Urban

Do ‘smart cities’ bear relevance in the burgeoning cities of the global south? Basic infrastructure and service provision shortfalls faced by many southern cities present a challenging context for ‘smart’ solutions; and certainly contrasting to those of many existing ‘smart cities.’

DFID has placed trade firmly on the economic development agenda, with the objective of harnessing the potential of new trade relationships to boost job creation and investment to the world’s poorest countries.

The ICED facility has undertaken an analysis of Zimbabwe’s urban trends for DFID’s Zimbabwe country office. This analysis was done in order to better understand urban trends and dynamics in Zimbabwe which can inform future urban programming.

For a long time, governments have seen street vendors, waste pickers and other informal activities as a headache and lost tax revenue opportunity. Efforts to formalise the informal economy and bring it under regulation have often failed, not just due to its sheer size, but also stemming from a lack of understanding of the political […]

In December, the ICED facility hosted a number of Quarterly Lessons Learnt (QLL) sessions. This quarter we shared learnings and hosted discussion from Urban Research Nigeria. Attached are slides from the session. What makes an effective city in a challenging environment? Nigeria has a long history of urbanisation and urban development that distinguishes it from […]

Transforming Settlements of the Urban Poor in Uganda – A Secondary Cities Support Programme (TSUPU) presents an innovative approach to develop a locally-owned, coherent national programme to tackle the challenges of rapid urban growth, improve residents’ access to services, and formulate inclusive urban development policies that benefit the poor. TSUPU was initially developed by Cities […]

Toi Market is a large and vibrant trading area on the edge of the Kibera informal settlement in Nairobi. Operating since 1983, the market has expanded to occupy some 6 acres of land and has become a key supplier of fresh produce for Nairobi. As a burgeoning economic centre, the Toi Market attracted a number […]

The effective planning and delivery of vital infrastructure is central to realising the full economic potential of cities to drive growth and development. In Nairobi, improvements to the operation and safety of the rail network were impeded by large scale occupation of land along railway lines through the Mukuru and Kibera informal settlements. In 2006, […]

Development pressure on urban sites, occupied by informal settlements, has led to a particular strategy of land sharing in Thailand. In situations where land owners decide to evict informal settlers to make way for commercial development, mediation is used to determine the division of land to allow residents to remain on site while making space […]

Zimbabwe’s urban landscape encompasses the large metropolitan areas of Harare and Bulawayo, large cities and towns, and as many as 472 small urban centres. However, explaining ‘urban’ trends in Zimbabwe is challenging, due to inconsistencies in measurement and gaps in knowledge and data, which together create uncertainty around the extent and nature of urbanisation and […]