divided but become integrated” — Ricardo Henriques
Three days after the successful occupation of the communities of Rocinha and Vidigal, during the BOPE meeting in Rocinha, it was time for Ricardo Henriques, the Coordinator of the UPP Social to sing his song of a better future. Big promises of universal trash collection, improved infrastructure, widespread culture and sports facilities, and high quality health services were made, accompanied by powerful buzzwords. A ‘finely tuned’ program, ‘perfect coordination’ and ‘intensive dialogue with the community’ are apparently all in the works.
UPP Social is the municipal government’s program to ensure that the security benefits brought through the UPPs and community policing actually result in tangible improvements for residents on the ground. Initially intended to help recuperate public spaces, upgrade communities, stimulate local business and provide opportunities for youth, the UPP Social later is intended to set out on larger scale plans, resulting from community participation, to provide for the key necessities identified in each pacified community.
So if dialogue with the community is a key focus of the UPP Social, why is it that hours before the BOPE meeting, Rio’s Mayor Eduardo Paes got together with municipal authorities to “define the priorities and elaborate an action plan to be coordinated by City Hall in the communities of Rocinha and Vidigal?” Why are key decisions about the future of the communities made behind closed doors?
Having participated in a half dozen UPP Social “participatory planning” meetings, I am concerned with the huge gap between the powerful public discourse on the UPP Social program and the quality, scope and nature of the action carried out on the ground so far. I am not claiming that it is an easy task to make up for decades of neglect, but making false promises and hiding associated challenges means playing with the expectations of community residents which is of grave concern during this sensitive moment post-occupation.
In Rocinha and Vidigal, a few actions have been taken to provide certain services in the communities: trash is being collected in a surprisingly universal manner and lightbulbs have been screwed into 200,000 street lamps. The latter are concentrated on the main streets and areas frequented by tourists, a critical issue that led to concern in Santa Marta (pacified 3 years ago) through today.
Legalization and charging for services is high on the agenda of the UPP Social–too high, according to many residents of Rocinha. While legalization and technical assistance for small business are generally welcome, efforts to legalize energy provision mean an existential threat to some residents. State officials apparently never attempted to imagine what it means for a family with a monthly income of R$1000 (US$560) to suddenly, from one day to the next, pay R$80 instead of R$5 for the electricity bill, plus an additional R$18.16 in taxes. Or does this simply not matter, given that serious profits are in the game? The electricity provider “Light” is expecting to increase its income from R$3.2 million annually to R$24 million in Rocinha once all households are paying their energy bills.
The UPP Social is following the same strategy in Rocinha and Vidigal as it did in many other communities: a readymade packet of services and regulations is being implemented without discussing consequences with the community or whether they agree with the measure and time frame proposed.
Soon the first UPP Social community forum will be hosted. No doubt it will begin with yet another passionate discourse by Ricardo Henriques explaining that the forum is an “invitation to collective action,” or “a form of constructing effective solutions with different actors.” In all six UPP Social forums I have visited, community participation was minimal and barely any notes were taken by state representatives, meaning there is no register–and no way for the community to hold the officials accountable. Without transparency, there is no real participation and the logical consequences are apathy, distrust, and lack of motivation to continue participating. The participation rates of the UPP Social Forum are mirroring this: while the first forum usually receives 2-300 people, the numbers decrease with each subsequent meeting.
The lack of transparency and information about the public agenda does not only undermine the voices of regular community residents, but also concerns community-based organizations in Rocinha and Vidigal. These organizations could be great allies for the UPP Social in a number of projects, such as the “social cartography” starting this month which would benefit much from the year-long local experience and knowledge of these institutions. Instead, however, UPP Social managers use data from the Brazilian census and the municipal secretaries which may well be incomplete or outdated. Training and involving the community to map their living space would not only lead to a more reliable data set, but mean a real step towards community engagement, showing that their knowledge and abilities are being valued. Not involving them means deepening distance, distrust and information gaps.
Distance is reinforced by incidents like the eviction notice received by the NGO GASCO in Vidigal about a week ago. Unsurprisingly, the mainstream media did not report this. Likewise, neither media nor state officials are investigating the increasing cases of police violence and assaults in Rocinha. While residents are certainly thankful to be freed from the violent rule of drug gangs, they fear that the number of patrolling police will decrease once media attention diminishes.
But why should government and media representatives get out of their comfort zone and investigate such cases? Outside Rio’s favelas, the installation of the UPP is widely regarded as a successful public security strategy and both police and state officials are receiving compliments from the wider public and support from mainstream media that is busy to keep up the positive image. For people living in the affluent neighborhoods surrounding Rocinha and other pacified favelas, the positive development they read about in the paper is confirmed by the enhanced security they experience on the streets, not to mention rises in their property value.
Only the people living in Rio’s favelas can change this distorted vision and take state officials out of their comfort zones. As long as community residents remain silent and complain among themselves rather than taking their demands to a higher level of collective action, politicians and journalists will continue to ignore the diversity of voices, knowledge and capacities present inside the favelas. The government they deserve will not emerge out of the blue.
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This article was written by Tom Smith, and published on December 6, 2011. |
Comments are closed.
about 1 year ago
Brazil has a long history of top-down authoritarian leadership. “History has changed”? Apparently not yet, or not enough. Thanks for your reporting.
about 1 year ago
UPP Social is at the centre of a fundamental change in the relationship between city authorities and the favela. A relationship traditionally founded on mistrust, clientelism, corruption and social oppression through violence. The project has been in place in its current format, in partnership with UN Habitat, since April. The first local research teams started working in July. UPP Social aims to provide a space for discussion and an interface between the authorities, the local community and the private sector. It is not a permanent institution, the aim for the program is to step down once the links between the favela and other parties have been established.
While it’s useful and important that civil society follows and comments on the proceedings, and you highlight some important points, I don’t think the title of this piece is helpful. If you listen to Ricardo Enriques you will know he takes care to say “the process will not be perfect” and “change will not come from one day to the next”.
Regarding community voice all steps are taken to encourage participation and the meetings are recorded. This process is an attempt to reverse conditions created by 30 years of unregulated armed conflict in these areas. It’s not possible to overturn one set of rules, i.e. the law of silence, from one day to the next. People who might step forward don’t, so as not to be seen as collaborating with police.There is also a question of representation, as individuals who claim to represent the community/be a community leader, sometimes simply don’t/aren’t. For these reasons establishing relationships with community representatives and discovering who is who takes time.
Regarding the costs such as electricity, Light is always present at the meetings, and publicises its reduced Tarifa Social charges and payment schemes. The forum is a one off meeting meant to kick start the process, the other meetings are follow-ups, hence the reduction in numbers.
At its essence the UPP Social program intends to act as a catalyst to create functional communication channels between the favela, and the world outside, channels that until now haven’t existed. It is the beginning of a long process.
about 1 year ago
Hi Damian!
Thanks for your comment, here is mine:
First of all, I am very well aware that the UPP Social is very recent, that is has been set up to deal with problems for which there are no easy solutions, and I agree that it will take years of intense work to revert old patterns and improve relationships between state and favela in a sustainable manner.
My main point of criticism is that the obstacles are not only to be found in the innumerous problems of the favelas or the difficult relationship between state and favela, but, additionally, within the state apparatus. You mentioned clientelism – no doubt one of the key characteristics of Brazilian public administration and very much present within the UPP Social.
You mentioned social oppression through violence – a huge problem indeed, but one should not forget that social oppression in Rio de Janeiro goes well beyond violence and is very much present in our every-day societal interactions and “peaceful” state-favela-relationships, also those involving the UPP Social.
For these reasons, from the UPP Social’s point of view, making a fundamental change must go well beyond opening formal participation spaces, towards tackling internal obstacles, improving capacities and changing attitudes.
In relation to the formal participation processes, my criticism is not only that discourse is way to optimistic, but that civil society is de fato not adequately involved in the policy process. It’s not a secret that political participation is relatively low in the favelas and “community representation” a tricky issue, however, these facts should not be used as excuses for not making the UPP Social more participatory.
If one strategy does not work, try another one. If it is hard to collaborate with one group, move to the next.
In order to establish trusting relationships, state officials and favela residents need to JOINTLY define problems, elaborate solutions and close a contract about what has been agreed on, so that the state, and community, can be held accountable. Deliberative participation does not mean that civil society “follows” and “comments on” the proceedings, but that they should be the starting point and an integral part of all proceedings. Accountabilty cannot be achieved by making internal recordings of the meetings which are being analyzed behind closed doors afterwards. It is a great plan to “create functional communication channels between the favela and the world outside” but it does not help to encourage participation when the people that follow the invitation feel that their participation is not given credence or valued.
I don’t understand the association you are making between “follow-up meetings” and “reduction in numbers.” For me, the latter is clearly a sign that the first meeting has not convinced the participants that things are going to change for good this time…
My criticism about the proceedings of Light was focused on the case of Rocinha, where I have talked to various residents who have never been offered a “reduced Tarifa Social charges and payment schemes.”
Last but not least: I have chosen this title in a very conscious manner and because I believe that if the UPP Social continues as it has started, with the scope and capacity it has had in the past 8 months, it will fail to make the “fundamental change in the relationship between city authorities and the favela” that they are aiming at.