The CIVIS notes series shares knowledge and learning arising from Cities Alliance projects and other activities in slum upgrading and city development strategies. It also serves as a platform for policy dialogue and debate among city development stakeholders, including national and local governments, donors and slum dwellers to impact change in the lives of the urban poor and advance the urban development agenda.
Many parts of the global and national systems of cities are not benefiting significantly from the new age and economic geography of cities. Most of these are the secondary and small cities of less than a million people.
... See More + This report examines what defines a secondary city and looks how to support growth within them, focusing on governance and decentralization, national policies on urbanization, competitiveness, latent capital, system imbalances, and integration. It concludes with examples of Cities Alliance support to secondary cities via its programmatic approach through the Cities Alliance Country Programmes in Uganda, Mozambique, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Vietnam.
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Employment in household enterprise (HE) sector is growing rather rapidly for those without a secondary school certificate. These young people generally lack the qualifications for a wage job but can pursue the economic opportunities that HEs offer.
... See More + This report examines youth employment, how the sector grows, characteristics of urban HE owners, national strategies, urban policies, urban authorities and their responsibilities, access to finance, encouragement of training, and market access. Governments need to recognize the potential for job creation in the HE sector, in particular for the growing population of young school leavers in urban areas, and develop strategies to expand, not contract, the sector.
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This special edition of CIVIS was produced for the fifth World Urban Forum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in March 2010. Over the last two decades the failure of standardized contractor led housing delivery models to respond to the sheer scale of need of the urban poor raises the question as to whether the time has not arrived to revisit the 'incremental housing' approaches of the 1970s and 1980s as a more realistic approach to meeting the housing needs of the urban poor.
... See More + The basis of 'incremental housing' was that the cost of housing could be reduced by recognizing that poor urban families already build and extend their own dwellings incrementally in response to their needs and the availability of resources. The approach was to improve on this by providing appropriate legal and technical supports. This took two forms: 1) the environmental upgrading of existing informal settlements with safe water, sanitation, drainage, electricity and access ways; and 2) providing recognized title to new plots of serviced land sites and services (S&S) on which households could build their own dwellings.
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The year 2008 marked a historical turning point as, for the first time, more than half the world's total population now lives in urbanized landscapes.
... See More + In an effort to address this gap in knowledge and policy response, Cities Alliance and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) conducted a scoping study in 2010 on urban displacement with the objective of identifying the challenges in responding to forced displacement to urban areas. This study focused on refugees and internally displaced persons living in, or who have returned or relocated to, urban environments in developing countries as a result of or after conflict-induced humanitarian crises. Key findings of the study include: 1) establishment of residence in urban areas by significant numbers of displaced people from a different ethnic or sectarian group is potentially destabilising if not mitigated properly; 2) many of the poorly built urban environments in which most urban refugees/ IDPs live are in areas that are increasingly vulnerable to natural hazards, such as flood plains, coastal areas and on hillsides. However, disaster risk reduction strategies rarely consider displaced populations; and 3) the international legal protection available to urban IDPs is often significantly less than that for recognised refugees, although in theory IDPs are protected by their national laws.
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The cities alliance is highly committed to supporting the role of youth in cities. With its goal of strengthening and promoting the role of cities in poverty reduction, and in sustainable development, supporting the full participation and representation of those who constitute the future of a city is an integral part of that vision.
... See More + Youth is less an age range than a life phase marking the movement from childhood into adulthood. While one common parameter is 15 to 24, many African societies extend the range to include older people as youth. The accepted definition of youth in Rwanda and South Africa, for example, extends to age 35. Marriage status may also significantly narrow the youth category, since in some parts of the world a young person who marries may no longer be considered a youth. With young people looking to cities for work the face of urbanization is a young one. According to the World Bank, youth are 40 percent more likely than older generations to move from rural to urban areas or across urban areas.
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The year 2008 marked a historical turning point as, for the first time, more than half the world's total population now lives in urbanized landscapes.
... See More + In an effort to address this gap in knowledge and policy response, Cities Alliance and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) conducted a scoping study in 2010 on urban displacement with the objective of identifying the challenges in responding to forced displacement to urban areas. This study focused on refugees and internally displaced persons living in, or who have returned or relocated to, urban environments in developing countries as a result of or after conflict-induced humanitarian crises. Key findings of the study include: 1) establishment of residence in urban areas by significant numbers of displaced people from a different ethnic or sectarian group is potentially destabilising if not mitigated properly; 2) many of the poorly built urban environments in which most urban refugees/ IDPs live are in areas that are increasingly vulnerable to natural hazards, such as flood plains, coastal areas and on hillsides. However, disaster risk reduction strategies rarely consider displaced populations; and 3) the international legal protection available to urban IDPs is often significantly less than that for recognised refugees, although in theory IDPs are protected by their national laws.
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The year 2008 marked a historical turning point as, for the first time, more than half the world's total population now lives in urbanized landscapes.
... See More + In an effort to address this gap in knowledge and policy response, Cities Alliance and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) conducted a scoping study in 2010 on urban displacement with the objective of identifying the challenges in responding to forced displacement to urban areas. This study focused on refugees and internally displaced persons living in, or who have returned or relocated to, urban environments in developing countries as a result of or after conflict-induced humanitarian crises. Key findings of the study include: 1) establishment of residence in urban areas by significant numbers of displaced people from a different ethnic or sectarian group is potentially destabilising if not mitigated properly; 2) many of the poorly built urban environments in which most urban refugees/ IDPs live are in areas that are increasingly vulnerable to natural hazards, such as flood plains, coastal areas and on hillsides. However, disaster risk reduction strategies rarely consider displaced populations; and 3) the international legal protection available to urban IDPs is often significantly less than that for recognised refugees, although in theory IDPs are protected by their national laws.
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In July 2009, the Cities Alliance launched a four-issue CIVIS series on climate change prepared by the Human Settlements Group at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
... See More + This issue considers how to build a city vulnerability risk map for both disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. People working on agriculture and on rural development can be defensive about their rural agenda, to the extent that they dismiss or try to minimize concerns for urban poverty. Certainly in Sub-Saharan Africa, there are more rural dwellers suffering serious deprivation than urban dwellers. But the scale of the region's urban population is changing dramatically. In 1950, the urban population of Sub-Saharan Africa was only 20 million, and it remained under 100 million in 1980; now it is over 300 million and projected to exceed 500 million by 2025. A large proportion of this urban population suffers from serious deprivation in food intakes, incomes, premature mortality, access to services, and poor quality housing that is often insecure. It is difficult to provide precise figures, but depending on which aspect of poverty is considered, between 30 and 55 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa's 300 million urban dwellers are poor. The scale and depth of urban poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa has not yet reached the level of poverty in rural areas, but it is growing rapidly and is significant within the region's total population. The needs and priorities of approximately 30 to 35 per cent of Sub-Saharan Africa's poorest groups should not be ignored because they live in urban areas, and because a majority (65 to 70 percent) of the poor live in rural areas. Asking for more attention to be paid to urban poverty in the region does not always equate to asking for attention to rural poverty to be dropped.
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In July 2009, the Cities Alliance launched a four-issue CIVIS series on climate change prepared by the Human Settlements Group at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
... See More + This issue stresses the importance of building local knowledge and capacity on climate change risks and adaptive responses. Without such knowledge and capacity, decision makers will see environmental issues as constraints rather than as essential underpinnings to development. Durban (eThekwini) is unusual among cities worldwide in having a municipal government that has developed a locally rooted climate change adaptation strategy. This brief considers four institutional markers behind local government approaches to climate change: 1) the emergence of climate change advocates among local politicians and civil servants; 2) climate change as a significant issue in municipal plans; 3) staff and funds allocated to this issue; and 4) a serious consideration of climate change issues within local government decision-making. Considerable progress has been achieved regarding the second and third markers but less so for the first and fourth. This brief highlights how climate change issues need to be rooted in local realities that centre on avoiding or limiting impacts from, for instance, heat waves, heavy rainfall and storm surges, and sea-level rise. It also addresses the ecological changes and water supply constraints linked to climate change. This is the third in a series of notes on climate change and cities.
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In July 2009, the Cities Alliance launched a four-issue CIVIS series on climate change prepared by the Human Settlements Group at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
... See More + This issue rgues that a city with its citizens in good quality housing, served by piped water, sewers, drains, all-weather roads, and emergency services is inherently resilient to most climate change impacts. City governments need to build resilience to the many impacts of climate change in ways that: i) support the reduction of risks from other environmental hazards, noting the strong complementarities between reducing risk from climate change, non-climate change-related disasters, and most other environmental hazards; ii) are strongly pro-poor (most of those at highest risk from climate change and from other environmental hazards have low incomes and very limited financial assets); iii) are based on and build a strong local knowledge base of climate variability's and of likely local impacts from climate change; and iv) build into a mitigation framework; if successful cities in low- and middle-income nations develop without this, global greenhouse gas emissions cannot be reduced. Most of the battle to prevent climate change from becoming a global catastrophe will be won or lost within urban centers and by urban governments. A clear global agenda for climate change depends on more competent and accountable city and municipal governments, where adaptation is built into development plans and mitigation measures are included when relevant. But there is little evidence of national governments and international agencies responding to this. Aid agencies and development banks must establish ways of providing long-term support to city governments, showing what is possible, learning how best to support local processes, and then increasing their capacity in this regard. This also applies to any new funds or funding agencies set up to support adaptation.
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In July 2009, the Cities Alliance launched a four-issue CIVIS series on climate change prepared by the Human Settlements Group at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
... See More + This issue rgues that a city with its citizens in good quality housing, served by piped water, sewers, drains, all-weather roads, and emergency services is inherently resilient to most climate change impacts. City governments need to build resilience to the many impacts of climate change in ways that: i) support the reduction of risks from other environmental hazards, noting the strong complementarities between reducing risk from climate change, non-climate change-related disasters, and most other environmental hazards; ii) are strongly pro-poor (most of those at highest risk from climate change and from other environmental hazards have low incomes and very limited financial assets); iii) are based on and build a strong local knowledge base of climate variability's and of likely local impacts from climate change; and iv) build into a mitigation framework; if successful cities in low- and middle-income nations develop without this, global greenhouse gas emissions cannot be reduced. Most of the battle to prevent climate change from becoming a global catastrophe will be won or lost within urban centers and by urban governments. A clear global agenda for climate change depends on more competent and accountable city and municipal governments, where adaptation is built into development plans and mitigation measures are included when relevant. But there is little evidence of national governments and international agencies responding to this. Aid agencies and development banks must establish ways of providing long-term support to city governments, showing what is possible, learning how best to support local processes, and then increasing their capacity in this regard. This also applies to any new funds or funding agencies set up to support adaptation.
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In July 2009, the Cities Alliance launched a four-issue CIVIS series on climate change prepared by the Human Settlements Group at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
... See More + This issue rgues that a city with its citizens in good quality housing, served by piped water, sewers, drains, all-weather roads, and emergency services is inherently resilient to most climate change impacts. City governments need to build resilience to the many impacts of climate change in ways that: i) support the reduction of risks from other environmental hazards, noting the strong complementarities between reducing risk from climate change, non-climate change-related disasters, and most other environmental hazards; ii) are strongly pro-poor (most of those at highest risk from climate change and from other environmental hazards have low incomes and very limited financial assets); iii) are based on and build a strong local knowledge base of climate variability's and of likely local impacts from climate change; and iv) build into a mitigation framework; if successful cities in low- and middle-income nations develop without this, global greenhouse gas emissions cannot be reduced. Most of the battle to prevent climate change from becoming a global catastrophe will be won or lost within urban centers and by urban governments. A clear global agenda for climate change depends on more competent and accountable city and municipal governments, where adaptation is built into development plans and mitigation measures are included when relevant. But there is little evidence of national governments and international agencies responding to this. Aid agencies and development banks must establish ways of providing long-term support to city governments, showing what is possible, learning how best to support local processes, and then increasing their capacity in this regard. This also applies to any new funds or funding agencies set up to support adaptation.
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In July 2009, the Cities Alliance launched a four-issue CIVIS series on climate change prepared by the Human Settlements Group at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
... See More + This issue rgues that a city with its citizens in good quality housing, served by piped water, sewers, drains, all-weather roads, and emergency services is inherently resilient to most climate change impacts. City governments need to build resilience to the many impacts of climate change in ways that: i) support the reduction of risks from other environmental hazards, noting the strong complementarities between reducing risk from climate change, non-climate change-related disasters, and most other environmental hazards; ii) are strongly pro-poor (most of those at highest risk from climate change and from other environmental hazards have low incomes and very limited financial assets); iii) are based on and build a strong local knowledge base of climate variability's and of likely local impacts from climate change; and iv) build into a mitigation framework; if successful cities in low- and middle-income nations develop without this, global greenhouse gas emissions cannot be reduced. Most of the battle to prevent climate change from becoming a global catastrophe will be won or lost within urban centers and by urban governments. A clear global agenda for climate change depends on more competent and accountable city and municipal governments, where adaptation is built into development plans and mitigation measures are included when relevant. But there is little evidence of national governments and international agencies responding to this. Aid agencies and development banks must establish ways of providing long-term support to city governments, showing what is possible, learning how best to support local processes, and then increasing their capacity in this regard. This also applies to any new funds or funding agencies set up to support adaptation.
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In July 2009, the Cities Alliance launched a four-issue CIVIS series on climate change prepared by the Human Settlements Group at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
... See More + This issue in the series explores what climate change will bring to cities, who is most at risk and what each city government can do. The second note in the series will discuss the links between climate change adaptation and development, and the kind of support city governments need from national governments and international agencies deal with these. The third will discuss the city of eThekwini's (Durban) adaptation program while the fourth will discuss building a city vulnerability risk map for risk reduction.
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In July 2009, the Cities Alliance launched a four-issue CIVIS series on climate change prepared by the Human Settlements Group at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
... See More + This issue in the series explores what climate change will bring to cities, who is most at risk and what each city government can do. The second note in the series will discuss the links between climate change adaptation and development, and the kind of support city governments need from national governments and international agencies deal with these. The third will discuss the city of eThekwini's (Durban) adaptation program while the fourth will discuss building a city vulnerability risk map for risk reduction.
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In July 2009, the Cities Alliance launched a four-issue CIVIS series on climate change prepared by the Human Settlements Group at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
... See More + This issue in the series explores what climate change will bring to cities, who is most at risk and what each city government can do. The second note in the series will discuss the links between climate change adaptation and development, and the kind of support city governments need from national governments and international agencies deal with these. The third will discuss the city of eThekwini's (Durban) adaptation program while the fourth will discuss building a city vulnerability risk map for risk reduction.
See Less -
In July 2009, the Cities Alliance launched a four-issue CIVIS series on climate change prepared by the Human Settlements Group at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
... See More + This issue in the series explores what climate change will bring to cities, who is most at risk and what each city government can do. The second note in the series will discuss the links between climate change adaptation and development, and the kind of support city governments need from national governments and international agencies deal with these. The third will discuss the city of eThekwini's (Durban) adaptation program while the fourth will discuss building a city vulnerability risk map for risk reduction.
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This issue of CIVIS profiles the Swaziland Urban Development Project (SUDP). In response to increasing urbanization, the Government of Swaziland in the early 1990s made urban sector development and policy reform a priority.
... See More + This involved the creation of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, the formulation of a national housing policy for urban areas and the initiation of a process to institute formal security of tenure on Swazi nation land. Furthermore, policies, procedures and implementation strategies were defined to enable the upgrading of the country's informal settlements.
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Unlike the other studies in this series, which focus on existing housing microfinance products, this assessment analyzes the policies, laws, and regulations that affect the establishment and delivery of housing microfinance.
... See More + By presenting an analysis of the enabling environment in Kenya, this report aims to contribute to the growing body of knowledge on housing microfinance. It is based on findings from an assessment conducted by Accion International and CHF International in May 2002.
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The Shelter Finance for the Poor Initiative provides a framework for financing that has been applied to five case studies. These include: Mibanco in Peru, SEWA in India, FUNHAVI in Mexico; a wholesale fund facility in Ecuador, and the enabling environment for shelter finance in Kenya.
... See More + This synthesis paper makes three central points: 1) there is strong demand from poor people for housing finance services tailored to the way they build; 2) lessons are emerging in large part from microfinance institutions building on earlier successes with working capital loans, and innovating with new housing loan products; and 3) the large potential for achieving scale and sustainability can be realized if financial institutions, governments, and donor agencies work in concert. Also, this synthesis paper identifies emerging policy recommendations on taking housing finance for the poor to scale. Preliminary analysis of the emerging housing finance industry for the poor is demonstrating that the poor are reliable clients who are willing to pay the full cost for cost-effective services tailored to their needs. Pioneer financial institutions are continuing to build on their strengths and innovate with new product offerings such as shelter finance to retain and expand their clients.The initial round of innovations in this area is likely to come from the existing generation of microfinance institutions. But with proven success, as is happening with the commercialization of microfinance, they will be paving the path for a whole new set of players (commercial banks, mortgage finance companies, private builders and others who typically shy away from poor people).
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