Resilience has become a very topical issue transcending many spheres and sectors of sustainable urban development. This book presents a resilience framework for sustainable cities and towns in Africa. The rise in informal settlements is due to the urban planning practices in most African cities that rarely reflect the realities of urban life and environment for urban development. Aspects of places, people and process are central to the concept of urban resilience and sustainable urban growth. It stems from the observation that urban vulnerability is on the increase in Zimbabwe and beyond. In history, disasters have adversely affected nations across the world, inflicting wide ranging losses on one hand while on the other hand creating development opportunities for urban communities. Cooperation in disaster management is a strategy for minimising losses and uplifting the affected urban settlements. The significance of urban planning and design in the growth and development of sustainable urban centres is well documented. Urbanisation has brought with it challenges that most developing countries such as Zimbabwe are not equipped to handle. This has been accompanied by problems such as overpopulation, overcrowding, shortages of resources and the growth of slum settlements. There need is to seriously consider urban planning and design in order to come up with contemporary designs that are resilient to current urban challenges. There are major gaps in urban resilience building for instance in Harare and the local authority needs to prioritise investment in resilient urban infrastructure.

This book brings forth debates on the production and eradication of poverty from experiences in the global South. It collects a set of innovative articles concentrating on the way in which poverty, as a social process, has been tackled by popular movements and the governments of various states across the globe. Providing new insights into the limitations of traditional strategies to confront poverty, it highlights how social organizations are working to transform the livelihoods of people through bottom-up struggle and more participatory approaches rather than passively waiting for top-down solutions.

This book discusses the production, distribution, regulatory and management frameworks that affect food in urban settings. It plugs a gap in knowledge especially in the sub-Saharan Africa region where food, despite its critical importance, has been ignored as a 'determinant of success' in the planning and management of cities and towns. The various chapters in the book demonstrate how urban populations in Zimbabwe and elsewhere have often devised ways to produce own food to supplement on their incomes. Food is produced largely by way of urban agriculture or imported from the countryside and sold in both formal and informal stores and stalls. The book shows how in spite of the important space food occupies in the lives of all city residents, the planning and regulatory framework does not facilitate the better performance of food systems.

The book is an assortment of papers all brought together through a series of surveys, observations, critical reflections and narratives. It is organised in five chapters, with the first one being a mere introductory note. The major issue of in the planning of cities is the issue of housing and its various dimensions. Harare is the capital city of Zimbabwe. Since its birth in 1890 as Salisbury, it has seen some tremendous growth. The Great Harare Region is the product of the city's expansion and forward and backward linkages between the centre and its satellites. As a capital and primate city of the country, Harare is the major hub of social, economic and political life. In the colonial city it was a rabidly divided city along racial lines with very little traces of informal living. Informal settlements were there but in the periphery: Epworth and Chirambahuyo. Chitungwiza was established as a dormitory town for the bulk of the workers in the city. When independence was attained in 1980, the city 'opened its doors' to the majority of the black African population that were forever meant to be destined in the rural areas. Such an open door policy had its challenges.

This book examines the activities of urban women in the informal sector in selected areas in Harare in the period before Operation Murambatsvina in Zimbabwe, in 2005. Gender, Spatiality and Urban Informality argues that despite efforts by the Government in Zimbabwe to empower women through policies, programmes and legal reforms, the generality of them remain in a state of abject poverty which they strive, yet with difficulties, to extricate themselves from it. Trading in low-profile goods, i.e. least rewarding goods, is an avenue that most poor women have identified to empower themselves yet it is really a 'long walk to freedom'. Unlike a sizeable number of men, who have made staid inroads into high profile ventures in micro-finance, construction, manufacturing, trade, transport, information and communication technologies, to name but a few, women are still struggling with the smallest things including subsistence-making. This book, which is the outcome of a study in 2003 and 2004, has revealed that policy and practice still lag in Zimbabwe to adequately address challenges encountered by women in, probably not only urban environments but the rural sector alike. Women in the informa

This book describes how urban design has to factor in a number of social, economic and institutional parameters in optimisation for sustainable urban design. It is a story about Zimbabwe's urban design. It puts into perspective a high-density (low-income) residential suburb in Harare called Sunningdale. This is located adjacent to Graniteside Light Industrial Site, southeast of the Central Business District (CBD) of the city of harare.

This book examines the nexus between housing and stewardship in peri-urban areas outside of Harare, Zimbabwe. Housing in Zimbabwe explores the factors that shape peri-urban environments into better managed and sustainable areas where housing development is the major activity. Using the Stewardship Theory, or Partnership, Model as the main framework and point of departure, the analysis follows five basic approaches: Biblical-religious, business, environmental, vernacular, and place-based community/grassroots. Chirisa ponders conflicts among the relevant actors, given their contrasting priorities and interests and maintains that such conflicts are perpetuated by such factors as local history, resident income levels, a lack of defined and clear-cut state policies, and commitment by institutions towards the creation of sustainable settlements. The study recommends further application and use of technologies for remote sensing (Geographic Information Systems included) to help monitor and guide development in peri-urban areas with the goal of achieving evidence-based policies. The hope is to create effective tools for stewardship by co-creating an institution focused on urban regional development using scenario and collaborative planning methodologies to avoid chaotic peri-urbanisation.

Resilience has become a very topical issue transcending many spheres and sectors of sustainable urban development. This book presents a resilience framework for sustainable cities and towns in Africa. The rise in informal settlements is due to the urban planning practices in most African cities that rarely reflect the realities of urban life and environment for urban development. Aspects of places, people and process are central to the concept of urban resilience and sustainable urban growth. It stems from the observation that urban vulnerability is on the increase in Zimbabwe and beyond. In history, disasters have adversely affected nations across the world, inflicting wide ranging losses on one hand while on the other hand creating development opportunities for urban communities. Cooperation in disaster management is a strategy for minimising losses and uplifting the affected urban settlements. The significance of urban planning and design in the growth and development of sustainable urban centres is well documented. Urbanisation has brought with it challenges that most developing countries such as Zimbabwe are not equipped to handle. This has been accompanied by problems such as overpopulation, overcrowding, shortages of resources and the growth of slum settlements. There need is to seriously consider urban planning and design in order to come up with contemporary designs that are resilient to current urban challenges. There are major gaps in urban resilience building for instance in Harare and the local authority needs to prioritise investment in resilient urban infrastructure.

This book is a stepping stone toward solving public sector human capital challenges in Zimbabwe as it equips human capital managers with solutions to key issues in the public sector. In Zimbabwe, the public sector human capital drives the economy as over half of the population access their services through public enterprises. Government is the major agent in economic and infrastructure development as well as the production of goods and services. However, Zimbabwe's public service is underperforming due to poorly motivated and managed employees who do not respond to the needs of its clients. This is a cause of concern as the public sector human capital is central to the overall performance of the public sector. Often public sector managers and leaders lack advanced, relevant, and dynamic skills and knowledge to deal with human resource challenges within the New Public Management environment. It is critical for the public sector to transform its human resource management to suit twenty-first-century needs. Effective human resource management in the public sector leads to economic growth and therefore the achievement of the Zimbabwe National Vision 2030. Therefore, this book serves as a guide for public sector managers and those directly or indirectly involved in human capital management. It provides in-depth knowledge and guidance in effective human capital management within the context of the public sector in Zimbabwe.

This book discusses the production, distribution, regulatory and management frameworks that affect food in urban settings. It plugs a gap in knowledge especially in the sub-Saharan Africa region where food, despite its critical importance, has been ignored as a 'determinant of success' in the planning and management of cities and towns. The various chapters in the book demonstrate how urban populations in Zimbabwe and elsewhere have often devised ways to produce own food to supplement on their incomes. Food is produced largely by way of urban agriculture or imported from the countryside and sold in both formal and informal stores and stalls. The book shows how in spite of the important space food occupies in the lives of all city residents, the planning and regulatory framework does not facilitate the better performance of food systems.

The housing and human settlement sector is fast changing, and technology is making it more complex than ever before. With reference to Zimbabwe, a developing country in Southern Africa, the essence of this book is to bring out housing as an issue within the technology debate and practice. The following themes emerge from the 6 chapters in the book: * The characterisation and conceptualisation of housing and technology and the nexus of both * The complexity of housing challenges and the problems governments face in providing adequate housing, especially for the poor * Diverse practices in housing construction through the application of different typologies of technology * Assessment of the feasibility of technologies in housing development in Zimbabwe by mirroring them against global experiences. * Discussion of alternative policy approaches that may guide technology integration in housing development. This book will excite scholars and practitioners in urban and development studies, construction project management, urban sociology, geography, real estate together with policymakers and government officials.

This is a collection of planning empiricists on the contemporary challenges facing Zimbabwe as a nation in the planning and ordinary life domain. Planning as a discipline is concerned about location of activities and how values of order, amenity and health, among other things must be enhanced. It takes on board the people to benefit from that planning. Yet, there are also issues of policy, governance, resource mobilisation and environmental sustainability that must be put into consideration. In these few chapters, an attempt is made to glean on the issues currently affecting Zimbabwe including the suppression of commercial farming and white-owned rural enterprises. They constitute what we can call the unfinished business of an ailing economy. Zimbabwe s rural and urban areas have, in the past decade or so, faced unprecedented socio-economic challenges among them housing, transport, water, electricity and unemployment. Despite these challenges rural dwellers continue to flock into urban areas in search better living conditions. As such a myriad of urban challenges continues to increase day by day coupled by poor governance from the responsible authorities hence the title of this book: Contemporary Rural and Urban Issues in Zimbabwe: Implications for Policy and Planning. This book is a compilation of hitherto current unpublished research various scholars in Southern Africa.

This research study discusses the realities of African childhood in Anglophone Central Africa and Southern Africa with a specific focus on some of the key elements of governance, economy and family practice that have mitigated against good outcomes in health, education and adult success. The work includes specific hard data studies as well as analysis of larger social and cultural issues. Among the specific chapters by this all-African group of scholars are: Aetiology of street childhood Nurturing a window of hope: HIV and AIDS education in primary and secondary schools Parental out migration and non migrant transnational childhood: Zimbabwe's status quo Developing a framework for neighbourhood environmental assessments: pilot projects in Vlakfontein, Johannesburg Conflict with the Law: diversion and rehab programs Struggles in peri-urban settlements of Ruwa and Epworth, Zimbabwe Childrens' rights advocacy and disabled students in rural educational settings Corporal Punishment and African child raising traditions