Despite growing numbers of international development organisations focused at the municipal level, donors are still reluctant to provide ODA (official development assistance) directly to local governments, a situation which Rowan Fraser argues needs to change.
Home-based workers in South Asia number in the tens of millions yet remain invisible in urban planning. Shalini Sinha argues that housing and zoning must be reconceived with a focus on home as workplace.
WaterAid's Timeyin Uwejamomere calls on lead agencies to reprioritise their water and sanitation expenditure on informal settlements to prevent slum conditions from spreading as urbanisation intensifies.
The 2010 World Disasters Report highlights the "urban risk divide" between wealthy cities like Tokyo and poorer cities like Kathmandu, Manila and Jakarta which would face serious losses in any emergency.
As coastal and delta cities face the impacts of rising sea levels due to climate change, planners are readying with a combination of sea wall solutions, ecological engineering and urban design, which one says will buy us three centuries of security.
Rowan Fraser is an urban development and management specialist, focusing on urban resilience. He works in countries across Asia.
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The Global Urbanist is an online magazine reviewing urban affairs and urban development issues in cities throughout the developed and developing world.
Its readers are drawn from the urban policy and international development sectors, and include urban planners, officers in local, national or international government agencies, civil society leaders, and researchers.
