Abstract
THEMES FOR FUTURE ISSUES
DISCOUNTED PRICES AND ELECTRONIC ACCESS TO ENVIRONMENT AND URBANIZATION
MEDIO AMBIENTE Y URBANIZACIÓN
ENVIRONMENT AND URBANIZATION PEN DRIVE
BLOGS
INFOGRAPHICS
BOOK NOTES DATABASE
DOWNLOADS
I. Themes for Future Issues
This issue of the journal seeks to advance our understanding of labour markets and livelihood opportunities in urban areas of the global South. It is being developed in collaboration with WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing), which is a global action–research–policy network that seeks to improve the status of the working poor in the informal economy, especially women.
We welcome the submission of papers on how low-income urban women and men develop their own livelihoods – for instance through making and selling goods or selling services. We welcome papers on livelihoods in particular cities or city neighbourhoods and particular sectors (for instance street foods and street vending, waste picking and home-based work). We hope that this issue will show the variety, complexity and diversity of income-earning sources and how these shape, and are shaped by, local contexts – and their implications for income levels, income security and occupational health. We also welcome papers on particular policies or interventions (including those by local governments, urban poor organizations and NGOs) that have supported better and more stable returns and addressed needs such as access to public land and other public services, infrastructure services, appropriate legal and policy environments, improved market transactions or value chain dynamics.
We encourage papers that give insight and detail into the risks that low-income groups face at home and at work, in their daily lives and in relation to regular or occasional disasters – and now also in relation to climate change. We also encourage papers on how they seek to reduce risks. There is a substantial literature on risk in relation to livelihoods and to disasters and a less substantial one on everyday (mostly preventable) health burdens. There is a growing literature on climate change risk. But there has been far too little attention to understanding the full range of risks facing low-income women, men and children and their relative importance in relation to premature death, illness, injury and impoverishment. Within this, little attention has been given to the health risks (and resulting health burdens) faced by those who live in informal settlements and the implications for their employment and incomes.
This issue will be developed with the network of institutions engaged in a research programme on Urban Africa Risk Knowledge (Urban Ark). This is working in cities in Senegal, Nigeria, Malawi, Kenya and Niger to better understand the nature and scale of risks, especially for those in low-income areas. For more details, see www.urbanark.org
Humanitarian crises of various kinds – from natural disasters to conflict – are increasingly played out in urban areas. Responses by the humanitarian sector can have a role in meeting the needs of both displaced populations and host communities, for facilitating recovery of affected households, and for promoting longer-term self-reliance of populations. However, there is increasing recognition of the challenges facing the humanitarian sector in responding effectively in the complex urban environment, with high population densities, formal and informal land tenure systems, and multiple stakeholders all operating within close spatial proximity.
We welcome submissions that explore different facets of humanitarian response in urban contexts and help to document good practice. Also, to draw lessons learnt in responses to urban humanitarian crises, whether these are natural or human-induced, protracted or short term. We also encourage papers that look at different approaches to humanitarian programming, and how these contribute to longer-term pro-poor urban development.
II. Discounted Prices and Electronic Access to Environment and Urbanization
All papers published in Environment and Urbanization since its first issue in 1989 are available at http://eau.sagepub.com, and all but those published during the last two years are open access and so available electronically free of charge. Printed subscriptions of the journal are also available at no charge to libraries or resource centres of universities or teaching or training institutions in low- and middle-income nations.
In addition, the publisher of Environment and Urbanization, SAGE Publications, offers large discounts on subscription prices to charities and students and to all subscribers from low- and middle-income nations − see http://eau.sagepub.com and click on “Subscribe”. With regard to electronic access, there are schemes that allow access to Environment and Urbanization for universities and research centres in low- and middle-income nations − see Research4Life (http://www.research4life.org). This includes Online Access to Research on the Environment (OARE), which has research journals on the environment, including Environment and Urbanization (http://www.oaresciences.org/en).
III. Medio Ambiente y Urbanización (MAyU)
The last 23 issues of our sister journal are accessible at no charge at http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iieal/meda. The latest issue (82, May 2015) is on “Desafíos Urbanos”.
IV. Environment and Urbanization Pen Drive
We have a pen drive with all papers from Environment and Urbanization from 1989 to 2012 and all the working papers published by IIED’s Human Settlements Group. Do contact us if you would like one of these (also providing your postal address); these are available at no charge. All the items on this pen drive are available open access online – but this pen drive will be useful for those with difficult, limited or slow internet access.
V. Blogs
IIED has a new webpage called Urban Matters (http://www.iied.org/urban-matters), which brings together all blogs relating to urban development.
Recent Environment and Urbanization blogs (available at http://www.environmentandurbanization.org):
Sanitation in informal settlements: a networked problem
Karachi’s transport challenge
How India’s slum and pavement dwellers made sanitation affordable
Finance for whom and for what? (in relation to the Third International Conference on Financing for Development in July 2015 in Addis Ababa)
Improving housing in Asia – and turning traditional top-down funding on its head
VI. Infographics
IIED has produced three interactive data visuals. The latest was produced in July 2015 and is on
http://www.iied.org/files/kiln/architecture-of-aid.html
http://www.environmentandurbanization.org/cities-interactive-data-visual
VII. Facebook
The journal’s Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/EnvironmentandUrbanization) is to keep you informed of new papers published in the journal and of other relevant publications. We very much welcome feedback and the Facebook page is intended to allow feedback and also be a site for discussion and for suggestions from our readers.
VIII. Book Notes Database
A searchable database is nearly ready for all publications that have been included in Book Notes since 1989. This will be integrated with the online Book Notes section at http://www.environmentandurbanization.org/book-notes
IX. Downloads
For the period August 2008 to July 2015, there were between 216,727 and 330,609 full text downloads of papers from Environment and Urbanization.
Number of full text downloads per year (August 2008 to July 2015)