Poverty in and unsustainability of urban areas in the Global South has been a major challenge to researchers and policy makers for a very long time. International and national urban policies still tend to operate at a very general level with policy makers having limited knowledge about the unequal distribution of opportunities, benefits, and harm within the urban population. Understanding of urbanisation is fragmented and research overwhelmingly focuses on conditions of slums at the expense of investigating specific local social, economic, and physical structures, and how they are changing, especially at the neighbourhood level. 

Sustainability, prosperity, and resilience of cities, countries, and the world as a whole can only be achieved if we have a holistic and in-depth understanding of the complex issues we are dealing with, why they exist, and how they can be addressed effectively. We argue that such understanding should start with exploring such micro units as the neighbourhood: first, neighbourhood is the place where social policy is delivered, and second, it is the place that determines residents’ exposure to peace and security vs violence and harm, prosperity vs poverty and destitution, and opportunities vs disadvantages. However, despite the emphasis of the New Urban Agenda of UN-Habitat on maximising the benefits and minimising the harms of urbanisation for all, there is a lack of evidence for action at the time when evidence-based and cost-effective interventions are desperately needed.  

At the Centre for Sustainable, Healthy and Learning Cities and Neighbourhoods (SHLC) we work to generate such understanding and evidence to tackle the challenges of social and economic unsustainability in fast-growing urban centres in Africa and Asia. To do so, we adopt a novel approach: instead of studying and/or comparing countries, we utilise an interdisciplinary, city- and neighbourhood-level lens to systematically investigate the complex connections and relationships between urban (SDG11), health (SDG3), and education (SDG4) challenges in neighbourhoods. Unlike the majority of studies, we also made a decision to shift from studying large cities to studying and comparing two cities in each country: one major national city and one ‘typical’ regional city. This approach allows us to draw comparisons from several dimensions: within country and region, between countries and regions, and between different economic development levels and types of cities and neighbourhoods.  Profiles of a number of the cities that we work with have been published in a special issue of Environment and Urbanisation ASIA.  

And we do not do it alone – for a more locally-driven, equitable, and effective approach, we formed an international consortium of nine research partners in eight countries: Bangladesh, China, India, the Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, and the UK. Our team of experts comes from a range of different fields including urban studies, architecture, design and planning, demography, education, health, law, and more. To support our ambitious collaborative project that runs from 2017 to the end of 2021, we received funding via UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) as part of the UK Government’s Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF). 

To provide policy makers and planners with more localised, contextual, and specific responses to urban issues on the ground, we are working on three main packages:  

(1) Sustainable cities and communities: we analyse the underlying social and economic forces of urban development and the changing internal structure of cities to understand the different neighbourhoods. 

(2) Sustainable health and wellbeing: we assess the relationships between city and neighbourhood characteristics, health services, and the health and wellbeing of residents. 

(3) Inclusive and equitable quality education and learning: we assess the provision and outcomes of formal and non-formal educational facilities and services to understand how education and continuous learning can contribute not only to economic prosperity but also to improved quality of life in communities, health and wellbeing, city governance, civic participation, and other aspects of cultural and social development, especially in challenging circumstances.  

PI: Professor Ya Ping Wang, University of Glasgow

CR&DALL Co-I and Capacity Strengthening Lead: Professor Michael Osborne, School of Education, University of Glasgow

Other Co-Is at University of Glasgow: Professor Keith Kintrea, Dr. Jing Yao and Dr Amini Kamete, Urban Studies, Professor Michele Schweisfurth, School of Education and Professor Richard Mitchell, Institute of Health and Well-Being.

Other Co-Is in the project are from the Human Sciences Research Council and University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, University of Rwanda, National Institute of Urban Affairs in India, Khulna University in Bangladesh, University of the Philippines Diliman and Nankai University in China.  

Research Fellow in Education: Dr Yulia Nesterova

PhD students in Education: Preeti Dagar and Rhona Brown

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Strengthening the Regional Engagement Role of Universities in Africa and Asia builds on the work of the PURE project and was funded by the Scottish Funding Council. PURE provided valuable insights into the possibilities of developing common, but regionally sensitive, methods for universities and regional governments to better understand the nature, quality and extent of their current engagements, and the potential for growth. In this follow-one work during 2017, a network was established with three principle aims:

• to learn more about the substantive aspects of existing regional development contributions that universities can make in selected less developed countries in Africa and Asia.
• to examine processes of engagement with a specific concern as to how both regions and universities are managed and engage, taking into account the range of sometimes competing missions that universities have, and the differing national policy contexts in which regions and universities find themselves.
• to offer practical proposals based on existing successful models that strengthen the contribution of universities, cities and regions to key aspects of development

The ultimate impact was to strengthen the capacity of specific universities to contribute to economic and social development at regional level, and to ensure that mechanisms to transfer these practices elsewhere in ODA territories are created. From this work a successful proposal was made to the British Academy for further work, involving the same partners, with the title, Strengthening Urban Engagement of Universities in Asia and Africa.

Those involved are: PI: Professor Michael Osborne (Education) Co-ls: Dr Muir Houston (Education), Dr Katarzyna Borkowska, (Inter-disciplinary Studies), all University of Glasgow

Collaborators: South Africa: Dr Marius Venter, PASCAL Director for Africa, University of Johannesburg, Tanzania: Dr Mpoki Mwaikokesya, University of Dar es Salem, Zimbabwe: Professor Charles Nherara, University of Zimbabwe, Iraq: Dr Kamal Ketuly, University of Duhok, Iran: Professor Nematollah Azizi University of Kurdistan and Philippines: Dr Zenaida Reyes, Philippines National University