Governance for urban resilience in popular settlements in developing countries: a case-study review

ABSTRACT

Building urban resilience in popular settlements in developing countries is an urgent task driven by the compounded effects of climate change and rapid substandard urbanization. Urban resilience tends to be seen in the international development sphere as a governance outcome. Nonetheless, the vulnerability of these settlements results in part from the exclusion of their residents from the very governance structures that should address their vulnerability. Most of the literature on governance for resilience reports cases from developed regions, which cannot be generalized to developing regions. In this article, we present the results of a systematic review of 31 empirical cases of governance for urban resilience in popular settlements in developing countries. We find that although governance structures exist, and most cases report local groups collaborating to address vulnerability, residents of popular settlements are excluded from formal decision-making. This is a lost opportunity for the governance of urban resilience.

KEYWORDS:

• Governance
• Urban resilience
• Adaptation
• Global South
• Informal settlements

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Popular settlements are the spatial outcomes of popular urbanization. Popular urbanization is the production of urban space based on the engagement of its own inhabitants in social and political mobilization, and struggle with the state, seeking for tenure security, basic infrastructures, better regulations, and formal recognition (Schmid et al., 2018; Streule et al., 2020).

2 Vulnerability refers to the “degree to which a system is susceptible to, and unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes” (Jabareen, 2013, p. 222).

3 Urban resilience is broadly defined in this paper as the continuous adaptation to constantly changing risks and vulnerabilities (Van Niekerk, 2013) in urban areas. It is incrementally built from coping mechanisms (small scale actions such as sand-bag pilling to deal with flooding), adaptive mechanisms (community scale interventions such as the introduction of protective infrastructures), and transformations (the amendment of structural social dynamics to address climatic risks) (see: Pelling, 2011).

4 The implementing principles of SDGs are defined in SDG 16: “Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels” (UNGA, 2015).

5 The implementation of the NUA is rooted in principles of “inclusive, implementable and participatory urban policies, as appropriate, to mainstream sustainable urban and territorial development as part of integrated development strategies and plans, supported, as appropriate, by national, subnational and local institutional and regulatory frameworks, ensuring that they are adequately linked to transparent and accountable finance mechanisms.” (UN, 2017)

6 The total number of cases of study in the analyzed papers is 45, however in this article only 31 are reported. This is because 5 papers presented results of multiple cases in a way that rendered impossible to code cases individually. In such cases, results were analyzed as a single case-study.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by PAPIIT-DGAPA-UNAM project: “New geographies of urbanization in Mexico: Territorial transformations and livelihoods of vulnerable social sectors in the peripheries of medium-sized cities”: [Grant Number IG300319]; Postdoctoral fellowship from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Programa de becas posdoctorales en la UNAM de la Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Académico).

Notes on contributors

Alejandro Rivero-Villar

Alejandro Rivero-Villar is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Environmental Geography Research Centre - National Autonomous University of Mexico (CIGA-UNAM). He works on social aspects of urban resilience in popular settlements in the Global South. He holds a BA in Urbanism from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, an MSc in Sustainable Urbanism and a PhD in Planning Studies from the Bartlett School of Planning - University College London.

Antonio Vieyra Medrano

Antonio Vieyra Medrano is director and senior researcher at the Environmental Geography Research Centre - National Autonomous University of Mexico (CIGA-UNAM). His research focuses on socio-economic and environmental processes in urban and peri-urban territories, urban-regional analysis, and urban labour markets. He holds a BA in Human Geography from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and a PhD from the Complutense University of Madrid.