Influence and Accountability

This is a report of a seminar organised by the One World Action in London in May, 2002. The seminar drew on a study by the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, of efforts to improve the responsiveness of public service providers to the needs of service users, particularly the poorest women and men, and on the experience of twelve public sector and NGO practitioners from India, Uganda, South Africa, the Philippines and Zambia

Urban land conflict in the Global South: Towards an analytical framework

In cities of the Global South, access to land is a pressing concern. Typically neither states nor markets provide suitable land for all users, especially low-income households. In the context of urban growth and inequality, acute competition for land and the regulatory failures of states often result in conflict, which is sometimes violent, affecting urban authorities and residents. Conflicts are often mentioned in analyses of urban land, but rarely examined in depth. This paper develops a framework for land conflict analysis, drawing on relevant literature and the papers in this special issue. In order to explore the drivers, dynamics and outcomes of urban land conflicts, diverse disciplinary perspectives are discussed, including environmental security, political ecology, legal anthropology, land governance, conflict analysis and management, and urban conflict and violence. The papers focus on conflicts in the peri-urban areas of Xalapa, Mexico, and Juba, South Sudan, and during informal settlement upgrading in eThekwini (Durban), South Africa, and Nairobi. A second paper on South Africa examines how current tenure law reflects the characteristics and outcomes of previous conflicts. We suggest that an analytical framework needs, first, to consider definitional categories, including the material and emotional dimensions of access to land, conflict and violence, and tenure. Second, it needs to identify and examine the interests and behaviour of the many actors involved in urban land conflicts. And third, it needs to analyse the interactions and relationships between those involved at different levels, from the individual/household, through the local to the citywide, national and international

Housing Policy, Production and Consumption in Harare: a Review

Articles describes urban housing policy issues in ZimbabweThis article analyses housing policy, production and consumption in Harare. It reviews most (hopefully all) of the recent literature on urban housing in Zimbabwe, most of which is on the low-income sector in Harare. The principal aim of the article is to synthesize what is known about urban housing in Harare and, having determined the state of our knowledge, to point out directions for future research. In addition, current policy problems are highlighted and their implications for the production and consumption of housing explored. The article is in two parts. Following a brief theoretical discussion, Part I focuses on the production of housing in Harare. Part II (to be published in the next issue of Zambezia) will focus on the consumption of housing in Harare, and will conclude with an outline of the main findings of the study and directions for future research

Roundtable: Pentecostalism and Development

This article revisits central questions arising from Pentecostal actors’ development practices. These were raised during the final panel discussion of the 2014 GloPent conference on “Pentecostalism and Development”. The four panel participants, all development actors from various organisational and religious backgrounds, considered whether Pentecostal approaches to development work are distinctive, as well as identifying various benefits that can be gained from the engagement of Pentecostal churches in development and some challenges that arise during collaboration between development actors and Pentecostal churches. The discussion was conducted through two rounds of statements by the panel participants, complemented by editorial comments and reflections. It concludes that neither the Pentecostal approach to development nor Pentecostal churches’ links with development actors are necessarily distinctive. However, more exchanges are needed between Pentecostal organisations and their members, development practitioners working with Pentecostal churches and scholars of the Pentecostal movement to improve development work among Pentecostals, links between Pentecostals and other development actors and scholarly awareness of the most salient issues

The Use of University Research in Planning Decision Making in Jordanian Municipalities

• the first Jordanian study to examine the use of academic research for planning decision making • presents evidence of how Jordanian municipal laws and practices act as barriers to engagement with academic researchers • Statistical analysis of how key issues (centralization, finance, self-efficacy, administrative culture) affect the use of research in decision making processes. • Makes recommendations on how many of the problems identified can be mitigate

The Politics of Service Delivery Reform

This article identifies the leaders, the supporters and the resisters of public service reform. It adopts a principal–agent framework, comparing reality with an ‘ideal’ situation in which citizens are the principals over political policy-makers as their agents, and policy-makers are the principals over public service officials as their agents. Reform in most developing countries is complicated by an additional set of external actors — international financial institutions and donors. In practice, international agencies and core government officials usually act as the ‘principals’ in the determination of reforms. The analysis identifies the interests involved in reform, indicating how the balance between them is affected by institutional and sectoral factors. Organizational reforms, particularly in the social sectors, present greater difficulties than first generation economic policy reforms

On handling urban informality in southern Africa

In this article I reconsider the handling of urban informality by urban planning and management systems in southern Africa. I argue that authorities have a fetish about formality and that this is fuelled by an obsession with urban modernity. I stress that the desired city, largely inspired by Western notions of modernity, has not been and cannot be realized. Using illustrative cases of top–down interventions, I highlight and interrogate three strategies that authorities have deployed to handle informality in an effort to create or defend the modern city. I suggest that the fetish is built upon a desire for an urban modernity based on a concept of formal order that the authorities believe cannot coexist with the “disorder” and spatial “unruliness” of informality. I question the authorities' conviction that informality is an abomination that needs to be “converted”, dislocated or annihilated. I conclude that the very configuration of urban governance and socio-economic systems in the region, like the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, renders informality inevitable and its eradication impossible