11 – Hållbara städer och samhällen

  • Drainage Politics: Reducing Climate Change Vulnerability in Surabaya, Indonesia

    Drainage Politics: Reducing Climate Change Vulnerability in Surabaya, Indonesia

    This learning case sets out in a city prone to natural disasters, and explores how policy and political commitments can reduce the consequences. After the introduction, readers are invited to reflect on a dilemma of enforcing a mitigation plan that landed public support, but that compromises the political position from which the plan is enforceable.…

  • Child-Focused Cities Analytical Framework

    Child-Focused Cities Analytical Framework

    This research project, aiming to develop an analytical tool to address the Sustainable Development Goals from a child rights perspective, is divided into multiple steps. Phase two, conducted in 2023-2024 is described first while phase 1, which served to build the conceptual groundwork for the analytical framework, is described after. Phase 2 – Child-Focused Cities…

  • Cape Town’s Quest for Accessible Transportation

    Cape Town’s Quest for Accessible Transportation

    Key concepts: Spatial Inequality, Social Inclusion, Disability Rights As in many countries in the world, people with disabilities in South Africa face a number of social, attitudinal, structural and infrastructure barriers that inhibit their full participation in society. Accessible transportation can be one way to overcome some of these barriers and allow for access to…

  • Securing the Right to Housing and Services in eThekwini’s Informal Settlements

    Securing the Right to Housing and Services in eThekwini’s Informal Settlements

    Key Concepts: Spatial Inequality, Right to Housing Like other major cities in South Africa, Durban’s eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality faces a growing population fuelled by migration from both rural areas and neighbouring countries. Many new residents find shelter in informal settlements which are, although real communities, often overcrowded and unsafe, lacking critical infrastructure. The municipality’s Human…

  • Innovating with urban governance: municipal committees for inclusive, nature-based solutions

    Innovating with urban governance: municipal committees for inclusive, nature-based solutions

    This policy brief explores the challenges and innovative opportunities for institutionalising participatory processes within municipal contexts. Specifically, we report on the creation of municipal committees, a proposal framed within the EU-funded project URBiNAT aimed at co-creating healthy corridors made up of a combination of nature-based solutions (NBS). The proposed committees aim to consolidate citizens’ engagement…

  • Borås and Vracar – Serbia

    Borås and Vracar – Serbia

    Accessibility – organisation policy, structure and practice Both municipalities want to improve their capacity to reach out to and get input from people with disabilities, since they feel they are stuck in the ”old way” of getting and giving out information. This causes a risk to fail to include the perspectives of people with disabilities…

  • How to plan for inclusive and sustainable urban transport: a toolbox to conduct a safety audit

    How to plan for inclusive and sustainable urban transport: a toolbox to conduct a safety audit

    Creating inclusive, safe and affordable transport for all is one of the targets of Sustainable Development Goal 11. It requires paying attention to the needs of vulnerable groups such as women, children, persons with disabilities and older persons. To achieve this goal, local governments need to understand the way vulnerable groups experience public transport on…

  • Human rights in Gaborone and Johannesburg: finding meaning in local context

    Cities are critical human rights actors. Human rights are interpreted through local culture, history, politics and context. Cities are increasingly at the heart of this process of interpreting and “localizing” (Camilo Sanchez 2020) for a growing share of the world’s population. How can we support the development of civic human rights initiatives in Southern Africa…

  • Localising the SDGs: a toolkit for local governments

    Local governments are essential to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to creating a more inclusive world. This policy brief summarises four tools for civil servants and politicians to include the SDGs in their daily work.

  • Improving local budget processes: from inclusion and transparency to equity and quality

    This policy brief analyses local budget processes and provides recommendations for their improvement. The analysis is based on the example of North Macedonia. We find evidence that: 1) greater transparency leads to greater citizen satisfaction with the quality of local services, especially for marginalised groups; 2) greater inclusion leads to greater citizen satisfaction with how…