Remy Sietchiping

United Nations

The impacts of COVID-19 on urban environments and the daily lives of their inhabitants are still unfolding. Th, and the spread of the virus in the urban system has affected a range of linked areas. Policy responses such as quarantines and confinement have transformed access to essential services, information, means of livelihood and transport, and...

The impacts of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on urban environments and the daily lives of their inhabitants are still unfolding. The spread of the virus in the urban system has affected a range of linked areas. Policy responses such as quarantines and lockdown have transformed access to essential services, information, means of livelihood, an...

To a large extent, inter-municipal cooperation mechanisms and collaboration between local, subnational and national governments as well as between their numerous sectoral institutions have proved to be effective in managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Territories that implemented solutions in an articulated manner and made consensual decisions between t...

Land and soil are critically impacted by multiple use requirements. It is increasingly understood that the urban-rural metabolism and relationships are critically determining the in-/efficiency of land use practices. Thus, the following question has been emphasized: How can improved urban-rural linkages contribute to sustainable territorial develop...

African continent is rapidly urbanizing. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the New Urban Agenda (NUA) can help guide better urbanization outcomes. The structural and transformative urban change in Africa will be shaped by the way in which countries embrace and localize international urban development agenda. By committing to make cities...

Cities are considered as engines of growth and correspondingly urbanisation is believed to be intrinsically linked to development. It is also widely acknowledged that for urbanisation to play a transformative role in integrating the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development, coherent policies must be put in place. To...

With the changing global epicenter of urbanization to Asia and Africa, the present concern is to formulate a clear agenda to guide the developing countries of these two continents on their ways towards being urban. Most of these countries are poised with several challenges, emerging from lack of a context-specific national-level policy framework. T...

Africa is undergoing rapid urbanisation with migration into informal settlements. Exposure to these environments is associated with a rise in infectious and non-communicable diseases. Addressing these urban health challenges will require collaboration across sectors that influence health. However, the siloed nature of policymaking means that little...

This book discusses and analyzes past and ongoing national urban policy development efforts from around the globe, particularly those that can lead the way toward smart and green cities. In view of the adoption of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, especially the goal to have cities that are inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable...

This paper provides an insight on the opportunities provided by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the New Urban Agenda (NUA) in advancing food systems within the context of urbanisation. To get a clear perspective on the opportunities posed by the NUA, the approach used involves an in-depth analysis of existing literature prior to and le...

Human beings are in the midst of profound changes to their ecology. More than 50% of the global population now live in urban areas, and this demographic shift is reshaping the way that humans—along with the flora and fauna we interact with—live and die. Across eastern Africa, for instance, cities are now the major centres of livelihood opportunitie...

Urban transition from 2014 to 2050 around the world would not be at the same rate and stage if the current situation remains constant. The 2014 United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs report underscores that East African countries are among the least urbanized and are most likely to keep their position in 2050. Urban population in...

More than 50 per cent of the world's population now lives in cities and large towns and this figure is projected to rise to 66 per cent by 2050. A proportion of this population is moving to urban areas are from rural areas, further increasing the food demand in cities. Another significant urban to rural shift has transformed the city edges in an un...

The global population has been steadily growing over time, which has led to an increasing strain on global resources. This population growth is expected to continue, particularly in urban areas. According to UN Habitat, more than half of the global population currently lives in cities (UN Habitat, 2014). By 2050, it is projected that over 70 percen...

Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are good examples of the intimate relationship between urban and rural areas. Their compactness, factor of distance and contiguity of human settlements place small islands at the vantage points for enhancing urban-rural linkages. Many SIDS have a range of small and intermediate towns that play a critical role i...

The interconnection between rural and urban areas is growing. The large-scale urbanization and the implications of this type of development on rural areas calls for a renewed attention in fostering linkages between the urban, peri-urban and rural contexts. The limited land resources creates intense competition for different uses, including urbaniza...

Urban and rural spaces are inextricably linked economically, socially and environmentally and cannot be adequately dealt with one from the other. The need for consistent urban policies for urban to rural areas that involve local, regional and national actors are important for understanding and effectively addressing the complexities of people’s liv...

Small and intermediate towns are important to enhancing urban-rural linkages because they are often more accessible to rural populations and also act as a bridge between rural populations and large cities. However small and intermediate towns are struggling to manage urbanization, attract investment and meet the demand for housing, land, infrastruc...

This article builds upon the broader discourses related to securing land and property rights beyond titling and deeds. It argues that land titling alone cannot promote security of tenure, enable housing delivery at scale, achieve economic growth, and foster social stability and other benefits for all citizens, especially in developing countries. Th...

Urban mobility is increasingly becoming one of the planning and development issues for cities in the sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region. Sub-Saharan cities are growing fast, outstripping the current transport infrastructure. Despite the population and spatial growth, many cities are defined by inadequate planning, rapid urbanisation and deteriorating...

This publication presents a strong argument for innovating urban planning to address the contemporary challenges of rapid urbanization and poverty. It illustrates how UN-HABITAT has worked in a variety of contexts to apply urban planning and design to contribute to sustainable human settlements development, slum prevention, post-disaster and post-c...

Studies on urban space especially within the context of urban tropical environments took a new dimension in the wake of the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development held in Rio in 1992. Geographical or related studies, which have treated this notion in the African context, have generally stuck to the existence of myriad problems...

Climate change calls for strategic planning that builds resilience in vulnerable areas to manage the asso-ciated risks. This paper discusses how adaptive various communities and industries are to climate change in the North West of Victoria (also known as the Victorian wheatbelt), Australia. Indicators of adaptive ability for communities and indust...

This paper provides an improved methodology for analyzing the dynamics of slums in Developing Countries (DC). In particular, it demonstrates how Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Cellular Automata (CA) can be integrated to model, simulate, predict and dynamically visualize the growth of slums, and thus will improve future planning practices...

Rapid growth of informal settlements in developing countries constitutes one of the most intriguing forms of urbanization. However, factors and theories underpinning this rapid and prevalent dynamic of informal settlements are often restricted to the descriptive phase. Limited studies have been undertaken to effectively demonstrate how these factor...

Cities in developing countries are expanding at a tremendous rate and informal settlements (where 40 to 80 % of city dwellers live) occur in unplanned urban areas. In planned cities in developed countries, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and cellular automata (CA) are favourable tools for modelling urban dynamics. This paper discusses the grow...

This paper addresses how long term and sustainable urban planning strategies can be used in a context of extreme vulnerability (physical, social, capacity and institutional) to mitigate climate change and natural disaster risks. The adaptive capacities of Haitians to disasters is compared with those of other regions is reviewed. The fundamental con...

Change detection approach helps to better understand socio-spatial mutations that arise in an area. In such, evaluate urban changes can assist is assessing temporal and spatial urbanization processes. In that sense, multitemporal remote sensing images represent a good data source. Yet, they are less used to quantify urban dynamics in rapid growing...

This paper has been prepared for presentation at the CAPRi Workshop on Collective Action, Property Rights, and Conflict in Natural Resources Management. The present version has not undergone review. 1 Perennial and violent family, ethnic, tribal, national and regional conflicts are land-related, particularly the struggle for access to and control o...

Why are some countries more prone to slum persistence and growth than others? What are the key factors explaining the persistence of slums in Sub-Saharan African countries? This paper is based on the premises that to significantly stabilize and reduce the number of people living in slums, long term slum strategies have to be linked to the root caus...