Resources

• Housing as a Strategy for Poverty Reduction in Ghana

  This book assesses the role of housing as a poverty reduction strategy in Ghana with references to selected communities. Specifically, the study seeks to establish the contribution of improved housing conditions in the poverty reduction efforts of the Ghana Government.
   
  Data for control and experimental groups are analysed in order to establish the possible contribution of housing to poverty reduction. The control groups constitute households that have not received any improvement in their housing and living environment, while the experimental groups comprise households that have benefited from improved interventions using Habitat for Humanity communities as case studies.
   
  The findings imply a fairly strong correlation between improved housing conditions and poverty reduction, suggesting that housing can be used as an effective poverty reduction strategy. In spite of its tremendous potential for poverty reduction, housing does not appear to have been mainstreamed into most poverty reduction programmes in Ghana or elsewhere, particularly in the developing world. Therefore, the study calls for conscious efforts by governments to mainstream housing into their poverty reduction policies.

• A Handbook on Urban Land Markets for Africa

  The handbook introduces key economic and related concepts explaining the functioning of urban land markets. By introducing key classical economic concepts, the handbook provides foundational economic terms that are often referred to in relation to urban land markets. In doing this, we do not imply that African land markets should or ought to 'fit' into neo-classical economic theories, nor do we propose that 'perfect' markets exist. Rather, we hope to provide the tools for engaging in a critical analysis of conventional economics, particularly in our understanding of African urban land markets.  It provides a basis for strengthening urban policy in ways that enable poorer people in African cities to access well-located living and work spaces. The reader of this handbook should come away with an understanding of how interventions affect the market, and also how markets affect, enable, constrain and shape interventions by governments, developers, traditional authorities, banks, micro-lenders or any of its actors. It provides a sense of the dynamics of the urban land market how particular decisions in one sector affect other sectors. This understanding gives practitioners in the field a framework to make more informed decisions when formulating policies or making recommendations. The handbook is a beginner's guide to the economy, especially those aspects of the economy that are relevant to urban land markets, and to questions about land use, supply and demand as they unfold on the African continent.

• South African History Online

  A digital archive of South African history and stories

• South Africa: lessons from India

  How has South Africa's national policy and planning come to terms with the implications of this demographic and social-cultural transition? Aromar Revi, Director of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements weighs in.

• Oxfam

  Resources from researchers, policy-makers, journalists, and other professionals.

• The Crisis States Research Centre (CSRC)

  The Crisis States Research Centre (CSRC) is a leading centre of interdisciplinary research into processes of war, state collapse and reconstruction in fragile states

• Alternatives Routes to Urban Densification

  This website is dedicated to identifying and exploring alternatives that can work for the hundreds of millions currently living without adequate urban homes, and for the hundreds of millions more who join the urban population every decade. The studies presented here, of urban density in Karachi, Pakistan, are the first step in this exploration.

• On the road with AAPS

  A blog by Nancy Odendaal, Project Coordinator of the The Association of African Planning Schools (AAPS) This blog is a record of her travels accross the continent, visiting member institutions of the AAPS. She shares insights on planning education on the continent and other impressions.

• Stockholm Resilience Centre

  The Stockholm Resilience Centre is an international centre that advances transdisciplinary research for governance of social-ecological systems with a special emphasis on resilience - the ability to deal with change and continue to develop.

• SDI

  Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI) is a transnational network of local slum dweller organizations who have come together at the city and national level to form federations of the urban poor.

• CUBES

  The Centre for Urbanism and Built Environment Studies (CUBES) is the base for Wits University's strategic research theme on CITIES. CUBES is hosted by the Schools of Architecture and Planning, and Construction Economics and Management,

• Africa Centre

  Based in South Africa, the Africa Centre is both a physical entity and an ongoing philosophical process. It is meant to grow spatially and conceptually over a period of several years, in time it will emerge as a multi-sited, multiple-usage space where the visual, intellectual and performance cultures of Africa, South and North are celebrated, studied and brought to life for diverse audiences in innovative ways.