Poverty in and unsustainability of urban areas in the Global South has been a major challenge to researchers and policy makers for a very long time. International and national urban policies still tend to operate at a very general level with policy makers having limited knowledge about the unequal distribution of opportunities, benefits, and harm within the urban population. Understanding of urbanisation is fragmented and research overwhelmingly focuses on conditions of slums at the expense of investigating specific local social, economic, and physical structures, and how they are changing, especially at the neighbourhood level. 

Sustainability, prosperity, and resilience of cities, countries, and the world as a whole can only be achieved if we have a holistic and in-depth understanding of the complex issues we are dealing with, why they exist, and how they can be addressed effectively. We argue that such understanding should start with exploring such micro units as the neighbourhood: first, neighbourhood is the place where social policy is delivered, and second, it is the place that determines residents’ exposure to peace and security vs violence and harm, prosperity vs poverty and destitution, and opportunities vs disadvantages. However, despite the emphasis of the New Urban Agenda of UN-Habitat on maximising the benefits and minimising the harms of urbanisation for all, there is a lack of evidence for action at the time when evidence-based and cost-effective interventions are desperately needed.  

At the Centre for Sustainable, Healthy and Learning Cities and Neighbourhoods (SHLC) we work to generate such understanding and evidence to tackle the challenges of social and economic unsustainability in fast-growing urban centres in Africa and Asia. To do so, we adopt a novel approach: instead of studying and/or comparing countries, we utilise an interdisciplinary, city- and neighbourhood-level lens to systematically investigate the complex connections and relationships between urban (SDG11), health (SDG3), and education (SDG4) challenges in neighbourhoods. Unlike the majority of studies, we also made a decision to shift from studying large cities to studying and comparing two cities in each country: one major national city and one ‘typical’ regional city. This approach allows us to draw comparisons from several dimensions: within country and region, between countries and regions, and between different economic development levels and types of cities and neighbourhoods.  Profiles of a number of the cities that we work with have been published in a special issue of Environment and Urbanisation ASIA.  

And we do not do it alone – for a more locally-driven, equitable, and effective approach, we formed an international consortium of nine research partners in eight countries: Bangladesh, China, India, the Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, and the UK. Our team of experts comes from a range of different fields including urban studies, architecture, design and planning, demography, education, health, law, and more. To support our ambitious collaborative project that runs from 2017 to the end of 2021, we received funding via UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) as part of the UK Government’s Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF). 

To provide policy makers and planners with more localised, contextual, and specific responses to urban issues on the ground, we are working on three main packages:  

(1) Sustainable cities and communities: we analyse the underlying social and economic forces of urban development and the changing internal structure of cities to understand the different neighbourhoods. 

(2) Sustainable health and wellbeing: we assess the relationships between city and neighbourhood characteristics, health services, and the health and wellbeing of residents. 

(3) Inclusive and equitable quality education and learning: we assess the provision and outcomes of formal and non-formal educational facilities and services to understand how education and continuous learning can contribute not only to economic prosperity but also to improved quality of life in communities, health and wellbeing, city governance, civic participation, and other aspects of cultural and social development, especially in challenging circumstances.  

PI: Professor Ya Ping Wang, University of Glasgow

CR&DALL Co-I and Capacity Strengthening Lead: Professor Michael Osborne, School of Education, University of Glasgow

Other Co-Is at University of Glasgow: Professor Keith Kintrea, Dr. Jing Yao and Dr Amini Kamete, Urban Studies, Professor Michele Schweisfurth, School of Education and Professor Richard Mitchell, Institute of Health and Well-Being.

Other Co-Is in the project are from the Human Sciences Research Council and University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, University of Rwanda, National Institute of Urban Affairs in India, Khulna University in Bangladesh, University of the Philippines Diliman and Nankai University in China.  

Research Fellow in Education: Dr Yulia Nesterova

PhD students in Education: Preeti Dagar and Rhona Brown

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The Sustainable Futures in Africa (SFA) Network project has since 2016 designed and piloted a range of activities that: (1) address the need for innovative methodologies that cut across the natural and social sciences, arts and humanities; (2) translate existing ODA-focused projects into opportunities for new networks of trust and commitment, and new lines of inquiry; (3) shape new opportunities for impact that address locally-articulated socio-ecological problems and challenges; and (4) underpinning all of this, generate research that critically acknowledges and works with all manner of academic, political, economic, and cultural distinctions between the ‘global north’ and the ‘global south’.   

Mia Perry from the School of Education at the University is the CR&DALL Co-I

The PI from Glasgow is Prof. Deborah Dixon (Geographical and Earth Sciences). Other Co-Is are Dr. Daniel Koehn (Geographical and Earth Sciences); Dr. Neil Burnside (Engineering); Dr. Brian Barrett (Geographical and Earth Sciences); Prof. Adrian Boyce (SUERC). There are a number of other external and internal collaborators. In addition to the core members noted above, Glasgow collaborators include: John Briggs, Joanne Sharp and Emma Laurie, Human Geography; Susan Waldron, critical zone management; Jaime Toney, environmental geochemistry; Marian Scott, environmental statistics; Richard Williams, geomatics; Margaret Smith, fine arts; Ian Watson, engineering. Collaborators in Botswana: MmaB Modise and Rebecca Lekoko, education, University of Botswana; Olekai Thakadu, environmental communication, University of Botswana. Collaborators in Malawi: Boyson Moyo, soil science, Bunda College of Agriculture; Deepa Pullanikkatil, environmental management consultant, LEAD and ABUNDANCE; Elson Kambalu, artist and community leader. Collaborators in Ethiopia: Dr Elias Lewi, tectonics and geothermals, Addis Ababa University; Mauricio Fernandes, Planet Earth Institute; Collaborators in Uganda: Kevin Aanyu and Andreas Schuman, geology and petroleum studies, Makerere University; Twine Bananuka and Joseph Watuleke, education, Makerere University.

This project has now continued with further funding sourced from the Scottish Funding Council and more details are found at this link.

The purpose of this project is to scope the potential of phytostabilisation – planting designed to keep materials in place - as an environmentally sensitive, inclusive and low-cost strategy that will allow for an enhanced social resilience in the face of food insecurity and economic precariousness (keeping roads working) while at the same time enhancing the ecological resilience of much needed arable lands (designing roadsides that mediate erosion and can potentially even become productive in their own right) and the long-term social resilience of communities that are precariously connected via these roads.

This foundation-building project brings together a range of expertise to produce a cohesive inter-disciplinary strategy for enhancing a ‘slow’, socio-ecological resilience by engaging social arts and public pedagogies with environmental sciences to help bridge the gap between immediate needs and sustainable futures. This dynamic involves an engagement with: 1. Public and community based pedagogies to understand and educate those involved in the possibilities, requirements, and implications; 2. The arts to engage social imaginations of alternative futures, civic belonging, and community cohesion; 3. Geochemistry, engineering, and agronomy to ensure the appropriate and effective design of techniques and selection of organisms; 4. Geopolitics and environmental governance as a means of envisioning the broad social, political and cross-border contexts within which these can be proffered; and 5. Community, cross-cultural, and multimodal facilitation.  

PI and Co-Pis: Mia Perry and Deborah Dixon (School of Geographical and Earth Sciences)

Start and End Date: Oct 2016 – Jan 2017

Funder and funding amount: ESRC (Impact Acceleration Account); £13,000