This paper assesses the quality and extent of provision for water and sanitation in urban areas in Malawi – where over 60% of the population lives in informal settlements. It also considers whether the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for water and sanitation are likely to be met in Malawi, and examines the current and potential role of community-led sanitation improvements. It includes recommendations for interventions needed by governmental, international and civil-society organizations to improve living conditions of communities to contribute to the realization of the MDGs.

Africa is in the midst of an urban transition, and getting this transition right is critical.

This paper describes the development of poverty lines in India, from the 19th century to the present, and assesses their limitations as an indication of poverty. It demonstrates that use of the official poverty line results in considerable underestimation of the extent of urban poverty, and oversimplifies the nature of poverty by disregarding or disguising the reality of the lived experiences of poor people. It then considers the relevance and accuracy of the official poverty line as applied in Pune, a large city with around 3 million inhabitants.

This paper engages with the global debate about the meaningfulness, validity and reliability of the poverty-line approach by examining the Egyptian poverty lines in relation to the reality of the lives of the urban poor in Greater Cairo.

Migration has long played a key role in shaping the size and distribution of the population of Pakistan. Since the partition of the British Indian Empire in 1947 and up to recent and on-going conflicts within the region, Pakistan has been the destination for large numbers of cross-border migrants and refugees.

The Challenges of Environmental Mainstreaming’ is an initial synthesis of IIED’s work with partners in 13 developing countries. It reviews the rapidly changing context and challenges to environmental mainstreaming, discusses what it takes to achieve effective mainstreaming, and provides a roadmap for selecting operational methods and tools. It explores the current emphasis on getting environmental issues reflected in key government processes – notably development plans, poverty reduction strategies and national budgets.

This paper describes the impacts of migration on two small urban centres in the most economically thriving areas of the country.

With rapidly increasing urban populations, cities in Africa are faced with enormous challenges and will have to find ways to facilitate by 2015 urban services, livelihoods and housing for more than twice as many urban dwellers than it has today.

This report adopts the concept of Harmonious Cities as a theoretical framework in order to understand today’s urban world, and also as an operational tool to confront the most important challenges facing urban areas and their development processes.

In recent years, the poverty rate among fruit farmers in the rural Mekong Delta has declined more rapidly than among all rural households in the region and in Vietnam. This is despite huge fluctuations in export markets for fruit in the last decade. The findings from this case study in three rural settlements in Tien Giang and Vinh Long provinces suggest that the main driver of rural development is a positive reciprocal relationship between urban centres and farming and a strong role for small towns in local economic growth and poverty reduction.

With the global expansion of urbanization there is a need to ensure that cities develop in a way that allows all residents to benefit from urban life. This volume contains a collection of classic and more recent papers that provide insight into the problems encountered in urbanization and the ways in which planning has evolved to meet the resultant challenges.

The aim of this study report is to highlight the importance of mapping and documentation, for effective relationship building and advocacy.