Ethiopia – USAID donates to Urban HIV/AIDS program

December 3, 2008 · 0 comments

Addis Ababa, December 2 (WIC) – The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has today donated 22 million USD to support the WFP’s Urban HIV/AIDS program over the next three years.

The contribution would help provide essential food and nutritional support targeting high-priority groups in urban and peri-urban areas who are severely or moderately malnourished.

Receiving the donation WFP Representative and Country Director, Mohammed Diab said the contribution will allow WFP to continue the important work of providing nutritional support to individuals living with, and affected by HIV/AIDS. It would help WFP expand coverage and meet the needs of those who are affected, he added.

USAID Ethiopia Mission Director Glenn Andres said this historic event would further strengthen the collaboration between the United Nations World Food Program and USAID and most importantly, will improve the lives of many people in need of help.

In Ethiopia, USAID and WFP have been partners since 2003 to support the Urban HIV/AIDS Project, reaching and improving the nutritional status and quality of life of food insecure people living with HIV.

Support for the contribution is from the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), it was learnt.

Source – waltainfo

Climate Change Threatens Poor Cities and Towns

December 2, 2008 · 0 comments

WINDHOEK – Cities and towns that are home to the world’s poorest and most vulnerable face multilayered pressures due to climate change. climatechange

Climate change poses complex and multilayered development challenges to cities and towns, particularly in least developed countries (LDCs).

Drought, floods, storms, rising sea levels are said to hit the hardest on these cities and towns, with potentially grave infrastructural impacts.

The reason for the increased vulnerability of these locales is, said environmentalists concerned with development, because strong and capable local and national governments with adequate and strong support from international networks are often lacking.

With climate change, hotter temperatures in high-density areas push up energy demands, like, for example, an increased use of air conditioners. ‘Heat stress’ is also a more common phenomenon, especially in urban heat islands.

Prolonged and heavy rainfalls cause flooding and in many cities, a higher risk of landslides, particularly in informal settlements built along steep inclines or floodplains.

Moreover, said the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), drought leads to water shortages, disrupted hydroelectricity generation and higher food prices as agricultural production takes a knock.

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Ecological impact of African cities

December 2, 2008 · 0 comments

Source: Science Centric, 2 December 2008

Ecological impact of African cities

African cities are growing faster than anywhere else in the world. This is having a major impact, but few ecologists are studying the urban environment and effect of cities on rural areas. One of the most important ecological changes in Africa’s history is being over-looked.

Joy Clancy from the University of Twente has reviewed the problem in the current issue of the African Journal of Ecology. She says ‘A hundred years ago 95% of the African population was rural, today 38% live in cities with about half the population expected to be urban by 2010.’ This rapid growth is resulting in huge changes in natural resource use, but the effects are highly controversial. ‘Some environmentalists say that demand for fuel wood and charcoal from cities are causing deforestation, but in fact it is change in land use that is the main driver’ continues Joy. ‘The real change is around cities – the ‘peri-urban’ areas – where woodlands are cleared for agriculture to feed the new centres of population.’ She points out ‘When this is added to the effect on water demand and waste disposal on aquatic ecosystems, then African cities can have an ecological footprint much larger than their actual extent.’

But there is little research on the ecology of cities ‘Africa is famous for its wildlife and the ecology of places such as the Serengeti are familiar to people all over the world, but remarkably few ecologists are studying urban environments’ says Jon Lovett, associate editor of the African Journal of Ecology. ‘Although we know a lot about lions and wildebeest, the real ecological challenges are in the cities and these are being ignored’ he continues. ‘We need a massive shift in focus to tackle the most urgent environmental issues.’

Kenya – Unique slum upgrading project starts in Nairobi

December 1, 2008 · 0 comments

The upgrading of six informal settlements in Nairobi’s Huruma estate has started.

Cooperation Internationale (COOPI) from Italy has given Sh74.4 billion (744 million dollars) for the programme, expected to take three years, and benefit more than 150,000 people. COOPI is partnering with Pamoja Trust, a local non-governmental organisation, and Italy’s Foreign Affairs Ministry in the programme that targets Gitathura, Mahira, Kambi Moto, Mandoya, Ghetto and Redeemed informal settlements.

Involvement

It borrows from a similar project in Kampala, Uganda in 2005, which was co-financed by UN Habitat.

Ms Margaret Matheka, the coordinator of Pamoja Trust, said the residents would be involved throughout the programme.

It includes helping them financially to put up their own houses, where the land tenure has been regularised by the Ministry of Local Government.

In turn, they provide labour for the project.

“This way, we ensure community involvement and that they lead the process of housing upgrading as this develops local expertise and inculcate responsibility,” she said.

The project uses inexpensive materials that can easily be transported to the site. Gerald Chege is among the semi-skilled personnel on the site, and thanks to the project, he now owns a decent brick house in Huruma’s Gitathuru village, a far cry from the ramshackle he lived in not so long ago. To earn a living, he did manual labour and earned between Sh50 to Sh100 a day.

Today he earns about Sh250 a day and saves anything between Sh50 to Sh100. “At the end of the programme, all the 345 families originally inhabiting Gitathura slum will all occupy their own houses,” said Matheka.

Source – The Standard Online

South Africa – Informal dwellings are being built as backyard properties and not in informal settlements

November 25, 2008 · 0 comments

More and more informal dwellings are being built as backyard properties and not in informal settlements, the SA Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) said on Tuesday.

According to a SAIRR report, between 1996 and 2007, the total number of households residing in informal dwellings grew by 24,2 percent from 1,45 million to 1,80 million.

During that period, the number of households living in backyard informal dwellings rose by 46 percent from 403 000 to 590 000.

The ratio of informal dwellings built on bare land (which might be privately owned or belong to the state) to those built in backyards declined from 1:2,7 in 1996 to 1:2 in 2007.

The institute identified a few reasons for the changing pattern in the erection of informal dwellings.

The first explanation had to do with the safety concerns of residents of these dwellings.

“Informal settlements built in backyard properties are less vulnerable to vandals and shack fires that are so prevalent in informal settlements,” said SAIRR researcher Kerwin Lebone.

The number of households living in free-standing informal dwellings grew by 16 percent in comparison, from just over one million to 1,2 million.

At the same time, backyard informal structures as a proportion of total informal dwellings grew by 18 percent while those built in informal settlements declined by seven percent.

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Tanzania – Life in the "Ghetto"

November 24, 2008 · 0 comments

Arusha, Nov 24, 2008 (Arusha Times/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) –
When sections of Arusha are improving and featuring characteristics of a modern town, larger parts of the urban area are fast deteriorating to sprawling filthy and stinking slums.

More and more people now find themselves living in mud shacks, without toilet facilities, water, electricity or even an access road to the shacks they call homes.

A survey by the Arusha Times has found out that if the Local Government does not intervene with basic planning activities now, in the next 10 years Arusha will be nothing but a mega slum with a small neat area east of Goliondoi and Afrika Mashariki roads to show visiting dignitaries and tourists.

Areas that are already unbearable with expansive slums, the like of Kibera in Nairobi, include Unga Limited, Ngarenaro, Kijenge, Majengo, Sanawari, Mianzini, Daraja Mbili Lemara, Sinon, Sombetini, Elerai and Mbauda. Arusha with an estimated population of 400,000 is surrounded by appalling slums in all directions unlike other cities which have shanty towns only in one or two sides of the main planned areas.

The worry of many people is that the scenic hills north of the municipality would soon be a densely populated labyrinth of shacks that will pose a threat to water sources. The trend according to John Mollel of Mianzini is that “you leave for work in the early morning and when you come back in the evening you find five shacks that have been built within hours and already occupied by families of no less than six people each.” The demand for shacks is high due to heavy migration to Arusha of people from other parts of the country seeking jobs.

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Urban Health Bulletin – Sep/Oct 2008

November 21, 2008 · 1 comment

Urban Health Bulletin, September/October 2008 (pdf, 135KB) – Environmental Health at USAID.

Anthony Kolb, USAID’s Urban Health Advisor, has selected 28 recently published urban health studies and below are titles of some of the studies in this issue.

Urban Health Analysis
1 Challenging assumptions about women’s empowerment: social and economic resources and domestic violence among young married women in urban South India.
2 Quantification of Urbanization in Relation to Chronic Diseases in Developing Countries: A Systematic Review.
3 Epidemiology and the macrosocial determinants of health.
Urban Environmental Health
12 Spatial analysis of risk factor of cholera outbreak for 2003-2004 in a peri-urban area of Lusaka, Zambia.
13 Spatial and demographic patterns of Cholera in Ashanti region – Ghana.
14 Improving access to water supply and sanitation in urban India: microfinance for water and sanitation infrastructure development.
Urban Vector Disease
21 Human population, urban settlement patterns and their impact on Plasmodium falciparum malaria endemicity.
22 Mosquito larval habitats and public health implications in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria.

IIED – Climate change and urban children: impacts and implications

November 20, 2008 · 0 comments

Climate change and urban children: impacts and implications for adaptation in low- and middle-income countries, 2008. Sheridan Bartlett. (pdf, 684KB)

This paper discusses the probable impacts for children of different ages from the increasing risk of storms, flooding, landslides, heat waves, drought and water supply constraints that climate change is likely to bring to most urban centres in Africa, Asia and Latin America. It also explores the implications for adaptation, focusing on preparedness as well as responses to extreme events and to changes in weather patterns. As is the case with many poor groups, if adaptations to climate change fail to take account of the disproportionate risks for children (who make up between a third and a half of the population in the most affected areas) they will be less than adequate in responding to the challenges.

Philippines – Filipino slums expand as population explodes

November 19, 2008 · 0 comments

The United Nations predicts that 2 billion people worldwide will live in slums by 2030 — largely in Asia and Africa. Exacerbated by population growth and declining resources, Asia is currently home to over half of the global slum population (581 million people). phillipinesslums1

Chris Pablo is an operations officer in the World Bank infrastructure team in Manila — where the population has soared — and writes in the “East Asia & Pacific on the Rise” blog about helping to deal with slums. In the Philippines, about 20 million people live in slums.

Empowering the poor: Helping urban slums to help themselves

In a country where half of the population lives in urban areas, one would expect colonies of slums (arguably called “informal settlements”) strewn across almost every town with high population densities. The picture is not a far cry from reality, at least in the context of the Philippines, perhaps the fastest urbanizing country in Asia. But even if the country has seen incredible growth over the years, there is hope things can turn around — and the feeling is not baseless.

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Ghana – Urban project in population research launched in Ga Mashie

November 17, 2008 · 0 comments

Nii Kojo Ababio V, Chief of Ngleshie in the Ga state, has launched a three-year research project on Population Training and Research Capacity for Development (PopTRCD) for the people of Ga Mashie and Old Fadama in Accra.

The project, which is under the auspices of the Regional Institute for Population Studies, University of Ghana, sought to produce and document knowledge about populations issues at Ga Mashie area in Accra.

Other collaborators include the University of Cape Coast, Ibadan University, Nigeria, Fourah Bay Collage, Sierra Leone and Southampton University, UK.

The project would also highlight the needs of the residents and gained an improved understanding of the structural factors that under-grid the severe urban health problems in those areas.

The European Union would fund the project. It would also research into the relationship between urban poverty and health, especially the impact on individual household members.

Speaking at the function to launch the project, Dr Nii Ardey Codjoe, Project Coordinator of PopTRCD, said the socio-economic and health related problems in the urban areas were more than that in the rural areas hence the conviction to embark on the study.

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