The Urban Poverty & Environment Program (UPE) of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is calling for concept notes for innovative projects linking urban poverty alleviation, environmental management and natural resource use for food, water and income security.



The strategy of the Focus Cities Initiative is to advance awareness, policy options and best practices for the reduction of environmental burdens in urban slums through in-depth participatory research with multi-stakeholder City Teams. The research initiative in each city focuses on the most pressing environmental issues affecting economically poor urban neighbourhoods, while developing results and creating synergies with ongoing urban development and planning programmes. City Teams ideally include community groups that represent urban populations living in poverty, non-goverenmental organisations (NGOs), research institutes, local and national governments, and the informal and formal private sector.



Focus Cities are selected to develop, research and test interventions that involve any of the following key urban environmental themes:

• urban agriculture
• water and sanitation
• solid waste management
• vulnerability to natural disasters
• land tenure as a cross-cutting theme

Five Focus City projects are currently being implemented in: Colombo, Sri Lanka; Dakar, Senegal; Jakarta, Indonesia; Kampala, Uganda; and, Moreno, Argentina. This Call is to select the remaining four Focus City projects - two in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and two from the Latin America (LA) and the Caribbean region for awards of up to CAD$1.2 million each. Additional funding is also available through Ecohealth for the inclusion of a health component for one project in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The deadline for the submission of concept notes (in English, French, or Spanish) is September 22 2006.

Selected Focus City Teams, including the team selected for the Ecohealth funding will be notified by mid-December 2006 and announced in January 2007.

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