Environment and Urbanization

26/08/2025

At an event at World Water Week tomorrow (27 August), join IIED colleagues to explore how drought and displacement intersect in rapidly growing cities.

Drought is often cited as a driver of displacement, but what happens beyond? How is drought experienced in low-income neighbourhoods where displaced people settle? 🤔

Drawing on insights from communities in Jordan and Zambia, this session will look at how to better include displaced communities' water priorities in urban drought planning, WASH services, city planning, and humanitarian-development pathways.

Register (events are free to attend online) to hear from a great panel of speakers, including Deena Dajani, Maren Thompson, Melanie Chirwa, David Katungula, Ayah Hammad Mohd from UN-Habitat (United Nations Human Settlements Programme) and Christabel Chimba from Zambia Homeless and Poor People's Federation: https://worldwaterweek.org/tickets

29/07/2025

For your summer reading list? Recent Open Access book from UCL Press 'Urban Transformations in Sierra Leone' is reviewed for our book notes section by Paula Sevilla Núñez.

She outlines what the book communicates about how the Sierra Leone Urban Research Center (SLURC) has sought over the past 10 years to transform the way research can contribute to urban development, with at its heart the mission of improving the well-being of residents in informal settlements.

Read the book note --> https://www.environmentandurbanization.org/urban-transformations-sierra-leone-knowledge-co-production-and-partnerships-just-city

29/07/2025

For your summer reading list? Cities Rethought: A New Urban Disposition, a recent monograph from Polity, is reviewed for our book notes section by Lucy Earle, who considers it "a pocket guide to thinking about the urban".

Read the full review --> https://www.environmentandurbanization.org/cities-rethought-new-urban-disposition

28/07/2025

NEW: an invitation from IIED for submissions - including for potential publication in E&U - of material to facilitate discussion around the IPCC climate change and cities report.

Read the full news article for details of how to express interest in this rolling call 👉

IIED is calling for journal articles, innovative case studies, syntheses of grey literature, briefings, and thought-leading comment pieces to generate conversation around the forthcoming IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Cities

30/06/2025

For any London-based followers, join International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) for a film screening of 'But, for now, I think I am okay' on Thursday 3 July at Lewisham Arthouse.

This documentary reflects on the intersection of displacement, rights and LGBTQI+ identity and follows the lives of five LGBTQI+ refugees navigating everyday life in Nairobi, Kenya. It explores what it means to be both LGBTQI+ and displaced: the barriers and unique challenges, as well as moments of solidarity and joy.

Co-created by Nairobi-based youth filmmakers, human rights defenders, and a multidisciplinary research team from IIED and Shack Dwellers International Kenya (SDI Kenya), this documentary gives voice to experiences too often overlooked. After the screening, some of the creators will join for a live, virtual Q&A.

Register to attend now:

Join this film screening event spotlighting LGBTQI+ refugee stories and inclusive, rights-based urban responses to displacement.

03/06/2025

📑 Dates for your diaries: just a couple of weeks away (16 June) is our deadline for expressions of interest (by email, see full call for details) for this special issue on co-designing urban futures for equitable resilience ...

And 6 weeks (15 July) is our final submission deadline for papers.

Read the call in full --> https://www.environmentandurbanization.org/themes-future-issues

Call for papers: Tomorrow’s cities: Co-designing urban futures for equitable resilience - for publication April 2026 (submissions by 15 July 2025).

We are excited to announce the call for our first issue of 2026, guest edited by Mark Pelling, Thaisa Comelli, Gemma Cremen, Jeremy Phillips and Elisa Sevilla Perez.

The special issue aims to bring together work from across sciences and from policy makers and local actor viewpoints to help define the action space to support a movement towards inclusive risk-informed urban planning.

We seek papers responding to questions including:

💬 What might the role be for urban development planning and connected processes of natural hazard risk assessment in challenging negative spirals of inequity under climate change and rapid urbanization?
💬 What examples are there of inclusive and risk-informed decision-making on urban planning? To what extent, and in which ways, are these engaging with long-term future approaches?
💬 What evidence is there that such approaches lead to more equitable outcomes?

Read the call in full: https://www.environmentandurbanization.org/themes-future-issues

20/05/2025

📝 Call for papers: Community-led responses to urban/ peri-urban land conflict, for publication in November 2026.

Submissions by 15 January 2026; expressions of interest welcome by email before 17 November 2025.

We are excited to announce the call for our second issue of 2026, guest edited by Melanie Lombard and Martina Manara.

The special issue aims to contribute to understandings of how land conflict unfolds and is addressed through social and collective practices, foregrounding community-led initiatives to prevent, arbitrate or resolve everyday land conflict in urban and peri-urban areas.

We seek papers responding to questions including:

💬 What types of land conflict do communities experience related to real estate development, access to housing and infrastructure, rural–urban migration, vulnerabilities along ethnic or religious lines, gender differences, challenges of inheritance or renting, among others?
💬 How are they prevented, handled or resolved in specific contexts and by whom? In particular, how are local communities involved in these responses?
💬 What type of outcomes do these conflicts and responses generate for the local community and specific groups?
💬 Where could governments direct their policy focus? To what extent could they build upon or learn from existing community-led mechanisms of land conflict arbitration in given contexts?

Read the call in full:

Environment and Urbanization does not take unsolicited proposals for special issues.April 2025: Urban reform coalitionsDeadline for submission has passed.October 2025: Addressing socio-technical assistance for socially and environmentally just citiesDeadline for submissions: 15th January 2025 for co...

13/05/2025

In this recent piece, David Satterthwaite pays tribute to the life and work of the late Yves Cabannes, whose many roles over his long career included being a valued member of E&U's advisory board, and a frequent contributor to the journal.

Read 'Keep on being curious: remembering Yves Cabannes' -->

IIED pays tribute to a true innovator who combined research with action, in this personal reflection from David Satterthwaite

01/05/2025

This new report from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) explores the critical shifts in governance, policy and action that are needed to address the growing challenges, exacerbated by climate change, that are faced by informal settlement residents in cities, as their number is projected to increase from 1.1 billion to 3x this figure in the next 30 years.

Through reflections on what ‘transformation’ means for settlements from the perspective of migration and displacement, housing justice, climate justice and resilience, it provides recommendations for governments, researchers, civil society and international donors.

Read and download -->

There are currently 1.1 billion people living in informal settlements worldwide and this number is estimated to triple in the next 30 years, with most of this growth happening in countries where urbanisation is on the rise.

17/04/2025

Our new special issue, 'Urban reform coalitions', explores the processes through which coalitions negotiate a common understanding of the policies, programmes and practices of a more inclusive and prosperous urban future --> https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/eaua/37/1

This special issue is based in part on work of the African Cities Research Consortium to convene a group of researchers and practitioners active in the reform space to talk about the coalitions they have formed to advance their goals.

Its 9 papers, brought together by editors Diana Mitlin (IIED, University of Manchester) and Ezana Haddis Weldeghebrael (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office Research Commissioning Centre), examine aspects including the way reform coalitions advance more equitable internal relations, reducing hierarchies between urban activists and professionals; discuss the contribution of reform coalitions to create cross-class alliances; and explore how academics can act as catalysts or intermediaries in coalitions.

The papers, from a range of urban contexts including Cape Town, Dakar, Durban, Harare and Lagos, and those analysing movements across Asian and African cities, allow authors to step beyond their primary academic and professional expertise to write about something in which they are deeply involved both as knowledge providers and as activists concerned with the future of their cities.

Also featured in this issue are papers on urban water governance in Bengaluru; a new addition to the previous special issue on forced displacement, examining urban IDPs' livelihood opportunities in Makurdi; a paper on ‘sanitary civility’ in Maputo; and a comparative analysis of the costs of alternative approaches to addressing housing need in Namibia.

Read: https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/eaua/37/1

[Cover image: Local authorities and communities meeting on site in Karibib, Namibia. © Diana Mitlin.]

26/02/2025

In this latest insight on global urban change for the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), researcher Paula Sevilla Núñez reports on the extreme inequality of housing provision and affordability in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The insight reflects on new report findings that demonstrate the current proposed policy approaches risk perpetuating already deep inequalities in the city and entrenching the role of housing as an investment rather than as a right.

In a city with a population of around 17 million, projected to become the largest in Africa by 2030, another path to housing justice is required - one that applies a housing justice lens to housing, supports community-driven solutions, and strengthens public policies for housing.

Read the insight --> https://www.iied.org/extreme-inequality-housing-injustice-drc-rebuilding-kinshasa-la-belle

Download the Urbanization for the Few: Soaring Housing Inequality in Kinshasa report --> https://cic.nyu.edu/resources/soaring-housing-inequality-in-kinshasa/

Past policies and programmes in the city of Kinshasa have led to little or no improvement in housing provision and affordability. A new report reveals that proposed policy approaches risk perpetuating already stark inequalities and entrenching the role of housing as an investment – rather than as ...

28/01/2025

In this latest insight for IIED, Lucy Earle and Alison Brown explore some of the issues they and co-authors address in the current issue of E&U, Forced displacement and the city.

Their approach emphasizes the need for a rights-based approach in urban displacement response, one that recognizes cities as productive places for refugees and internally displaced people to live in and stresses their need for progressive social and economic inclusion.

Read the insight --> https://www.iied.org/urban-first-world-without-camps

Access the special issue (content mostly Open Access) --> https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/EAU/current

Most of the world’s refugees and internally displaced persons live in towns and cities, while donors and aid agencies channel support to those living in camps. A radical ‘urban first’ approach could provide a cost-effective and equitable way forward for displaced people – and donors