In Africa, urban life is often perceived to be better than the rural situation of widespread poverty, hunger and hard labour, relying on subsistence rain-fed agriculture in the face of unpredictable rainfall and climate change. Urban areas are seen as offering greater amenities, better employment opportunities and better services. However, urban areas concentrate risks and health hazards. The heterogeneity in urban communities can mask inequities and severe deprivations when its indicators are averaged across the poorer and richer urban communities. Goods and services in urban areas are commoditised and are often too expensive for the urban poor to afford.
Many of the urban poor live in conditions that are overcrowded and unhygienic, without proper sanitation or access to clean water. They are often deprived of public services such as water supply and solid waste disposal. Urban infrastructure in some urban areas is poor or inadequate, with sub-standard housing and limited maintenance of amenities. High population density areas are usually more prone to disease outbreaks and experience environmental hazards arising from density and exposure to multiple pollutants.
Access to essential goods and services is determined by pricing and availability of goods on the market. As such, urban people have to find ways of raising income to enable them to access the resources. At times they have to rely on environmental resources to generate income or goods and services required by their households. This is linked to the mushrooming of informal activities and unplanned (and often illegal) land uses, such as sand abstraction and tree cutting. These activities put more pressure on the environment and natural resources, as well as on infrastructure and services. Poor urban populations also often lack access to education, health facilities and employment opportunities.
The urban poor are thus vulnerable to a complex network of risks which affects access to income and hence makes their lives difficult. The most vulnerable and deprived are the growing number of children who work and live on the streets. The risks and shocks range from economic shocks such as unemployment to natural conditions such as climate change-related weather events like droughts and floods. These risks drive income poverty and other household and child deprivations. The poor have to struggle through a variety of coping strategies and adapt their behaviour and activities to reduce the negative impacts of the risks to sustain their livelihoods and become more resilient.
There is a need to better understand the relationship between both urbanisation and risks, thus creating policy-relevant evidence that can inform efforts by stakeholders at all levels to build urban resilience and manage risk and uncertainty. How can the ability of at-risk urban households, communities and systems be strengthened to anticipate, cushion, adapt, bounce back better and move on from the effects of shocks and hazards experienced in urban areas? Which characteristics, capacities and conditions are most strongly linked to urban resilience in the face of climatic and economic shocks faced by urban communities?
These questions are examined in this special issue of Development Southern Africa and the articles contribute to scholarship and policy debate on building resilient sustainable cities and towns. The articles are the product of the international conference ‘Towards Resilient Urban Communities’ convened by the Institute of Environmental Studies, University of Zimbabwe in collaboration with UNICEF Zimbabwe, in September 2014. The Conference provided a platform to explore urbanisation and risks with a focus on children and how poverty can be reduced and resilience enhanced in urban communities.