With middle classes growing in middle-income countries, the challenge arises how to reconcile increasing consumption with finite resources. Can consumer behaviour be channelled in a way that makes it sustainable? Babette Never reports from a workshop that has explored this question.
How Africa as a continent makes cities work for all while realising a low carbon and climate resilient economy, will determine the success of the Paris Agreement, says Sadiq Okoh. In his article, he outlines possible paths to green development.
With rising ocean water temperatures due to climate change, hurricanes are becoming stronger and last longer. This year, the Caribbean and parts of the US were hit by hurricane Irma, a particularly devastating storm. How can costal cities prepare for such disasters, and mitigate their effects? In an interview, Joseph Severe, Jean Frantz Jure and Nicolas Jean talk about the situation in Haiti.
Cities and urban settlements play a key role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and the commitments of the Paris Agreement. Nathaly Arguto and Stella Schroeder cast a spotlight on projects from Latin America, the region with the highest rate of urbanisation in the world, that contribute to implementing the global agendas for sustainability.
What does a sustainable urban future look like? In a new video, municipal officials, urban experts and local residents from around the world talk about urban challenges, solutions for climate-friendly cities and future needs for low-carbon urban development.
Mobile money has revolutionised the lives of many people in the Global South, most of all the ones living in difficult economic circumstances. The M-Pesa service in Kenya is one of these success stories. Judith Owigar describes how it helps making basic services like water and energy available to citizens.
Urban agriculture is practised around the globe. Who practises urban agriculture, why they engage in it and what barriers they face are often similar across the seemingly disparate divides of the ‘Global North’ and the ‘Global South’. Cross-site learning for the development of possible policy responses may therefore be fruitful. Food security will also be one of the issues discussed at the Dresden Nexus Conference in Germany this week.
In the process of developing an urban resilience strategy – one that answers these questions, one that addresses the concerns of planners, developers, mayors, local government personnel, investors and concerned citizens – inevitably more questions arise. The most important one is arguably the question of 'resilience to what and why?' This was also discussed during the recent Resilient Cities Conference 2017 in Bonn.
In these days, climate and Bonn are thought together. As a matter of fact, adaptation to climate change, building resilience and dealing with loss and damages will challenge the world just as much as the necessity of mitigating global warming to no more than two degrees Celsius or less. Bonn is a hotspot for the joint efforts to get there. Already this 8 May, the Bonn Climate Talks will bring parties, observers and stakeholders together in the city at the Rhine.
The city of Kochi in India is a Smart City, meaning that it is well connected and accessible, and over time is being developed into a clean, green and healthy city that is governed in a smart way. In an interview with URBANET, GP Hari from Kochi Metro Rail Ltd talks about how the city is tackling the Smart City approach and what the future might bring.
Food security touches many different issues, among them poverty, hunger, price levels, and land and food policy. For URBANET, Inês M. Raimundo describes the situation in the Mozambican cities of Maputo and Matola, where the urban poor have resorted to food borrowing to survive.
Bangladeshi cities do not only have to face difficult climate conditions, but also increasing waves of urban migration and the problems associated with that. URBANET spoke to ANM Safiqul Alam, managing director of the software and planning company Geomark, about how Bangladesh is facing these challenges and why he is hopeful for the future of the country.
Part I presented two subsequent paradigms related to the world of work, Fordism and Post-Fordism. Subsequently, it was argued that there are two contrasting trends in the world of (urban) labour: flexibility and stability. This is the second and concluding part of the article, which includes considerations about policies.
"Our Struggle for Global Sustainability will be won or lost in cities", said Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations. The present article argues that our struggle for good urbanisation will be won or lost depending on the opportunities and conditions of work.
John Bongat is the mayor of Naga City in the Philippines, one of the most disaster-prone cities in the world. URBANET talked to him about how he attempts to make Naga City more livable.
