Editorial

Editorial by Alison Brown

Reviews

A. Barker and F. Manji, Writing for Change ‐ An Interactive Guide to Effective Writing, Writing for Science, Writing for Advocacy, CD‐ROM and Users Guide, Fahama/International Development Research Centre, Oxford, 2000. ISBN: 0–9536–9021–0, no price given. Softback (28 pages) and CD‐ROM

Urban Policies and the Right to the City: Rights, responsibilities and citizenship

The purpose of the joint research project Urban Policies and the Right to the City: Rights, Responsibilities and Citizenship, launched by UNESCO with UN-HABITAT in March 2005, is to contribute to meeting the MDGs and reducing poverty by identifying good practices and initiatives in law and urban planning that strengthen rights and responsibilities, interfaith tolerance, and the participation of women, young people and migrants in urban management

Editorial

The authors in this issue highlight crucial issues facing Commonwealth local governments today − ensuring national influence, maximising revenue generation, encouraging probity in staffing appointments, or dealing with problems of social exclusion and alcoholism, are some of the varied challenges faced by local administrations

Editorial

This issue is published on the eve of the CLGF Research Colloquium, hosted by Ugandan Institute of Management on 13/14 May 2013 in Kampala, to launch the 2013 Commonwealth Local Government Conference. The theme − Developmental Local Government: Putting local government at the heart of development − ushers in some exciting new papers, covering issues of urban finance and development, strengthening local democracy, local economic development, and the crucial Post- 2015 agenda, which will be published in the next edition of CJLG. Our thanks to Rose Namara and Sylvester Kugonoza, coordinators at UIM, Philip Amis of the University of Birmingham, who chairs the CLGF research group, and Gareth Wall who organised the Colloquium

How students make sense of criticality skills in higher education

Critical thinking skills in students, employees and citizens are endorsed for a wide range of positive reasons. What seems less well-known and the aim of this research was to investigate how students make sense of these skills. A semi-structured interview was loosely designed, using questions to ascertain criticality skills before, during and at the present time with 7 students in their final year of a BSc Complementary Therapy degree. All participants thought the word ‘criticality’ was misleading to students unfamiliar with the term. All students used analogies and metaphors when providing their own definitions of what criticality skills are, often using linguistic binary opposed terms to define what criticality is as opposed to what it is not. Using the linguistic binary opposed terms, the author created a pedagogical tool ‘The Criticality Wheel’ that could be used by lecturers as stimulus for their students to make sense of criticality

Editorial: Sustainable Democracy, Development and Environmental Policies

Urbanisation, climate change, footloose economies, multi-culturality and resource constraints pose unprecedented challenges for local governments today. In the developing world the gulf between needs and finance remains acute. Many western countries forced to reduce public spending in the wake of the sovereign debt crisis, are struggling to reconcile the need for efficiency savings with local pressure to maintain service standards and working conditions. This special double issue of the journal features a selection of papers presented at the third Commonwealth Local Government Research Colloquium held in Cardiff on 13-15 March 2011 which explored these and other important contemporary challenges. Hosted by the School of City and Regional Planning and the Centre for Local and Regional Government Research at Cardiff University, the colloquium provided a valuable opportunity for scholars from across the Commonwealth to present research on three key themes: sustainable democracy and governance, sustainable economic development and environmental sustainability

Politics and street trading in Africa: Developing a comparative frame.

Street trading is ubiquitous in African cities, but despite research over the last 40 years, there has been relatively little analysis of the political factors that influence the street economy. It is thus timely to examine the broader political landscape of street trading and its influence on the operations and vulnerabilities of street trade. The paper first frames concepts of street trade and the street economy, and briefly examines the political landscape in Africa. It then develops and tests an exploratory framework through which to examine the relationship of politics to street trade across three broad areas: colonial legacy and politics across borders, the top-down politics of state repression and accommodation, and the bottom-up politics of trader organisation and voice. The paper draws on extensive research by the authors in Africa and published papers to examine how history, culture and religion, governance and politics have influenced the operation of street trading across Africa today. The paper concludes that each axis of the proposed tripartite framework has merit, but that many gaps exist in understanding the relationship between politics and street trade in Africa