Urban | International Institute for Environment and Development

Just 0.03 per cent of the money spent annually on fossil fuel subsidies could provide 200 million people in cities with access to the grid (Photo: Pexels, via Google licence)

News

Action from UN's Habitat III key to lift urban millions out of poverty

Air balloon photograph of children while mapping Mathare informal settlement, Nairobi.

Long read

Mapping for food safety

Urban Matters blogs

Blogs for inclusive and sustainable cities

Urban Matters blogs

A six-minute film recorded in the Mathare settlement, Narobi, in late April 2015 shows some of the main challenges faced by food vendors living and working inside low-income informal settlements (Image: Paolo Cravero/IIED)

Blog

Informal food vendors: urban food security's invisible experts

Just 0.03 per cent of the money spent annually on fossil fuel subsidies could provide 200 million people in cities with access to the grid (Photo: Pexels, via Google licence)

News

Action from UN's Habitat III key to lift urban millions out of poverty

An interactive data visual that illustrates the scale and speed of urban transformation that research by IIED has sought to document and describe

Feature

Cities: an interactive data visual

Urbanisation and rural-urban linkages

Collaborative research and action for inclusive, sustainable and resilient cities

Myanmar is undergoing rapid economic change and urbanisation. Many new settlements like this one in Lashio lack basic services (Photo: Alex Drainville)

Project

Introduction to urbanisation and rural-urban linkages

Informal food vendors in Mathare, Nairobi. Understanding food consumption and how food systems work is essential to support food security (Photo: Cecilia Tacoli/IIED)

Project

Urbanisation, rural-urban transformations and food systems

A settlement in Chabahil, an ancient town near Kathmandu in Nepal. Many countries use different definitions or 'urban' (Photo: Gordon McGranahan/IIED)

Project

Urbanisation and emerging population issues

Cities and climate change

Niamey, the capital of Niger, is growing rapidly. Urban ARK is exploring the varied vulnerabilities of boys and girls from conflict-displaced and host communities (Photo: Jean Rebiffé, Creative Commons via Flickr)

Project

Urban Africa Risk Knowledge (Urban ARK)

Makeshift camps for internally displaced people sprang up in Kathmandu after the severe earthquake in Nepal in April 2015. Relief workers are struggling to help displaced people find durable shelter as the country braces for the monsoon season (Photo: SIM Central and South East Asia, Creative Commons via Flickr)

Project

Urban Crises Learning Fund

Semarang, Indonesia: One of the ten initial cities in the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network, Semarang has been a pioneer in integrating climate change resilience into city planning and management. (Photo: David Dodman/IIED)

Project

Climate change governance in cities

Urban poverty

About the architecture of aid

Article

About the architecture of aid

Langrug informal settlement, South Africa, May 2014 (Photo: Diana Mitlin/IIED)

Project

Introduction to urban poverty

A tanker delivers water to residents in Retiro, a shanty town in Buenos Aires (Photo: Mark Edwards)

Project

Urban water and sanitation

Publications

10813IIED

Urban planning following humanitarian crises: Supporting local government to take the lead in the Philippines following super typhoon Haiyan

17424IIED

Aid in context: the importance of market-based approaches to aid delivery in northern Syria

17421IIED

Tackling violence against women and girls in urban humanitarian crises: the case of Gaza

17422IIED

Refugees in urban Egypt: it’s time to reassess UNHCR’s 2009 Policy on refugee protection and solutions in urban areas

10818IIED

Understanding the full spectrum of risk in urban areas

10816IIED

Developing city resilience strategies : lessons from ICLEI and ACCCRN

Find more publications under this theme

We have 229 items under Urban

A family living in a cemetery in Cebu City, the Philippines. A lack of affordable housing has led some 100 families to set up home among the mausoleums (Photo: Karl Fluch, Creative Commons via Flickr)

Who can we trust to measure urban poverty?

Blog, Jun 2017

A Coca-Cola sign outside a small town in Benin. Bloomberg’s new health initiative will support cities to reduce the consumption of sugary drinks, but this isn't the biggest health challenge facing low-income urban residents (Photo: Lorena Pajares, Creative Commons via Flickr)

Bloomberg and public health: did he get it right?

Blog, Jun 2017

Lebanon is hosting one million Syrian refugees, and around half of them are children. Most families live in makeshift shelters; some rent half-built apartments, sharing with two or three families (Photo: Russell Watkins/Department for International Development, Creative Commons via Wikipedia)

Coping with forced displacement: lessons from cities

Blog, May 2017

This map of the covered and open drains in Jamshed Town, Karachi illustrates how communities have led on installing sewers and drains (Image: Orangi Pilot Project–Research and Training Institute)

Reducing risks in urban centres: think 'local, local, local'

Blog, May 2017

The green suburb of Florida is located in western Johannesburg, located just a short drive from the townships of Bosmont, Coronationville, Newclare, Riverlea and Westbury. It was a whites-only area during apartheid (Photo: Baynham Goredema, Creative Commons via Flickr)

Sustainable cities: the nexus between resilience and resource efficiency

Blog, May 2017

Raipur in Central India is developing into a major urban centre, but the infrastructure in the city's expanding informal settlements is poor (Photo: India Water Portal, Creative Commons via Flickr)

Addressing the needs of vulnerable groups in urban areas

Blog, Apr 2017

Informal settlements in Indonesia's capital, Jakarta. The World Bank estimates that some 29 million Indonesians live in urban areas with poor access to basic services (Photo: Axel Drainville, Creative Commons via Flickr)

Urban risks: where are the top five biggest blind spots?

Blog, Apr 2017

Madizini in Tanzania grew from a village into an urban centre, initially because the local sugarcane plantations and factory needed workers. Now the town supports a wide array of businesses (Photo: Jytte Agergaard)

Reframing food security for an urbanising world

Blog, Apr 2017

A Congolese vendor sells handkerchiefs on the pavement in central Kampala. Congolese refugees dispersed throughout the city often lack the social and economic support networks necessary to find work or to start a business (Photo: William Monteith/IIED)

Refugee livelihoods in Ugandan cities: mind the gap between policy and practice

Blog, Mar 2017

A woman preparing a meal in the temporary settlement in Kirtipur – an example of unpaid work (Photo: Zahrah Nesbitt-Ahmed)

Cash transfers in urban crises: do they work for women?

Blog, Mar 2017

Cover: Responding to Climate Change in Asian Cities

Book summary: Responding to Climate Change in Asian Cities

Article, Feb 2017

Geographic patterns are seen out the window of an airplane traveling between Mwanza and Dar Es Salam, Tanzania on March 20, 2015 (Photo: Brian Sokol/Panos Pictures)

Connecting cities to basins

Long read, Feb 2017