The relationship between urban and rural areas has undergone great change in recent years. It is now often difficult to clearly define the borders between the two; instead we find a continuum ranging from agricultural zones to suburbs, informal settlements and urban centers. But do countries and development cooperation policies have the instruments needed to promote a dynamic and balanced development of urban and rural areas and open up opportunities for the people who live there?

This case study analysis forms part of the publication series “Unpacking metropolitan governance” that documents experiences and gives hands-on approaches for stakeholders in the field of sustainable development of metropolitan regions. 

IDMC's report explores the challenges in providing sustainable housing assistance to informal urban settlers displaced by disasters. It looks at nine case studies from Asia, America and Europe.

The report identifies the difficulties faced by urban informal settlers in receiving long-term housing assistance in post-disaster situations. Informal settlers are more exposed and vulnerable to displacement and are more likely to be relocated and excluded from the provision of durable housing assistance.

The Jamalpur district administration has decided to prepare an online database of the real landless and homeless in Jamalpur Sadar Upazila. Forming the selection committees at Union and Ward level is an effective step to make the list of real landless and homeless people. This will make the identification process of the actual landless, poor and vulnerable people easy, acceptable to all and impartial. I hope that once the list is finalised, it will be useful in selecting beneficiaries for the various safety net and development programmes of the present government.

Uttaran (www.uttaran.net) is a local organisation (Bangladesh) working with vulnerable landowners i.e. women, widow, indigenous, minority and landless people to promote access to land. Uttaran is implementing a project titled, Sustainable Access to Land Equality-SALE' with support of European Union. SALE is the civil society component of overall access to land project that is lead by Department of Land Records and Surveys (DLRS) and Ministry of Land in Bangladesh.

The New Urban Agenda represents a shared vision for a better and more sustainable future – one in which all people have equal rights and access to the benefits and opportunities that cities can offer, and in which the international community reconsiders the urban systems and physical form of our urban spaces to achieve this.

Sub­mis­sions to the Port­fo­lio Com­mit­tee: Rural Devel­op­ment and Land Reform on the Exten­sion of Secu­rity of Tenure Amend­ment Bill

The Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs) are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. Goal11, one of the 17 SDGs, is about all of these dimensions, with a specific focus on urban areas and settings. This synthesis report is the first publication showing the progress, challenges and opportunities of global monitoring of this Sustainable Development Goal.

Este artículo propone algunas reflexiones críticas sobre la tradición creciente de implementación de políticas públicas de regularización de asentamientos informales en áreas urbanas, con el objetivo de contribuir para que el proceso de crecimiento informal de las ciudades latinoamericanas sea enfrentado de manera más adecuada.

La ciudad de Xalapa se ubica en el municipio del mismo nombre en el centro del estado de Veracruz; junto con cuatro municipios más, conforman la Zona Metropolitana de Xalapa (ZMX), asentada en una región de gran diversidad ecológica, riqueza histórica e importancia económica. La expansión urbana es compleja y abarca múltiples aspectos.

The settlements of informal origin in Colombia emerged as an alternative to access housing for the socially and economically vulnerable population due to the limited institutional opportunities to obtain a solution. Thus, the victims of the armed conflict have found in this modality of urbanization a refuge in the city as a result of the forced displacement and the poverty.

Mitchells Plain is about 20km from the Cape Town city centre. It was built in the 1970s as a township for people classified as ‘Coloured’, who were forcibly removed from areas that had been declared ‘whites only’ under the Group Areas Act. Various attempts were made to upgrade the Mitchells Plain Town Centre (MPTC) after the advent of democracy in 1994, but these were disjointed and lacked a champion to drive the process.