Periurban spaces are zones in transition at the urban fringes or close to expanding agglomerations. They are often considered as geographical patchwork spaces characterized by diverse functions (food and water security, provision of livelihoods, ecosystem services, etc.), a mosaic of land uses with rural and urban features, a multiplicity of stakeholders, sometimes with diverging interests, and overlapping governance structures.
Currently the nature of the periurban transformation in India results in an increasing vulnerability towards disasters.
Download the policy brief.
Periurban spaces are zones in transition at the urban fringes or close to expanding agglomerations. They are often considered as geographical patchwork spaces characterized by diverse functions (food and water security, provision of livelihoods, ecosystem services, etc.), a mosaic of land uses with rural and urban features, a multiplicity of stakeholders, sometimes with diverging interests, and overlapping governance structures.
Several characteristics and processes of periurban spaces contribute to creating gendered outcomes.
Download the policy brief.
Periurban spaces are zones in transition at the urban fringes or close to expanding agglomerations. They are often considered as geographical patchwork spaces characterized by diverse functions (food and water security, provision of livelihoods, ecosystem services, etc.), a mosaic of land uses with rural and urban features, a multiplicity of stakeholders, sometimes with diverging interests, and overlapping governance structures. These features create diverse opportunities, but also expose periurban spaces to deep transformations and make them challenging to govern.
Periurban water management is challenged by the diversity in these very specific zones in transition.
Download the policy brief.
Periurban spaces are zones in transition at the urban fringes or close to expanding agglomerations. They are often considered as geographical patchwork spaces characterized by diverse functions (food and water security, provision of livelihoods, ecosystem services, etc.), a mosaic of land uses with rural and urban features, a multiplicity of stakeholders, sometimes with diverging interests, and overlapping governance structures.
These features create diverse opportunities, but also expose periurban spaces to deep transformations and make them challenging to govern.
Download the policy brief.
India is currently being fundamentally transformed by urbanization. This transformation does not only affect the cities themselves: it also affects the periurban areas around cities. These areas are currently experiencing fundamental transformations that will shape India’s (urban) future.
The H2O-T2S project team has prepared a policy report recognizing the periurban challenges and transformative initiatives and pathways emerging from a range of sectors in this region. The policy brief combines four thematic policy briefs on four specific aspects of periurban transformations – water, infrastructure & governance, gender, and disaster risk, as well as three case studies on periurban transformation pathways.
These four sections were developed based on research, practices, and case studies presented at the conference on ‘Transforming Periurban Futures in India’ that took place on January 18-19, 2022.
This emerging knowledge from stakeholder engagements and field research finds that challenges induced by periurban transformations, while not easy to solve, offer immense opportunities. These dynamics must not only be seen negatively. They will result in adverse development if they take place in an unregulated manner, but the dynamics also allow for quickly steering development in a direction that allows for a transformation to sustainability. Essential in this regard is a solid database for planning, participatory planning processes, a robust institutional and financial framework and, most importantly, joint visions for sustainable development pathways.
These insights for policy are communicated online both through individual thematic policy briefs as well as a compiled Policy Report.
Download the report.
The effects of climate change – such as sea-level rise – are likely to provoke unprecedented movement of people over the coming decades.
It is estimated that between 350 and 630 million people will be affected by sea-level rise over the next 80 years, and many of these people may relocate in search of safety, resources and opportunities.
Movement on such a scale will undoubtedly have enormous humanitarian, environmental and geopolitical implications. Planned relocation or resettlement – also known as managed retreat – has been practised around the world for centuries but is attracting increased attention as a climate adaptation strategy. Research on cases of managed retreat in diverse locations around the world suggests that it could make a significant contribution to wide-scale, positive social transformation in the direction of sustainability, but there are also significant risks.
Download The transformative potential of managed retreat in the face of rising sea levels.
This Knowledge Brief is based on AR Siders, Idowu Ajibade, David Casagrande, Transformative potential of managed retreat as climate adaptation, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Vol. 50, 2021, 272-280, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2021.06.007.
Image: Communities around Caño Martin Peña © Doel Vázquez
Rates of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) are high in Uganda, by both global and African comparison, and the COVID-19 pandemic has made things even worse. Breaking the cultural, religious and social norms that perpetuate and trivialise SGBV is key to improve the situation. However, there are also other measures, such as communication channels for reporting and following up on SGBV, safe shelters and support for girls threatened by perpetrators, and improved sexual education in schools.
Find out more and read the full policy brief here.
It is widely acknowledged that global economic growth over the past half century, underpinned by a neoliberal capitalist discourse, has come at the cost of overexploitation of the world’s resources, severe ecological degradation and growing inequalities. Efforts to move rapidly towards a more environmentally sustainable and socially just future will depend on the emergence of compelling new narratives and visions to drive the necessary transformation of economies, technologies and institutions, and more fundamentally, of human values and cultural norms.
Download Finding common ground in transformative sustainability narratives.
This Knowledge Brief is based on Chris Riedy, Discourse coalitions for sustainability transformations: common ground and conflict beyond neoliberalism, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Vol. 45, 2020, Pages 100-112, ISSN 1877-3435, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2020.09.014.
Header image: L. Brideau via Flickr.
The enormity, complexity and urgency of the global targets enshrined in the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are widely acknowledged. However, even with calls for transformations to sustainability resounding around the globe, it is often not clear what should be transformed, by and for whom, and how. There are considerable gaps in our understanding of how knowledge about transformation can inform intentional change towards environmentally sustainable and socially just goals. The scientific literature points to three main ways of conceptualizing and approaching research and action towards transformations to sustainability, which can be described as: (1) structural, (2) systemic and (3) enabling. Research on and efforts to achieve transformations to sustainability can draw on the strengths of these contrasting but complementary approaches.
Download Three ways of understanding social transformations to sustainability.
This knowledge brief is based on Scoones, I. et al. (2020). ‘Transformations to sustainability: combining structural, systemic and enabling approaches.’ Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 42: 65–75. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2019.12.004
It features knowledge from the PATHWAYS network, which was part on the first phase of the Transformations to Sustainability programme. You can find out more about PATHWAYS here.
Header photo: Asian Development Bank via Flickr.
