Activities
- Three international workshops
- Workshop Papers
- Final Publication Volume
Workshop 1:
Concepts and paradigms of urban management in the context of developing countries
Venice, 11-13 March 1999
Workshop 2:
"Cities of the South: Sustainable for Whom ?"
Sustainable development in an urban context: interaction between technical innovations and social change
Geneva, 3-6 May 2000
Workshop 3:
Coping with informality and illegality in human settlement
Leuven and Brussels, 23-26 May 2001
More about the Network
Most developing countries have experienced rapid urbanisation during the second half of the 20th century. This phenomenon has been studied widely in Europe for more than two decades, so that there is now a considerable body of expertise on the subject, which could help developing countries manage their urban projects better. However, this expertise has not so far been exploited effectively in such a way because it is dispersed too widely between different disciplines and countries with too little cooperation between them. Lack of finance and institutional support has so far hindered efforts to encourage European research groups to cooperate with each other.
This Network aims to consolidate recent research efforts and disseminate the results more effectively while also strengthening ties with relevant groups in the developing countries by promoting European research on innovative practices and emerging concepts for sustainable, efficient and equitable urban management in developing countries. The Network will organise debate, culminating in an annual workshop, around three main themes: concepts and paradigms of urban management in the context of developing countries; sustainable development in an urban context focusing on interactions between technical innovations and social change; coping with informality and illegality in human settlement.
1. Concepts and paradigms of urban management in the context of developing countries.
Urban development projects and programmes in developing countries are often constrained by economic factors as well as by priorities set by national or local governments.
However, they are also restricted by inappropriate management models based on experience gained from cities in developed countries that may not be relevant in the context of developing countries. Such models may ignore factors that are important in developing countries and may also promote the interests of the rich over the poor.
New models have emerged over the last 10 years, driven largely by United Nations agencies and the World Bank. This Network aims to re-interpret these models in the context of urban policies in developing countries, as well as promoting new models. By having a wider range of models, it is hoped that the limitations of the current dominant orthodoxy can be overcome.
2. Sustainable development in an urban context: interactions between technical innovations and social change.
Environmental issues have become much more prominent in both urban management and research during the last 10 years, with increased activity in the field from European institutions. Unfortunately though, the political will needed to tackle the increasingly pressing environmental problem has often been lacking. To overcome this, environmental solutions need to be made more politically palatable by employing new technology that is less resource intensive.
However, in developing countries, especially Africa, the political problems are compounded by low and falling income levels to the extent that even the less technologically sophisticated services will be too expensive for the poor who will then be excluded from such provision. This Network aims to tackle this problem by focusing on the political and economic viability of new methods of environmental management while increasing the number of people who benefit from basic services such as electricity, water and sewerage. At the same time, ways of providing affordable mass transport will be considered, one possibility being to try and involve low income communities in providing their own services.
3. Coping with informality and illegality in human settlement.
Conventional planning methods have failed to allow for informal activities such as street trading and self help housing, which raise issues that should be dealt with at the development stage. One of the issues is that practices that are initially illegal may become legal and need to be embraced within an overall urban development strategy. To help with this objective, this Network will focus on a variety of issues, such as rights to land and security of tenure, where the aim is to offer people living in informal settlements some security of tenure, without necessarily issuing formal title deeds. There is also a need to understand how various informal forms of tenure systems and ownership can be embraced within the prevailing economic systems and property markets.
This Network was approved by the ESF Executive Council
in May 1998 for a three-year period
