Abstract
Book Notes gives short descriptions of recently published books, papers and reports on all subjects relevant to the environment and development. Priority is given to items produced by research groups and NGOs in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Book Notes also includes short descriptions of newsletters and journals. Send us a copy of any publication you would like included; we produce Book Notes of publications in English, Spanish, French or Portuguese. Enclose details on prices for those ordering from abroad and on how payment should be made.
The Book Notes in this issue are grouped under the following headings.
I. Climate change and cities
Global Report on Human Settlements 2011 – Cities and Climate Change
UN–HABITAT, 2011, 304 pages. ISBN 978 1 84971 371 9. Published by Earthscan Publications and available in bookstores or direct from Earthscan; e-mail:
The 2011 edition of the biennial Global Report on Human Settlements is on cities and climate change. It examines the links between urbanization and climate change, the potentially devastating effects of climate change on urban economies and populations and the policy responses and practices that are emerging in urban areas. It also emphasizes the importance of considering these issues – as cities include a high proportion of the people and assets most at risk from climate change, and as any successful strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avoid dangerous climate change will require city strategies, especially for more prosperous cities and nations.
The various chapters cover the international climate change framework, the contribution of urban areas to climate change and the impacts of climate change on urban areas; also climate change mitigation responses, climate change adaptation responses and a final chapter with conclusions and policy directions. As with previous Global Reports, there feature many boxes illustrating case studies – for example, the contributions of New York City, São Paulo, Mexico City and Cape Town to greenhouse gas emissions; the impacts of climate change on tourism, insurance and poverty; and the adaptation strategies of households in informal settlements in Dhaka and Lagos, and the risk reduction strategies of the Philippines Homeless People’s Federation.
Ii. Disasters
Revealing Risk, Redefining Development: The 2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
United Nations, 2011, 178 pages. ISBN 978 92 1 132030 5. Published by the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), Geneva. This report can be purchased from United Nations Publications for US$ 45 or downloaded for free at www.preventionweb.net/gar; there are also many background papers prepared for the report available on this website.
This follows on from the 2009 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction: Risk and Poverty in a Changing Climate that was the first overview and analysis of disaster risks from the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR). The 2009 report presented the evidence for how certain drivers increase disaster risks, including poorly managed urban and regional development, degraded ecosystems and poverty. It also highlighted how disaster losses often feed back into deteriorating health and education and deeper poverty. The 2011 report highlights the need for far more systematic recording of disaster losses and impacts and assessment of disaster risks. Case studies also show that making public investment less risk sensitive is generally less costly than the losses from disasters that were not avoided.
Chapter 1 introduces the report. Chapter 2 looks at where mortality risks from disasters have fallen and where they have increased. It presents maps of all the world’s regions showing mortality risk from weather-related hazards and highlights how this remains highly concentrated in countries with low per capita GDP and weak governance. Chapter 3 focuses on drought risks – which are less well understood than tropical cyclones and floods. Drought risk appears to be constructed over time by a range of drivers, including not only deficient or erratic rainfall but also poverty and rural vulnerability, increasing water demand from industry, urbanization and agribusiness, poor soil and water management, weak or ineffective governance and climate variability and change. Chapter 4 is on progress, measured against the Hyogo Framework for Action on disaster risk reduction. Chapter 5 is on investing today in a safer tomorrow and Chapter 6 is on opportunities and incentives for disaster risk reduction. Chapter 7 discusses reforming risk governance, while Chapter 8 draws out conclusions on redefining development. As with the 2009 volume, there are many maps, figures and case studies interspersed throughout the text. In this volume, the case studies presented in boxes include the impact of the August 2010 floods in Pakistan; child-centred approaches to dealing with climate stresses and extreme events; different types of drought; Mexico’s disaster contingency fund; the costs and benefits of school retrofitting; and the role of the media following the 2010 Haiti and Chile earthquakes.
Iii. Evictions
How People Face Evictions
Yves Cabannes, Silvia Guimaraes Yafai and Cassidy Johnson (editors), 2011, 174 pages. ISBN 978 1 901742 14 5. Building and Social Housing Foundation and Development Planning Unit, London; the pdf version of this book is available to download for free at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dpu/k_s/publications/how_ppl_face_evictions. For printed copies, please contact Yves Cabannes (
“It was around 9 o’clock in the morning on 9 March 2005 . . . they got there in three or four trucks, not only police forces but also armed civilians. The children were very afraid and we women were on our own with the men out at work. They threatened us, took out all of our belongings, knocked them over, took the best things and destroyed our homes. We took refuge in a church, where we stayed for two or three months.” (Yasmin Feliz) “It was around 7 o’clock in the morning. They came with great violence. I was three months pregnant. I resisted by using the gas cylinder to keep them from opening the door but I had my small son with me and they threw a tear gas cylinder through the window. They threw me on the floor and my son nearly suffocated. I lost the baby. They took all of our best things, the washing machine, timber and zinc (roof). They came without giving any notice.” (Cristina Alcantara)
These two quotes are from accounts by women in Santo Domingo (the capital of the Dominican Republic) of how they were evicted. This book notes that accounts such as these are common – and each year, millions of children, women and men are forced from their homes. But it also describes how many people-led organizations and movements have successfully challenged evictions and helped develop alternatives. The core of the book comprises case studies of people-based initiatives that have struggled against eviction, and in some instances have secured rights to adequate housing, legal security of tenure and freedom from the threat of eviction. These case studies are in city centres (Buenos Aires and Porto Alegre), in a historic district (in Karachi), in villages that have been absorbed by city expansion (Hangzhou), in spontaneous settlements that were once on the city periphery (Santo Domingo, Durban and Istanbul) and on agricultural lands in Egypt. Each case study was prepared by the people themselves, or in some instances assisted by local research teams that sought to give the grassroots organizations and movements freedom to document how they had been addressing evictions.
The case studies are complemented by chapters authored by the editors that look across the case studies. They include a discussion of the reasons for the threat of eviction (often for transport infrastructure or enterprises serving the city government’s aspirations to be a global city) and the role of land mafias and corruption and the various ways in which people fight evictions (usually a combination of public protest and barricades, legal battles, negotiations and getting support from beyond the neighbourhood). There is also a discussion of the casualties, including murders, torture and the imprisonment of leaders or simply of those who resist. And a discussion of the role of women in these struggles and of the inadequate offers of compensation – typically where resettlement is offered, the value of what is offered is far lower than what they lose and location is far away from the city (and their livelihoods). There are also examples of promised compensation not being paid and of governments refusing to discuss the solutions collectively – thus coercing individual households into accepting inadequate relocation. At worst, the evicted groups are even forced to demolish their own homes or are charged high fees if they do not do so.
Iv. Health
Urban Health: Global Perspectives
David Vlahov, Jo Ivey Boufford, Clarence Pearson and Laurie Norris (editors), 2010, 500 pages. ISBN 978 0 470 42206 9. Published by Jossey-Bass, 989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103–1741; website: www.josseybass.com.
This offers a comprehensive discussion of key health trends and cross-cutting policy challenges. The volume’s 30 chapters are written by experts, policy makers and practitioners who consider both emerging and long-standing urban health problems. Thus, alongside infectious diseases and urban air quality (Chapters 8 and 21), the authors examine immigrant health (Chapters 4–5), climate change (Chapter 6), disasters (Chapter 12) and urban terrorism (Chapter 13). Among the wide-ranging case studies are discussions from Nairobi, Shanghai and Belo Horizonte, as well as Amsterdam, New York and London. Taken together, the chapters foster a holistic understanding of health and may inspire the intersectoral strategies needed to promote well-being.
Chapter 1 presents a global overview of urban health issues, while Chapter 2 introduces globalization and its health implications. Chapter 3 discusses demographic shifts and urbanization trends, and the author also advocates collecting spatially disaggregated health data and distinguishing slum-dwellers from other low-income households. Subsequent background chapters on global issues are complemented by detailed local discussions. For instance, Chapter 11 on crime and violence is rounded out by an analysis of urban terrorism (Chapter 13) and a case study of Zagreb’s activities to prevent youth violence (Chapter 14). An analysis of emerging chronic diseases such as heart disease or diabetes, which increasingly afflict the urban poor (Chapter 9), is followed by an extremely useful discussion of chronic disease care in Nairobi’s informal settlements (Chapter 10). The volume also encourages comparative analysis: interesting contrasts emerge by examining the Healthy Cities programme in European municipalities and in Shanghai (Chapters 26 and 27, respectively). Urban transport’s health impacts and growth trends are featured in Chapter 19, largely focusing on American motorization but incorporating comparisons from Curitiba, Delhi and Medellín.
The volume is particularly strong in its discussion of improving urban health governance (see Chapter 23 for an overview), with case studies of London and Belo Horizonte (Chapters 17 and 28, respectively). Latin American health governance is examined in Chapter 15, on Mexico’s health systems reforms, and in Chapter 16, on electronic health systems (with an interesting case study of São Paulo). Chapter 24 gives an interesting analysis of the local health implications of global business, including an examination of Mexico’s health trends after NAFTA. The author argues for “. . .a new kind of public health campaign” that would restrict the marketing of unhealthy products, eliminate subsidies for dangerous goods and require companies to pay the full costs of harm inflicted upon consumers (page 385).
The strategies needed in informal settlements are discussed in Chapter 20; water and sanitation services are examined in Chapter 18; and Chapter 25 explores how low-income groups have recently engaged in co-production and engagement with local government in reducing poverty, improving housing and addressing other social determinants of health. Urban Health: Global Perspectives thus captures key health challenges facing municipalities, places them in a broader perspective and invites greater collaboration in forging effective responses.
V. Housing finance
Understanding Pro-poor Housing Finance in Malawi
Mtafu A Z Manda, Siku Nkhoma and Diana Mitlin, 2011, 58 pages. ISBN 978 1 84369 818 0. Human Settlements Working Paper 32, published by IIED. This can be downloaded for free, or the print copy ordered for US$ 20, at http://pubs.iied.org/10596IIED.html.
The lack of access to housing finance remains a major obstacle to home ownership in countries such as Malawi, especially among low-income earners. This paper explores the experience of lending for housing to low-income households, the performance of housing finance management tools and the development of alternatives. It draws on discussions with leaders and members of the Malawi Homeless People’s Federation, its support NGO (the Centre for Community Organization and Development – CCODE), stakeholders in the housing sector and lawyers working to resolve problems related to non-repayment of housing loans. Section I introduces the discussion. Section II provides more information on the development of housing options and shelter finance in Malawi and on the emergence of the Mchenga Fund that is the particular focus of this paper. Section III discusses these approaches within the broader context of housing initiatives in the global South, discussing the failure of many approaches to housing and the subsequent attempts to shift from supply-led to demand-led modalities, including shelter microfinance and community savings. Section IV describes the history of the Mchenga Fund and Section V discusses the difficulties facing the initiative. Section VI presents solutions that have been identified and tested in recent years and Section VII concludes. The annexes show the records and agreements developed by the federation, CCODE and Mchenga staff to manage the process and demonstrate transparency to all involved.
In the absence of any formal finance system to support housing, a group of 50 women savers in Mtandire informal settlement in Lilongwe initiated a community savings approach to shelter development in 2003. The approach has grown rapidly and the savings groups now have more than 15,000 members. The consolidation of savings groups into the Malawi Homeless People’s Federation and the subsequent formation of a support NGO (CCODE) have supported the efforts of these women to address their shelter needs. By the end of 2010, federation groups had negotiated successfully for land for more than 3,000 members in a number of urban centres, with the first development of 222 plots taking place in Lilongwe in 2003.
Shelter microfinance offers solutions for those with secure tenure and who are able to take on the risks associated with individual borrowing; but it cannot finance collective investments in upgrading, infrastructure or new-build. Such investments have to be collective because this is the only way they are affordable by low-income households. However, without secure tenure, the risks are too great for microfinance agencies to take on. To facilitate the development of shelter on land they had obtained, the federation members and CCODE established the Mchenga Fund, which is capitalized by community savings and donor funding. The federation manages the allocation process and subsequent lending-related and shelter construction activities. Between 2007 and 2010, about 750 houses were constructed by members, financed by Mchenga. However, the development of loan management skills and capabilities has not been straightforward and the federation has had to learn from its mistakes as there was a very high default rate from the first project it undertook. This paper describes the learning process for managing collective shelter finance. The federation recognized that scaling up financial mechanisms that include the lowest-income residents requires community level management. Only decentralized management can ensure that interactions with borrowers are sufficiently sensitive to real affordability constraints and can negotiate difficult financial pressures. Only local groups are able to support appropriately and effectively those who face difficulties. At the same time, groups have to recognize problems such as some community members who sought to exploit the process for their own benefit, politicians seeking to establish clientelist relations in their own interests, and the tendency to replicate inappropriate professionally designed solutions. Learning from the first housing project enabled the federation to develop and then fine-tune its loan management skills to contribute to the development of strong grassroots financial institutions. The paper explains how the local savings schemes devised strategies to assist members to repay their loans, easing the pressure on households that have multiple demands on scarce budgets. New systems were developed for loan applications and repayment collection, which did not undermine local processes but added value to the efforts of savings scheme members. This included federation leaders taking on the challenge of supporting local groups to decide what to do in cases of loan default. It also included balancing how to be fair to the longer-term needs of federation members who had yet to receive loans, while building a movement responsive to members facing problems of loan default.
Vi. Land
Regularization of Informal Settlements in Latin America
Edésio Fernandes, 2011, 48 pages. ISBN 978 1 55844 202 3. Policy Focus Report published by and available from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 113 Brattle Street Cambridge MA 02138 USA; website: www.lincolninst.edu.
This provides a clear, thoughtful analysis of approaches to regularizing Latin America’s informal settlements. It examines two main paradigms by comparing the cases of Peru and Brazil, and the author offers policy recommendations to improve regularization programmes across the region. Although recent interventions have helped to enhance tenure security, improve housing and promote social and spatial integration, he identifies several remaining challenges. He argues for collecting additional baseline data and evaluation studies, ensuring gender equity in design and implementation, financial mechanisms to promote self-sustainability, and mechanisms to ensure more appropriate titling arrangements, such as land trusts or leasehold rather than individual titles.
Chapter 1 begins by discussing the challenges of informal development, noting the legal, social, political, environmental and economic burdens generated by informal settlements (including an interesting discussion of the costs of informality both to society and to residents, who must pay informal fees or higher rates for illegal water). The report calls for creating a “. . .legitimate and inclusive legal order that respects the informal processes of distributive justice reflected in the daily practices of these informal settlements” (page 6). Chapter 2 examines the interlinked challenges of defining and measuring informal settlements, which have hindered regularization efforts. It also discusses the overlapping causes of informal settlements, such as low incomes, sociospatial issues, political clientelism, dysfunctional legal systems and unrealistic planning standards. A wide range of activities are encompassed by “informal development”, and informality also has a “. . .dynamic aspect so that its patterns and the importance of its various causes continue to change” (page 17).
The report turns to regularization strategies in Chapter 3, with an overview of the reasons for regularizing settlements, financing strategies and results from past experiences. The author notes that there is no one-size-fits-all solution and it is important to prevent informal settlements from emerging in the first place. But even with past shortcomings, experiences suggest that regularization policies can still improve residents’ living conditions. Chapter 4 discusses two key approaches, as exemplified by Peru and Brazil. Peru’s COFOPRI programme had a narrow focus on individual titles but it resulted in nearly 1.6 million titles being issued between 1996 and 2006, 56 per cent of which were issued to women (page 37). The low-cost programme led to housing improvements, tenure security and some increases in property values (averaging 25 per cent, an increment greater than programme costs of just US$ 64 per household). However, COFOPRI did not catalyze significant changes in access to formal credit and it is difficult to attribute poverty reduction to changes in land titling. Brazil’s integrated approach has promoted tenure security while maintaining communities in original locations, promoting jobs, overcoming stigma and upgrading informal areas (depending on the particular strategies adopted by local municipalities). Although costs are far higher and projects more limited in scale than in Peru, Brazil’s integrated strategies have the important potential to promote socioeconomic development and political integration for millions of residents. Chapter 5 offers additional discussion of legal issues, such as the types of tenure rights, ensuring gender equality, and possible conflicts between environmental protection and maintaining communities. Chapter 6 concludes with recommendations.
Vii. Local government
Limits to Participation: The Struggle for Environmental Improvement in Moreno, Argentina (Los Limites de la Participacion; La Lucha por el Mejoramiento Ambiental en Moreno, Argentina)
Florencia Almansi, Ana Hardoy, Jorgelina Hardoy, Gustavo Pandiella, Leonardo Tambussi and Gaston Urquiza with Gordon McGranahan and David Satterthwaite, 2011, 205 pages. ISBN 978 987 33 0088 2. This book has the full text in both English and Spanish. Published by and available from IIED–América Latina Publications, Carlos Melo 2698, C1602–Florida, Vicente López, Buenos Aires, Argentina; website: www.iied-al.org.ar. Both the Spanish and English language versions can be downloaded from the website for free. Copies may also be obtained from IIED’s London office; e-mail:
This book (in Spanish and English) is rather unusual in that it describes and discusses in detail a partnership between a local NGO, the municipal government and community organizations. These sought to work together to improve conditions in informal settlements in Moreno, one of the poorest peripheral municipalities in Buenos Aires.
The book is unusual in that it discusses in detail not only the positive results of this partnership but also the difficulties, despite the willingness of all parties to work together. The municipal authorities were committed to the initiative but they wanted to work through the community representatives with whom they already had informal relations and through whom they managed public demands. The authorities were concerned that a more open process of community participation to determine priorities and actions would generate demands they could not meet. They also felt that as their government had been elected, they had the right to determine priorities.
This was one of eight Focus Cities research initiatives supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), whose purpose was to seek practical solutions to alleviating the environmental burdens that exacerbate poverty in selected African, Asian and Latin American cities (for more details, see http://www.idrc.org.sg/en/ev-81920-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html). The work in Moreno was to develop a process to institutionalize a space for multi-stakeholder participation and decision-making to contribute to environmental management. This developed an action plan that led to pilot projects. The research focused on three lines of enquiry that supported the action processes: the institutionalization of multi-stakeholder spaces; the resulting conflicts over environmental issues; and the relationship between land tenure conditions and environmental issues.
After an introductory first chapter, Chapter 2 places the Moreno project in its international, national and local context; it includes a description of the environmental burdens affecting the city and a discussion of how, within Argentina, what can be termed “delegative” democracy predominates over “participatory” democracy. Chapters 3 and 4 review the project’s antecedents and its original conception and how the different partners contributed to the design, since this affected its subsequent implementation. Chapter 5 describes the implementation, starting with the participatory processes used to identify the more pressing environmental issues and the range of possible responses, and moving through planning to work on pilot projects. Various participatory methods were introduced over the course of the initiative – for example, stakeholders set priorities consensually based on a combination of mapping by community representatives and maps created by the different government departments. Chapter 6 critically assesses the project, highlighting delays and conflicts and their origins and consequences. Some were caused by a lack of initial consensus regarding both the project’s content and the responsibilities of each partner; others arose from differing views over collaborative action, particularly in relation to the extent of community participation. Chapters 7 and 8 review both the difficulties uncovered and the results achieved – a series of environmental improvements all involving the active collaboration of community organizations, local government and IIED–AL.
This study will be of particular interest to those who work at the interface of community and local government. The authors, drawn mostly from the NGO that worked on this initiative, detail areas and issues that proved more problematic than they had envisaged. They also suggest ways in which these problems might be avoided in other initiatives that seek to support community participation and develop partnership-based management structures in which community organizations can be real partners.
Viii. Migration
Rural Migration in Bolivia: The Impact of Climate Change, Economic Crisis and State Policy
Carlos Balderrama Mariscal, Nico Tassi, Ana Rubena Miranda, Lucía Aramayo Canedo and Iván Cazorla, 2011, 45 pages. ISBN 978 1 84369 812 8. Human Settlements Working Paper 31, published by IIED. This can be downloaded for free, or the print copy ordered for US$ 20, at http://pubs.iied.org/10568IIED.html.
This paper describes migration dynamics and the impact of gradual environmental change on the livelihoods of people living in two very different areas of Bolivia. The first is the region of Northern Potosí on the high plateau, with a cold climate and an altitude of more than 3,000 metres, whose inhabitants are highland indigenous people who have lived there for thousands of years. Since colonial times, this region has been affected by economic crises, desertification and drought, and exclusion from state policies. It is considered the poorest region of Bolivia and has the highest rate of out-migration in the country. The second area is San Julián in the Amazon lowlands, with a tropical climate and an altitude of less than 300 metres, whose inhabitants are indigenous and non-indigenous migrants. In recent years, this region has been favoured by state policies and it is currently considered one of the main destinations for migrants due to the agro-export economy based on soya.
The research examined a wide range of factors that may trigger migration, including the possible influence of climate change and public policies. The key challenge was to understand current patterns of migration, the processes involved and the social, cultural, economic and political causes and effects, taking into account issues that are increasing in importance, such as climate change, and seeking to discover the extent of their influence in the midst of other factors that drive migration. The authors show that mobility has long been an essential component of livelihoods in both locations, but there are major differences in the duration and destinations of migration and in the composition of the migrant flows. These differences are determined by socioeconomic and cultural factors such as limited local non-farm economic opportunities and restricted access to land, which make it difficult to diversify income sources. This is especially the case for young people, who are the largest proportion of migrants in both research locations.
Section I analyzes migration in the historical context of the pre-Hispanic, colonial and republican eras. Section II describes the geographical characteristics of Bolivia, including the influence of environmental and climate change processes. Section III describes the current environmental and socioeconomic features of the two regions studied. On the environmental side, the diversity of ecological levels and climate variability are described in greater detail. On the socioeconomic side, the description includes the characteristics of each region’s population, its particular history and levels of poverty. Section IV addresses the issue of migration in Northern Potosí and discusses causes, destinations, objectives and effects of migration and the characteristics of the migrants themselves. Section V looks at in-migration and out-migration in the municipality of San Julián with regard to causes, destinations, objectives and effects. Section VI considers the influence of public policies on migration processes and how migration and climate change are included in state policies, and Section VII presents conclusions and recommendations on how to address policy issues related to migration, taking into account the influence of the economy, environmental changes and climate change.
Ix. Poverty reduction
Citizenship and Services for the Urban Poor: Impact Assessment Synthesis Report
Lucy Earle, with a foreword by Andy Rutherford, 2011, 83 pages. ISBN 978 1 89876 81 9. Published by One World Action, Bradley’s Close, 74–77 White Lion Street, London N1 9PF; website: www.oneworldaction.org.
The Luanda Urban Poverty Programme (LUPP) was an award-winning initiative operating between 1999 and 2010, and this evaluation for the UK Government’s Department for International Development (DFID) discusses LUPP’s work on microfinance, water and sanitation, participatory governance and early childhood development. Key achievements include providing the equivalent of US$ 100 million in microfinance to 100,300 clients; water standpipes serving more than 150,000 residents; 24 crèches for nearly 2,000 children; and ongoing municipal development forums. The author, Lucy Earle, synthesizes LUPP’s experiences and lessons, helping to illuminate how donors, governments and residents in impoverished post-conflict settings can gradually build institutions and reduce urban poverty.
Part I introduces the context in Angola as well as LUPP’s approach and strategies throughout the programme. Despite extensive oil and mineral wealth, burgeoning formal construction and rising foreign investment, most Angolans remain extremely poor and live in inadequate housing. More than 75 per cent of Luanda’s population resides in informal settlements, which are growing by 7 per cent annually (page 20). With DFID funding, LUPP was implemented in four of the capital’s low-income municipalities by several NGOs (Development Workshop, Save the Children, CARE and One World Action). Earle notes that the partners were often unable to reach the poorest residents, but LUPP was successfully replicated at scale in water and crèche facilities through the use of cost-recovery (page 28). She concludes that LUPP created an important model of pro-poor service delivery, while simultaneously promoting democratic governance after the civil war.
LUPP’s impacts are analyzed in Part II, which identifies key achievements at the project and policy levels. For instance, LUPP’s autonomous microcredit enterprise has loaned to 100,000 recipients; microfinance was also taken up as a legislative priority and microloans from commercial banks have benefited another 150,000 people. Achievements in the water sector were again significant at the municipal and national levels. Nearly 150 water standpipes were built in Luanda and the cost of water from these is 4–8 times less than private water vendors’ prices. There has been a reduction in water-borne diseases and LUPP’s community management of water was adopted as a national level policy. Municipal development forums have been conducted every two months since 2001 with LUPP support, leading to the formation of civil society networks and enhancing citizen–government interactions. Earle argues that these activities “. . .helped to catalyze broader democratization processes”, suggesting that “. . .greater democracy at lower levels of the state can be forged outside the framework of elections” (page 59). The rest of the chapter discusses experiences with crèches, media outreach and municipal development profiles prepared with community GIS mapping (maps are included as an appendix).
Part III concludes with lessons learned and examines the contribution to DFID’s work. LUPP was DFID’s only urban programme in Africa and, unusually, focused on lower level governance and partnerships (page 72). Earle argues that the onus is now on international aid agencies “. . .to support similar innovative approaches to addressing urban poverty at scale, as the situation for the poor becomes ever more critical in African cities” (page 77). She also highlights the legacies of increased citizenship engagement, invigorated civil society activity and space created through municipal forums.
Urban Poverty, Social Exclusion and Social Housing Finance: The Case of PRODEL in Nicaragua
Alfredo Stein, 2010, 260 pages. ISBN 91 87866 36 6. Printed in Sweden by E-husets tryckeri, Thesis 7, Housing Development and Management, Lund University, Box 118, SE-221 00 Lund, Sweden; website: www.hdm.lth.se.
The Foundation for the Promotion of Local Development (PRODEL) operated from 1994 to 2008 following Nicaragua’s civil war, and it created an integrated poverty reduction programme that sought to reach the poorest and overcome social exclusion. Almost 35,000 households improved their housing with microloans; another 20,000 microenterprise loans were disbursed and 659 infrastructure projects were completed using a co-financing mechanism drawing in community and municipal contributions. While acknowledging these achievements, Stein uses PRODEL as a critical case to analyze why housing microfinance does not always enhance inclusion of the urban poor. A former adviser to PRODEL, Stein identifies key constraints to improving the poor’s housing and collective assets, and explores the tension between achieving financial sustainability and increasing financial inclusion. Environment and Urbanization readers may already be familiar with PRODEL, as papers about its work were published in 1997 (by Sida) and 2001 (by Alfredo Stein), but this PhD thesis provides additional insights into its history, achievements and challenges in establishing pro-poor forms of social housing finance. As an innovative programme co-financed by local governments, the urban poor and Sida (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency), PRODEL also illuminates how complex aid partnerships and strategies evolve over time.
Chapter 1 introduces PRODEL, followed by a discussion of the conceptual framework and research methodology in Chapters 2 and 3, respectively. Stein’s framework combines urban poverty, social exclusion and asset accumulation, focusing on the multiple dimensions of housing as an asset. By promoting inclusion in several social and financial schemes, PRODEL sought to reduce poverty and strengthen low-income households’ opportunities for accumulating assets. The thesis uses longitudinal data and interviews with residents, local officials and Sida staff. Stein’s fieldwork centred on three cities where PRODEL was most extensively implemented (the small and medium-sized cities of Somoto, Ocotal and Estelí). Chapter 4 traces PRODEL’s context and origins and Chapter 5 examines its institutional evolution (including Sida’s internal debates, political obstacles, an organizational crisis and PRODEL’s transformation in 2003 from a governmental programme to non-governmental foundation). With Swedish support totalling US$ 22 million, PRODEL operated successfully in a complex socioeconomic context and overcame significant political and internal challenges (page 126).
Chapter 6 discusses outcomes across Nicaragua, and these aggregate results are complemented by Chapter 7’s detailed findings from Somoto, Ocotal and Estelí. Alongside microfinance for enterprises and shelter improvements, PRODEL offered technical assistance. Meanwhile, a co-financing mechanism generated US$ 18 million of investment in infrastructure, with 50 per cent coming from PRODEL, 34 per cent from local government and 13.7 per cent from the urban poor. The author concludes that co-financing improved local revenue collection, as municipalities were incentivized by PRODEL’s matching funds, while bolstering governmental accountability to poor residents. In Chapter 8, Stein discusses the programme’s limits. Housing and enterprise loans often went to less-poor households and the poor’s financial exclusion “. . .probably deepened, although not as a consequence of mission drift by PRODEL” (page 215). Rather, political manipulation hampered the programme, and donors’ insistence on financial sustainability led to targeting of wealthier households who could afford higher interest rates. In the final chapter, Stein notes that Sida’s support still enabled PRODEL to produce effective long-term outcomes, and additional longitudinal research could help evaluate its results.
X. Shelter
A Policy Guide to Rental Housing in Developing Countries
Alan Gilbert (principal author), 2011, 42 pages. ISBN 978 92 1 132327 6. Quick Policy Guide Series – Volume 1. Published by and available from UN–HABITAT, Nairobi; US$ 5 or can be downloaded for free at http://www.unhabitat.org/pmss/.
This booklet is the first of a new series of Quick Housing Policy Guides that seek to present in an easy to read format concepts, policy approaches, tools and recommendations to help governments address housing issues. It begins by outlining how rental accommodation is home to hundreds of millions of people and how governments have neglected its importance. It also describes the many myths about rental housing that governments often use to justify this neglect. It then outlines the characteristics of rental housing, including the many forms it takes and the supply side (including different types of landlord) and demand side (including a discussion of the advantages of renting for many groups). It ends with a summary of key issues for policy makers to consider and also policy guidelines. This includes suggestions for helping self-help landlords to build or improve rental accommodation.
Enabling Shelter Strategies: Design and Implementation Guide for Policy Makers
Mike Majale (principal author), 2011, 54 pages. Quick Policy Guide Series – Volume 2. Published by and available from UN–HABITAT, Nairobi; US$ 5 or can be downloaded for free at http://www.unhabitat.org/pmss/.
This booklet is also in the Quick Housing Policy Guides series. It focuses on what an enabling shelter strategy actually is for a government and how to design and implement one. The booklet includes an explanation of how the housing sector works and how to enable markets to work, and also short descriptions of countries where there have been successful enabling shelter strategies. There is a section on how to initiate and facilitate a participatory shelter strategy process and sections detailing a checklist, the dos and don’ts of the enabling approach and the principles underlying this approach.
Xi. Transport
Transport Revolutions: Moving People and Freight without Oil
Richard Gilbert and Anthony Perl, 2010, 433 pages. ISBN 978 1 84407 698 7. This is a revised second edition. Published by Earthscan Publications and available in bookstores or direct from Earthscan; e-mail:
This focuses on changing oil-based patterns of transport through the early adoption of electric vehicles and grid-based systems. The authors note that “. . .we are alarmed, but we also are confident that solutions exist to deal with our predicament” and solutions to redesign transport could “. . .begin today with good planning and effective leadership” (page 10).
The introduction explains the book’s goals and intended audience, including government officials, forward-looking businesses and transport students. To ground the subsequent discussion, Chapter 1 gives an analysis of past transport revolutions (including high-speed rail in Japan and France and transformations in air freight and passenger jets). Current patterns of passenger and freight transport are discussed in Chapter 2, with data from the US, EU and China as well as some low- and middle-income cities.
In Chapter 3, on the links between transport and energy, the authors advance several important arguments. They suggest that supply constraints contributed to high oil prices in 2008 and argue that peak oil is likely by 2012; also that the 2008 oil price shocks indicate that “. . .high oil prices bring the very real risk of devastating economic depression” (page 129). They suggest that high oil prices can serve as a useful warning to alter current patterns. Policy makers are urged to respond with prompt anticipatory measures to reduce oil consumption, particularly in the transport sector, and electric vehicles and grid-based systems are the best alternative. Gilbert and Perl argue that electric motors can “substantially replace” internal combustion engines in the next 20–30 years (page 146) and the chapter also includes some discussion of how sufficient electricity for transport may be generated.
Chapter 4 reviews the adverse impacts of transport at global scale (including its role in climate change), as well as its local/regional environmental effects and socioeconomic impacts. The chapter closes with a table assessing the relative strengths of different passenger and freight modes (page 222). Chapter 5 discusses how to revolutionize freight and passenger transport so that by 2025, richer countries can reduce their use of liquid fuels for transport by 40 per cent below 2007 levels while low- and middle-income nations can increase their use of liquid fuels for transport by at most 25 per cent (page 228). The chapter focuses on achieving transport revolutions in the US and in China, selected because they are the “most challenging cases” of higher- and lower-income nations and currently the top two consumers of oil (page 224). The authors sketch scenarios to achieve a 51 per cent reduction in the US’s per capita oil consumption by 2025 and a 13 per cent increase in China’s (which would fall after 2025). Chapter 6 concludes with a discussion of the global economic crisis and highlights the role of political leadership to ensure a sustainable way forward.
Xii. Urban agriculture
Cities, Poverty and Food: Multi-stakeholder Policy and Planning in Urban Agriculture
Marielle Dubbeling, Henk de Zeeuw and René van Veenhuizen (editors), 2010, 177 pages. ISBN 978 185339709 7. Published by Practical Action Publishing Ltd, Warwickshire CV23 9QZ, UK; website: www.practicalactionpublishing.org.
This presents tools to assist municipal policy makers, local organizations and other stakeholders seeking to support urban agriculture and is illustrated with many case studies. It also identifies several promising interventions, such as creating a supportive policy environment and enhancing urban farmers’ access to land, credit or technical assistance. It discusses experiences and lessons from participatory urban agriculture action planning projects in 20 cities, which were sponsored by the RUAF Foundation (Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and Food Security).
The introduction summarizes past studies on urban agriculture and its potential to advance several goals such as food security, poverty reduction, climate change adaptation and improved waste management. Although few quantitative surveys of urban agriculture have been conducted, evidence suggests its prevalence across a range of urban locations, scales and income groups. Many producers are low-income households cultivating food or livestock on a small scale; others may cultivate higher value crops or engage in advanced agro-processing. In turn, a range of policy lenses and diverse forms of support may be appropriate. Urban policy makers may seek to advance social goals (e.g. supporting subsistence-oriented activities), promote market-oriented urban agriculture or advance multi-functional cultivation to achieve ecological goals (page 19).
Chapter 2 explains the objectives and phases of multi-stakeholder policy and planning (MPAP) and provides a framework for discussing the experiences of seven cities (Chapter 3). Each city completed its MPAP exercises between 2005 and 2008, beginning with preparatory activities and a situation analysis, then broadening commitment and participation, and finally establishing a multi-stakeholder forum on urban agriculture with local officials, universities, NGOs and farmers’ groups. The stakeholders then developed and implemented a city strategic agenda on urban agriculture and monitored/adapted the proposed activities (see page 35 for a diagram of MPAP phases). Case studies in Chapter 3 comprise the core of the book, with local participants recounting processes and outcomes in Accra, Beijing, Sana’a, Lima, Freetown, Bulawayo and Gampaha (in Sri Lanka). Experiences suggest that urban agriculture can support youth employment and local economic development strategies, as in Freetown. Some municipalities have given funding to promote urban agriculture, particularly in Beijing, or have supported farmers’ access to wastewater, land or other key inputs. Farmers’ groups in a low-income area near Lima formed legally recognized networks; a municipal ordinance has recognized urban agriculture, and vacant land under power lines has been transformed into five community gardens. In Chapter 4, the authors consider the optimal policy measures and arrangements to facilitate urban agriculture. A range of legal, economic, communicative and urban design instruments can support urban farmers; municipalities should also take steps to promote social inclusion and gender equity and incorporate urban agriculture as an adaptation to climate change. Other lessons include the need for local and national policy integration regarding urban agriculture, developing permanent institutional arrangements and reducing health or environmental risks associated with farming practices.
Xiii. Urban development
Making Room for a Planet of Cities
Shlomo Angel, with Jason Parent, Daniel L Civco and Alejandro M Blei, 2011, 72 pages. ISBN 978 1 55844 212 2. Policy Focus Report published by and available from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy; this can be downloaded for free at http://www.lincolninst.edu/pubs/1880_Making-Room-for-a-Planet-of-Cities-urban-expansion; or a print copy can be ordered from www.lincolninst.edu.
This research report seeks to enrich our understanding of policies that are appropriate for urban expansion. It looks at three discrete attributes of urban spatial structure and their change over time, namely the average population density in their built-up area; fragmentation (the amount of open space in and around cities that is fragmented by their built-up area); and urban land cover (total land area occupied by cities). This drew on analyses that compared satellite images and urban populations in a global sample of 120 cities circa 1990 and 2000 and a survey of housing conditions and regulatory regimes governing urban expansion in this same sample of cities. It also drew from studies of urban expansion in US cities from 1910 to 2000, of urban expansion in 30 other cities from 1800 to 2000 and from an analysis of a new global urban land cover map of cities with 100,000 or more inhabitants (this data is also available on the web – see the Book Note below on The Atlas of Urban Expansion).
The report summarizes the key research findings:
On average, built-up area densities in low- and middle-income countries are double those in Europe and Japan, and such densities in Europe and Japan are double those of the United States, Canada and Australia.
Average built-up area densities declined by 2 per cent per annum between 1990 and 2000 and have been in persistent decline for a century or more.
Cities have fragmented open spaces in and around them that are equivalent in size to their built-up areas, but the share of fragmented open space within cities declined slowly yet significantly in the 1990s.
On average, the annual growth rate of urban land cover was twice that of the urban population between 1990 and 2000, and most of the cities studied expanded their built-up area more than 16-fold in the twentieth century.
At present rates, the world’s urban population is expected to double in 43 years, while urban land cover will double in only 19 years.
The urban population of low- and middle-income countries is expected to double between 2000 and 2030, while the built-up area of their cities can be expected to triple.
One of the key issues that this work and others by the same authors has highlighted is the need for cities to make room for growing populations. They criticize what they call the “containment paradigm” when it is applied to rapidly growing high density cities – for instance, urban growth boundaries that are too tight-fitting, misplaced hopes on infill, unnecessary densification, over-reliance on regulation and undersupply of arterial roads that can carry public transport. It notes that while containment and densification policies may be suitable in some cities where population growth has slowed and densities are too low to sustain public transport, this approach should not be applied universally. In discussing the need for each growing city to have realistic projections for urban land needs, it notes how the plans for the expansion of New York City in the early nineteenth century and for Barcelona in the mid-nineteenth century made such provision. It also suggests that generous but credible provision for land for expansion will avoid speculation and high land prices. In terms of open space, the approach is not to constrain a city’s growth with a greenbelt but for built-up areas and open spaces to inter-penetrate each other as the city expands outwards. The paper also discusses the additional need for an arterial road and infrastructure grid which, it suggests, will keep down land for housing costs, allow the city government rather than developers to shape expansion, provide the basis for high quality public transport and lower infrastructure costs. It emphasizes that the “making room paradigm” does recognize the importance of markets in the development of urban land for residential, economic and civic activities but it also recognizes that markets do not ensure the creation of public spaces or establish adequate networks of arterial roads and public transport systems.
(N.B. A more detailed analysis of the fragmentation of cities, drawn from the same work programme by Shlomo Angel, Jason Parent and Daniel L Civco, will be published in the April 2011 issue of Environment and Urbanization.)
The Atlas of Urban Expansion
Shlomo Angel, Jason Parent, Daniel L Civco and Alejandro M Blei, 2010. Lincoln Institute of Land Policy; available online at http://www.lincolninst.edu/subcenters/atlas-urban-expansion/.
This website contains the data and maps used in the analyses summarized in the previous Book Note – for instance, the pairs of land cover maps derived from satellite images of 120 cities and metropolitan areas circa 1990 and 2000, zipped kml files containing the urban land cover for 3,646 large cities in the year 2000 (these can only be viewed on Google Earth) and an Excel spreadsheet containing data for 3,646 large cities in the year 2000.
The State of Asian Cities 2010/11
UN–HABITAT, 2011, 270 pages. ISBN 978 92 1 132274 3. Available for download at http://www.unhabitat.org/pmss/listItemDetails.aspx?publicationID=3078.
This report reviews the state of Asian cities, with a particular interest in their economic role, the scale and nature of their poverty and the state of the urban environment – and links with climate change. The report is also a reminder of the scale and importance of urbanization in Asia. UN projections for the increase in Asia’s urban population suggest that Asia’s urban population will grow by 841 million between 2010 and 2030. This represents around three-fifths of the projected growth in the world’s urban population and total population. So how well urban centres in Asia address poverty and climate change adaptation and mitigation has enormous global significance.
The main text of the book is illustrated with many photos, tables and boxes with case studies. For example, in the chapter on cities as engines of economic growth, the boxes include economic development in Ho Chi Minh city, Thailand’s emergence as a hub for automobile parts and examples of city governments that support street vendors. The chapter on poverty and inequality includes case studies on various slum upgrading programmes and detailed analysis of progress (or lack of it) in the provision of water and sanitation. The final chapter is on urban governance and includes a discussion of different urban governance systems in Asia, the development of mega-urban regions, decentralization, financing urban development and measuring performance in service delivery.
Searching for the Just City: Debates in Urban Theory and Practice
Peter Marcuse, James Connolly, Johannes Novy, Ingrid Olivo, Cuz Potter and Justin Steil (editors), 2009, 264 pages. ISBN 978 0 415 77613 4. Published by Routledge, 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN; website: www.routledge.com.
This book critically explores the possibilities and limits of the concept of a “Just City”, offering practical and theoretical lessons for planners seeking social justice in urban areas. The volume assembles a range of perspectives from planners, architects and geographers (such as Susan Fainstein, David Harvey and Peter Marcuse). Many of the chapters focus on New York or other American cities, although there are also contributions by urban researchers in Brazil, Israel and Europe.
Part I explores the theoretical foundations of the Just City debate, beginning with Susan Fainstein’s review of past approaches and possible criteria for assessing urban justice (Chapter 1). While accepting the existing capitalist order, Fainstein suggests that realizing a Just City requires counter-institutions that can broadly re-frame issues and mobilize resources to fight for their aims (page 35). Planners are also urged to change the dialogue so that “. . .demands for equity are no longer marginalized”, which would help in “. . .reversing the current tendency that excludes social justice from the aims of urban policy” (page 35). Critiques of Fainstein follow in Chapters 2–4: David Harvey highlights the importance of collective struggle and re-imagining cities to fit with collective needs and desires; Frank Fischer argues for utilizing discursive planning to expose and challenge the normative assumptions in prevailing discourses; and Mustafa Dikeç emphasizes greater sensitivity to spatial dimensions of justice.
Contributors to Part II seek to expand the debate while also examining the limits to the Just City. Peter Marcuse appeals for planners to grapple with power and other structural issues; he calls for “commons planning”, which raises larger issues and proposes alternatives, rather than simply seeking justice for individual parties. Recent challenges to the Just City have been encountered in Amsterdam, amid rising levels of intolerance (Chapter 5 by Novy and Mayer), while other authors discuss urban justice and recognition in Beer Sheva (Chapter 6 by Yiftachel, Goldhaber and Nuriel). Chapter 8, by James DeFilippis, discusses globalization, competition and economic justice, focusing on New York’s unregulated service industries, including a brief discussion of living wage campaigns, immigrant worker centres and other efforts to secure economic justice.
Part III turns to practical experiences and seeks to move from debate to action. New York’s experiences are featured in Chapters 9 and 10. J Phillip Thompson discusses the largely ineffective efforts in post-Katrina New Orleans to promote reconstruction and racial equality (Chapter 12). Erminia Maricato discusses Brazil’s creation of a Ministry of Cities and the 2001 approval of a City Statute as major victories for social movements, but implementing the statute has been challenging in the prevailing neoliberal environment and long-standing patrimonial politics (Chapter 11). The useful conclusion by Potter and Novy identifies key themes from the volume and remaining questions that can advance Just City research, such as examining its links with environmental sustainability, gender or sexuality, and questions of scale and spatiality (pages 233–235). Peter Marcuse’s post-script reflects on the Right to the City movement, identifies several principles undergirding the Right to the City, and argues that theory and practice should be brought together in establishing this key right.
Xiv. Urban poverty
Interrogating Urban Poverty Lines: The Case of Zambia
Miniva Chibuye, 2011, 38 pages. ISBN 978 1 84369 796 1. Human Settlements Working Paper 30, published by IIED; this can be downloaded for free, or the printed paper ordered for US$ 20, at http://pubs.iied.org/10592IIED.html.
Drawing on the cost of living surveys conducted by the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection (JCTR), this paper suggests that the scale and depth of urban poverty in Zambia is underestimated by official poverty lines. Basing the official food poverty line on a national average cost for food underestimates urban poverty and is likely to overestimate rural poverty because the cost of food is significantly higher in urban areas compared to rural areas. The paper also argues that the threshold for the upper poverty line (that takes into account the cost of non-food needs) is too meagre for any urban area in Zambia, especially when taking into account the cost of housing. This is also likely to be the case in many other nations in sub-Saharan Africa, as their governments use similar methodologies to set poverty lines.
In 2006, the official food poverty line (also known as the extreme poverty line) was set at the equivalent of US$ 0.45 per person per day. But drawing on JCTR data, the calculation of the food poverty line for Lusaka in December 2006 was equivalent to US$ 0.73 per person per day. The official poverty line was equivalent to around US$ 0.73 per person per day, while the JCTR poverty line for Lusaka was equivalent to around US$ 2.22 per person per day. The official estimate for the cost of non-food needs was one-tenth of the actual cost of essential non-food needs in Lusaka because the official figure made no allowance for the costs of housing and insufficient allowance for fuel, soap, electricity and water. Even this much higher figure did not include costs for clothing, education, health and transport. The paper also discusses the cost of housing in relation to official poverty lines; the price of renting poor quality, overcrowded accommodation in an informal settlement in Lusaka was far greater than the entire allowance for non-food needs in the official poverty line.
The level at which the poverty line is set has significant implications for the extent to which Zambia can be said to be meeting the Millennium Development Goal of halving chronic poverty. The paper discusses how trends in the incidence of extreme poverty and poverty in urban areas would change if poverty and extreme poverty lines used realistic estimates for the costs of food and non-food needs.