Environment and Urbanization

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BOOK NOTES
Book Notes gives short descriptions of recently published books, papers and reports on all subjects relevant to the environment and development. Priority is given to items produced by research groups and NGOs in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Book Notes also includes short descriptions of newsletters and journals. Send us a copy of any publication you would like included; we produce Book Notes of publications in English, Spanish, French or Portuguese. Enclose price details for those ordering from abroad, and how payment should be made. The Book Notes in this issue are grouped under the following headings: I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. DEMOGRAPHY ENVIRONMENT FICTION FINANCE GENDER GOVERNANCE LIVELIHOODS POVERTY URBAN WATER AND SANITATION

Environment & Urbanization Copyright 2006 International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Vol 18(2): 547562. DOI: 10.1177/0956247806070979 www.sagepublications.com Downloaded from http://eau.sagepub.com by on January 29, 2009

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Vol 18 No 2 October 2006 Outside the Large Cities. The Demographic Importance of Small Urban Centres and Large Villages in Africa, Asia and Latin America David Satterthwaite, 2006, 30 pages, ISBN 1 84369 623 1. Human Settlements Discussion Paper Series, Theme: Urban Change3. Published by IIED, London and available from Earthprint Ltd, PO Box 119, Stevenage, Hertfordshire SG1 4TP, UK, website: www.earthprint.com. This can also be downloaded at no charge from: www.iied.org/pubs/pdf/ full/10537IIED.pdf. This paper examines the proportion of national populations living in large villages and in urban centres in different population size categories, drawing on recent census data for some 70 nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. One-quarter of the worlds population (and half its urban population) lives in urban centres with fewer than half a million inhabitants. Some nations have more than half their national populations living in urban centres with fewer than half a million inhabitants for example, Venezuela, Chile and Brazil. And many more have more than one-third for instance, Argentina, Peru, Colombia, Guatemala, Iran, Malaysia and Turkey. Of the 1.5 billion people living in these small urban centres worldwide, nearly three-quarters live in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Several hundred million more live in these same regions in large villages that have urban characteristics and that could be classied as urban centres. These small urban centres and large villages are likely to absorb a large part of the growth in the worlds population up to 2025 and beyond. Tables in this report show the proportion of national populations living in rural areas and in urban centres in the following population size categories: under 20,000; 20,00049,999; 50,000199,999; 200,000 499,999; 0.51.99 million; 24.99 million; and 5 million plus. Many nations have more than one-fth of their population living in urban centres with fewer than 50,000 inhabitants. Many others have more than 10 per cent of their population living in urban centres with between 50,000 and 199,999 inhabitants. For large-population nations, urban centres of between 50,000 and 199,999 inhabitants can also be very numerous for instance, there are more than 750 in China (according to 1990 census data), more than 600 in India (2001), more than 300 in Brazil (2000), 147 in Indonesia (1990) and 100 in Turkey (2000). Urban centres of this size category also contain signicant proportions of the population in most high-income nations. Urban centres with between 200,000 and 499,999 inhabitants have considerable importance in many relatively urbanized large-population nations for instance, they comprise more than 10 per cent of the national population in Chile, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, South Korea and Argentina. Large-population nations can have many urban centres in this size

I. DEMOGRAPHY
Twenty-First Century India; Population, Economy, Human Development and the Environment Tim Dyson, Robert Cassen and Leela Visaria (editors), 2005, 414 pages, ISBN 019 928382 6. Published by Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York. Indias population has trebled since Independence in 1947 and it seems headed for a total of at least 1.5 billion by 2050. This book examines how population growth will affect Indias future development and discusses how it can manage this last phase of its demographic transition. It draws on 14 authors, some based in universities in the UK and the USA, some based in research institutes in India. The 16 chapters cover three broad sets of questions. First, what is happening to Indias population in terms of fertility, mortality and urbanization and, drawing from this, what can be said about likely future trends? Second, how does population growth affect economic growth and other aspects of development for instance, education, living conditions and other aspects of human development? And third, what are the impacts of population growth on food production, energy production and use, the urban environment, and water and common pool resources? The final chapter discusses lessons and policies for each of these themes. Four policy issues are highlighted as being of overarching importance. First, that the country will benet from slower population growth, so there is an urgent need for higher quality services for reproductive health and family planning, together with supporting measures. Second, the excessive subsidies to electricity and water must be reduced. Third is the challenge presented by water; even where there is agreement on the need to control pollution, regulate the use of groundwater and regulate or price water for irrigation and domestic use, there is no implementable strategy for the country that is backed by the necessary political commitment. And fourth, the importance of addressing atmospheric and chemical pollution as a result of production and transport and, for the most part, any negative effects on economic growth and growing population can be neutralized by the introduction of clean technologies. This is not a pessimistic book, in the sense of nding insuperable difculties lying ahead. Even with 1.5 billion people, India can become a more prosperous country, with less poverty and better health and education, and a better conserved environment. Whether it does or not, only the people and the government of India can decide (page 14).

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BOOK NOTES category for example, China has 125 (1990), India has 100 (2001), Brazil has 70 (2000), Mexico has 26 (2001), Indonesia has 25 (1990) and the Philippines has 24 (2000). These statistics highlight the demographic importance of small urban centres and large villages in virtually all nations. Collectively, such urban centres also have considerable economic, social or political importance within almost all nations. In many nations, they contain a sizeable part of all economic activities and include almost all the service centres and local government centres for rural populations and for agriculture. Most small urban centres exhibit a mix of urban and rural characteristics. However, most rural specialists choose not to recognize the importance of small urban centres within rural development, and most urban specialists fail to recognize the importance of prosperous agriculture and a prosperous agricultural population for urban development. Recognition of the demographic, economic, social and political importance of small urban centres might help to shift such biases. suggests that the crises are the result of human decisions, deep-set and long-established practices that have evolved over several centuries and that dene our everyday lives. He traces the historical roots of the current set of global rules sequentially, from the industrial revolution, through colonialism, the principles of capitalism and free trade, the US hegemony in global trade agreements, to the current corporate globalization. In the third chapter, the author discusses the processes through which the global rules of trade and engagement are made and enforced. While acknowledging that each of us as individuals in one way or another takes part in reinforcing these rules, he argues that the distribution of power in society is far from even. He presents evidence from a web of international institutions the World Bank, IMF, NAFTA, WTO etc. which he argues, is making sure that this global corporate takeover is complete and that any barriers to corporate access and control are eradicated. Chapters 4 and 5 describe, rather pessimistically, the near-surrendering of our fate as a society to the market, and how the market is completely ignoring the physical realities that threaten our existence. Applied globally, this surrender to the dictates of the free market massively compromises the welfare of countries, communities and ecosystems around the world. In Chapter 6, the author goes on to describe the attempts that were made to change the rules, both within the United States and globally, in order to prevent irreparable damage to our environment. But he also suggests that the changed rules, although explicitly cast as protections for the fragilities of nature, really protect the status quo. While we would like to think that we have in place policies that protect us and ensure the defence of our oceans, rivers, air and forests, the truth is that none of these is protected with the same vigour with which we protect the interests of powerful corporations. The final chapter provides a ray of hope, in its description of a fertile resistance movement that is organizing itself worldwide. The author thinks that it is wrong to allow people to believe that they are personally responsible for the global ecological crisis. He argues that at its base, the environmental crisis and deep injustice of the current order are not really about individual choices or consumer culture, or about science, technology or planning. Rather, they are about power. It is in the end a political problem that demands a political solution. The underlying message of this chapter is that democratically accountable public institutions can and must serve as the counterbalance to powerful corporate inuence. And these institutions cannot be established without collective struggle. Aimed at a concerned, popular audience, including both budding social activists and young people studying the environment and international development,

II. ENVIRONMENT
Unsustainable: A Primer for Global Environmental and Social Justice Patrick Hossay, 2006, 280 pages, ISBN 1 84277 657 6. Published by and available from Zed Books, London, website: zedbooks.co.uk; price 17.95. This book explains the double bind in which humanity now nds itself an environmental crisis that is escalating year on year, and a growing human and social crisis of poverty and inequality. The book demonstrates how these twin crises share the same historical roots. It combines statistical information, visuals and clear explanations showing step by step how a particular historical path of colonialism, capitalist development and industrial growth has brought us to this state. Chapter 1 describes these twin crises in greater detail. It points to the global inequity in income and private consumption across nations. It argues that global warming is becoming more severe, and that it is affecting some countries more adversely than others. It draws attention to fast-depleting natural resources alongside increased consumption, as countries such as China and India catch up with the consumption patterns of wealthier countries, and presents evidence of environmental racism in the United States. The author also highlights the issue of increased conict within and across nations, as a result of increased competition for natural resources. Chapter 2 examines the causes of the crises. The author argues that the troubles discussed in the rst chapter are not just the result of decisions by a few politicians or even a few greedy corporate executives. He

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E N V I R O N M E N T & U R B A N I Z AT I O N this book argues that only a fundamental restructuring of the way we do business will save us from environmental and human catastrophe. And the author suggests ways in which we can work for such changes.

Vol 18 No 2 October 2006 which considerable foreign funding had been received). Kanai tells the story, as he reads the manuscript left by his uncle, who wrote it while becoming involved in trying to support the occupation. One of the key characters in this ght is the mother of the sherman who works with Piya. This short description does not do justice to the subtlety of the story, the engagement with the characters and the way in which these three stories seamlessly intertwine, through the people who gure in more than one of them.

III. FICTION
The Hungry Tide Amitav Ghosh, 2004, 403 pages, ISBN 0 00 714178 5. Published by Harper Collins, London. This novel is about the collision between environmental protection on the periphery of Kolkata/ Calcutta and development especially the search for land by landless or dispossessed groups. It takes place in the sundabans, the vast area of water and mangroves where the hungry tide brings a constantly shifting pattern of land and water, channels and sandbanks. Three stories are woven together. The first is the contemporary story of a US researcher of Indian parentage, Piya, who is looking to document the freshwater dolphins that live in the sundabans, and through this story, the reader learns of how an understanding of these dolphins developed historically. Piya also encounters a local sherman who has much detailed knowledge of the dolphins, and through the work and attitudes of this researcher, one gets a sympathetic portrayal of someone committed to preserving the dolphins habitat. The second story centres on the development of a settlement on an island within the sundabans, and the role of a particular couple the man is the headmaster of the local school, and the woman is the founder and head of an NGO. One learns of the history of the settlement, and it is viewed in particular at two points in time through the eyes of Kanai, the couples nephew: rst in the past, when he came to stay with them as a school boy, and then in the present, as he returns to visit his aunt, who wants him to review a manuscript that her (now deceased) headmaster husband has left. Piya the researcher also comes to stay, and to draw Kanai into helping with her work, as a translator. One learns of the aunts drive to improve conditions on the island, forming and supporting a strong womens welfare group, which also develops into a hospital. Some of the tensions of development are explored through this for instance, the tension between the sherman who works with Piya and his wife who sees his shing and his desire to teach their son his trade as backward. She wants him at school, and she herself has struggled to get an education and become a qualied nurse. The third story concerns the occupation of a large island within the sundabans by thousands of landless families, their subsequent development of settlements there, followed by their forceful eviction (with many of them murdered) to retain the land as a tiger reserve (for

IV. FINANCE
The Microcredit Programme of OPPOrangi Charitable Trust Aquila Ismail, 2005, 155 pages. Published by and available from Sama Editorial and Publishing Services, 4th oor, Imperial Court, Dr Ziauddin Ahmed Road, PO Box 12447, Karachi 75530, Pakistan. The Pakistan NGO, the Orangi Pilot Project (OPP) is probably best known for the work of the OPPResearch and Training Institute, and its support for communitymanaged sanitation and other programmes to support better schools and better quality building in informal settlements (see the paper in this issue by Arif Hasan). This book describes the work of another part of OPP the small loan programmes run by the OPPOrangi Charitable Trust. The book begins by discussing the origins of microfinance, both in the local savings groups that traditionally provided credit and in the nineteenth and early twentieth century attempts to set up nancial services with social functions. It then discusses how NGOs have sought to develop micronance. This is followed by a description of the early history of Orangi Pilot Project (from 1980), and how the Orangi Charitable Trust developed from it in 1987, to provide credit to family enterprises within Orangi (a large informal settlement in Karachi whose current population is around 1.2 million). The aim of this trust was to provide credit to existing microenterprises at market interest rates, but without requiring any collateral (personal guarantees from two neighbours were necessary instead), and to train NGOs and communitybased organizations to initiate comparable programmes. Most of its funding came from loans from Pakistan banks, which it was able to repay because of good repayment records from the enterprises to which it on-lent. Later, some international funding helped cover overhead costs especially as the programme grew in scale and scope. Orangi Charitable Trust developed this micronance programme in a culture where loan defaults were very common. Initially, loan defaults were a problem, but the proportion of defaults fell. Up to 2004 in Orangi,

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BOOK NOTES 6,946 loans had been given, 5,661 had been repaid in full, and most of the repayments on outstanding loans were being made on time. The trust also keeps careful records of why bad debts occurred and these include a proportion that repaid most of loan, a proportion that could repay (for instance, the loanee had died or was incapacitated, or they had lost their capital through a re), and those who were absconders. This book includes separate chapters on credit to traders, credit to manufacturers and service enterprises, and credit to community and private schools (to help upgrade their facilities sometimes also supported by a grant). Each chapter gives details of the kinds and numbers of loans provided, and some profiles of specic loans with details of who took the loan, what is was used for and how it was repaid. Another chapter looks at measures taken to increase micronance to women again with examples of loans given. The nal chapter describes the large number of partner institutions all over Pakistan who now provide micronance, drawing on and supported by the Orangi Charitable Trust, and also gives one or two-page proles of many of these partners. and legal underpinnings on the meaning and use of resources and living spaces adapted to urban environments? This book, published under the Gender Research on Urbanization Planning Housing and Everyday Life (GRUPHEL) Programme within the Institute for Southern African Studies (ISAS) at the National University of Lesotho, addresses some of these issues. Using gender, generation and concepts of social justice as the basis and tools for analyzing the research data, the 12 papers in this volume address how the GRUPHEL themes relate to the everyday living experiences of respondents. From intersectional analyses of their urban living conditions, a number of issues have emerged. First, partly due to HIV/AIDS, orphan- and child-headed households have become a common phenomenon in most countries within the region. Unlike in the past, when orphans were integrated within extended families, many orphans now constitute independent households. Boys and girls in child-headed households have taken on caring responsibilities that are normally the role of adults. They adopt livelihood strategies that turn out to be gendered and in accordance with the differing ages of the children. And the legal system and state institutions often fail to protect orphans rights over deceased parents property. Second, the situation of elderly people has been affected by HIV/AIDS, which has claimed the lives of many young people. Instead of being cared for, it emerges that elderly women in various cities in the region have become providers and caregivers to their grandchildren and relatives affected by HIV/AIDS (including their own children), often with severely constrained resources. The caring role remains gendered; despite their social status as elders, women are still expected to carry on in a care-giving role. Third, several chapters in this book reveal young peoples desire for an independent living space. Families try to conform to cultural norms that require separate living spaces according to gender and generation. Such arrangements sometimes increase young womens workload and may expose them to sexual harassment or abuse. Young women have been more active than young men in their efforts to access independent housing. They rely on social networks within and outside their neighbourhood to bypass the ofcial waiting list. Fourth, gendered and generational inheritance and property rights are a recurring theme in many of the chapters. Despite the legal pluralism, and social, cultural, economic and demographic transformations experienced in Southern Africa over recent decades, women (especially married women) continue to be considered as minors, and are excluded from property ownership and inheritance. Finally, several chapters highlight the struggle for space, and the signicance of housing in the lives of

V. GENDER
Gender, Generation and Urban Living Conditions in Southern Africa Faustin Kalabamu, Matseliso Mapetla and Ann Schlyter (editors), 2005, 293 pages. Published by the Institute for Southern African Studies, National University of Lesotho, Roma, Lesotho. (For more details of the work programme of which this is part, see the website of Global Gender Studies at Goteborg University, http://www.cggs.gu.se/english/ research/default.html.) To adapt to urban conditions and establish a decent and sustainable life, women and men in the recently urbanized areas of Southern Africa develop, negotiate and renegotiate new relationships and spaces between genders and generations at household and community levels. Growing poverty, the HIV/AIDS pandemic and changing socioeconomic and household demographic structures have made the struggle more difcult than ever before. They have forced the elderly and young people to take up unexpected roles and responsibilities. Living arrangements have changed, grandmother- and child-headed households are new phenomena, and gender and intergenerational boundaries have been crossed. How has urbanization and the above processes inuenced the way women and men relate to each other in their everyday life? How do they view gender-specic rules and practices? How are relations of power, access and control over resources worked out? How do these relations affect generational and intergenerational support? How are gender, generational culture, social

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E N V I R O N M E N T & U R B A N I Z AT I O N the many low-income households in the region. Ownership of housing is a central strategy for urban life, and a guarantee for security of care in old age. A house empowers people to bargain within extended families, especially elderly women. Space in homes is also used as a means of separation, to avoid conicts between elderly women and daughters-in-law grounded in the division of roles and authority; and the chapter on polygamous families in Zambia describes the dramatic struggle for space between wives living in one house. The contributing authors give voice to some of the everyday heroines and heroes who struggle for a dignified life. They point to deep changes in human relations, and hopefully they provide some insights and guidance for those who want to act in order to support the development of a more egalitarian Southern Africa.

Vol 18 No 2 October 2006 approach and as a critical component of democratic decentralization. The book is divided into three sections. The rst section, on local funds and the policy environment, seeks to situate the local funds phenomenon within a broader discussion of development policy and practice as it has evolved over recent decades. The second section looks at the experience of local funds in practice, through a series of case studies. The nal part of the book focuses on issues of implementation and the day-to-day challenges of designing, managing and assessing the impact of local funds. The book concludes with a look at the future of local funds, and draws some critical lessons from their design and management; it also considers the implications of these funds for a policy environment that seeks to promote both social well-being and democracy. The author concludes by identifying the following characteristics of local funds: They are a means through which small resources are targeted directly towards disadvantaged groups or local communities very quickly. However, disbursement can be slowed down where procedures are bureaucratic and laborious. Funds are disbursed closer to where they are needed, which is believed to allow better targeting. This is not uncontroversial, given that spatial communities are often heterogeneous and identities often uid. They are supposed to be driven by local demand. This can be problematic in practice, as demand often comes from intermediary groups and the most disadvantaged groups are often ill-equipped to get their voices heard. They are supposed to stimulate partnerships for development, increase participation and leverage resources locally. Some partnerships evolve more easily than others, with private sector involvement being particularly difcult. Although local funds offer grant funding as opposed to loans, they require co-financing. However, match funding is not always easy to nd, and this requirement has the potential to exclude the very poorest. They are deemed to be swift and exible. However, bureaucratic processes and the application of rigid constraints more appropriate to other forms of aid can hinder speed and efciency. The management of local funds is devolved from donor agencies to other organizations that are responsible for oversight and day-to-day management. In many ways, this helps donors shed high transaction costs, although lack of prestige from small and localized projects can be off-putting.

VI. GOVERNANCE
Funding Local Governance: Small Grants for Democracy and Development Jo Beall, 2005, 208 pages, ISBN 1 85339 597 8. Published by and available from ITDG Publishing, Rugby, UK, e-mail: orders@itpubs.org.uk, website: www.itdgpublishing.org.uk; price: 15.95, US$ 27.95. Despite their good intentions, governments, donors and development agencies have often failed to make signicant improvements in the lives of poor people and enhance their capacity to help themselves. Local funds are a mechanism for aid delivery that has gained increasing currency in recent years, as a response to perceived problems of aid ineffectiveness. These represent an administrative vehicle for selecting, funding and implementing community or locally identied and managed small-scale and pro-poor projects. Invariably, they are externally funded, usually through grants, and are used to channel small amounts of money to a large number of local and micro-level projects. This book takes a critical look at the assumptions behind local funds being used as an aid instrument, particularly those . . . that promote democracy and governance [understood as state society relations] alongside issues of development [understood as improvements in peoples well-being] (page 4). This book is about an alternative approach. Starting from a critical engagement with theories of decentralization and a review of social funds, it explores the value of funding local initiatives that are designed not only to support development activities but also to promote local democracy. Reviewing experiences from Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America, the book demonstrates how, at their most innovative, local funds can deliver development within the context of a rights-based

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BOOK NOTES Social Watch India: Citizens Report on Governance and Development 2006 Amitabh Behar, John Samuel, Jagadananda and Yogesh Kumar, 2006, 152 pages, ISBN 81 7758 610 6. Published by Pearson Longman, Delhi and available from Pearson Education, 482 FIE, Patpargang, Delhi 110 092, India. For more details, see http://www.socialwatchindia.com. This is a report by Social Watch India, which comprises a coalition of Indian NGOs and other civil society organizations committed to making democratic processes work better through monitoring and evaluating the functioning of key institutions of government. There are social watch processes underway in 13 states in India and they monitor such aspects of government as the budgetary process, primary and secondary education, urban and rural governance, the performance of high courts and district courts, forest and land policy, and the provision of services such as healthcare and water. The coalition and individual partners also produce a range of publications, in English, Marati and Hindi. This 2006 report reviews the four key institutions of governance in India: parliament, the judiciary, the executive and local government (with separate sections on rural and urban governance), from a rights perspective and in light of the Indian governments commitment to the Millennium Development Goals. The review of parliament includes gender issues (currently women make up only 8.1 per cent of members in the Lok Sabha [lower house] and 10.6 per cent in the Rajya Sabha [upper house]), and the criminalization of politics (one-quarter of the members of parliament have criminal records and over half of those with the most serious criminal records were concentrated in certain states this review is also broken down by political party and by state). The review of public policy looks in detail at agriculture, education and health and infrastructure (including reviews on changes in proportion of funds allocated to these). The report notes the slowing down of improvements in infant and child mortality rates, malnutrition and extreme poverty in many states. The review of the judiciary, covering the Supreme Court and the high courts, includes an assessment of judgements of relevance to disadvantaged groups, including the disabled, the victims of the industrial accident in Bhopal in 1983, child labourers and those affected by mega-projects. The review of local government focuses on the formation and performance of gram panchayats at village level, and municipal governments in urban areas. Among the issues reviewed are the extent to which women and representatives from dalits and other disadvantaged groups are getting the seats reserved for them (the picture is mixed, with positive examples in some states and worrying incidents against women and dalit candidates in others), and a look at activity mapping to see the extent to which functions that should have been transferred to local government have been. For urban local governance, there is a particular interest in the likely impacts of two policies: the Urban Infrastructure Development Scheme and the National Urban Renewal Mission the latter being a reforms-driven, fast track fund for Indias largest cities. There is a worry that this is too loaded towards heavy infrastructure investment and reform processes that primarily benet private sector interests and with too little attention to the urban poor. The report lists the conditions laid down in the National Urban Renewal Mission with regard to mandatory and optional urban local body and state reforms. There is also criticism of the World Bank-led privatization of the drinking water supply in Delhi, which seems to involve both high public investment and higher tariffs and with the private company being guaranteed payment even when it fails to deliver the service. As the report notes, the urban vision should not be just for cities that are world class in their nancial prowess or physical faade but also foremost in their ability to meet global standards of human rights.

VII. LIVELIHOODS
The Saga of Rickshaw: Identity, Struggle and Claims A study by Lokayan, edited by Rajendra Ravi, 2006. Lokayan Action Group, 13 Alipur Road, Delhi 110054 India; e-mail: lokayan@vsnl.com; website: http://education. vsnl.com/lokayan. This book presents the ndings of the Action Research Programme on Rickshaws and Rickshaw pullers 20002002, demonstrating the problems and negative attitudes that rickshaw owners, drivers and users are beset with, their place in society and what needs to be done to protect the livelihoods of those within the rickshaw business. The researchers investigated the entire rickshaw business in the national capital region of India (Delhi), from rickshaw drivers to mechanics, rickshaw producers to rickshaw owners and those who use rickshaws, and also the trafc police and ofcials from the municipal bodies who want to rid the streets of Delhi of rickshaws. The foreword outlines the pressures of modernization and globalization that should be forcing out traditional forms of transport, but which, as long as they are still needed and used, are not ridding the streets of rickshaws. Attempts to regularize rickshaws has traditionally involved bribery and corruption, which has led to the current situation where of 400,000 rickshaws, only one in four is registered. Chapter 1 outlines the wide range of people who make up the numbers of rickshaw drivers, rickshaw owners, mechanics and users of rickshaws. This chapter

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E N V I R O N M E N T & U R B A N I Z AT I O N examines how rickshaw drivers live, and what they are likely to earn, their level of education, the barriers to proper registration and the unequal power struggle that exists between rickshaw drivers and owners. Chapter 2 presents the increasingly negative impact that the regularization of road trafc is having on rickshaw livelihoods, and how police and other ofcials are unpicking their ability to ply their trade, despite political support for their plight from some quarters. This chapter suggests that a more effective organization of rickshaw drivers could assist in breaking down some of these barriers. This chapter also outlines the opportunities for improved production and technical development of rickshaws, as rickshaw technology has remained static for many years. Recommendations presented in the final chapter include making more road space available to rickshaw drivers, as rickshaws still are and will remain an important, non-polluting form of public transport that needs to be accommodated within the current system. Motorized transport has reached maximum capacity on the current roads. A new integrated transport policy is to be prepared, but rickshaws are not necessarily going to be part of this, which would be shortsighted. In order to prioritize alternative forms of transport, such as the rickshaw, the authors suggest that a department of non-motorized vehicles be created. Rickshaws should be considered an integral part of the public transport system. Furthermore, a rickshaw cooperative society should be formed for temporary drivers and basic necessities should be arranged, with tax rebates offered to users, as is the case with other forms of transport. The report also recommends the development of a government policy for the technological development of rickshaws; also, space should be made available for rickshaw mechanics and a sociallevel propaganda programme should be developed to popularize the rickshaw.

Vol 18 No 2 October 2006 deeply implicated in maintaining and strengthening status quo power and wealth inequalities, resulting in substantial poverty worldwide. This book seeks to understand and expose these legal structures that perpetuate poverty, and to develop new strategies for reducing poverty, locally and globally. While law and development discourse has dealt with international poverty, advocates of poverty reduction customarily operate within a nation-state context. The contributors to this book, while largely, although not exclusively, relying on human rights discourse and United Nations, International Labour Organization and World Trade Organization initiatives as their primary legal sources, begin to position international poverty law as a legitimate eld for transnational, multidisciplinary legal research and dialogue. While critiquing both legal theory and current policy, they nevertheless open up a constructive prospect of specic arenas in which the development of international poverty law can contribute to addressing poverty reduction. The rst chapters in this book are revisions of papers originally presented at the Comparative Research Programme on Poverty (CROP) Law and Poverty Workshop IV, in Onati, Spain, in May 2001. The rst three chapters provide a framework within which to position the theoretical development of International Poverty Law (IPL). These chapters stress the importance of the human rights discourse in constructing the foundation for IPL, while simultaneously cautioning that a rights model must be supplemented by other moral and political approaches, including theorizing some human rights as global public goods. Building on the theoretical framework set forth in these chapters, the next ve chapters explore specic international human rights initiatives that address a particular aspect of poverty within distinct local and methodological contexts. These chapters grapple with a range of subjects, including: international intellectual property (IP) law as applied to biological products and processes, and their impact on undermining food security; the framing of the right to food (RTF) within the UN development documents; linkages between international human rights undertakings and the developing interpretation of the new 1996 South African constitution; the impact of international human rights initiatives on the extent and causes of child labour and school attendance in India; and the role of transnational corporations (TNCs) in bridging the gaps between economic growth and human development through corporate codes of conduct.

VIII. POVERTY
International Poverty Law: An Emerging Discourse Lucy Williams (editor), 2006, 272 pages, ISBN 1 84277 685 1. Published by and available from Zed Books, London, UK, website: www.zedbooks.co.uk; price: 18.95. Also available in bookshops. Legal rules significantly affect the distribution of income, assets and power. Background rules of property (now including intellectual property), family, contract, legal capacity and tort law partially create and perpetuate wealth imbalances within and between nations. Thus, whether one is considering current economic structures within nation-states, those earlier imposed by colonizers on colonized states, or those dominating the increasingly globalized economy, legal rules are

The books nal chapter provides an overview of human rights documents, and connects IPL to this textual framework. It looks at a number of international human rights instruments, and positions

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BOOK NOTES them within the varying conceptions of poverty (subsistence, basic needs, relative deprivation), and recommends specic steps to ensure the indivisibility and direct applicability of international human rights norms. The editor of the book, in her conclusion, acknowledges that while advocacy for incremental change is an essential component of legal representation for the poor, ultimately poverty cannot be eradicated or even seriously challenged without changes in market-structuring rules (both national and international). If IPL does not challenge the background legal rules of markets that bear signicant responsibility for causing and perpetuating gross inequality, it will ultimately fail to address poverty reduction (page 12). This book seeks to begin that process. Confronting the Crisis in Urban Poverty: Making Integrated Approaches Work Stuart Coupe, Lucy Stevens and Diana Mitlin (editors), 2006, 256 pages, ISBN 1853396370. Published by Intermediate Technology Publications and available from www.developmentbookshop.com; price 15.95. With the understanding that effective poverty reduction is multi-dimensional, this volume is a collection of papers examining such approaches within NGO projects and programmes. The papers were written to explore the integration of income generation and employment, infrastructure and services and organizational capacity building, and the cases were selected because they sought such integration. However, as is evident from the studies, in most cases one area was prioritized while others were of secondary concern. The studies are broadly located within the livelihood approach, with its denition of multiple assets. To assist with the elaboration of specic outcomes that emerge from the NGO intervention, the studies compare the intervention areas with another similar locality. The studies are grouped into three sections. The rst comprises Countries emerging from war, while the second and third sections comprise studies from more politically stable countries in Africa and Asia. The countries proled in the rst section are Mozambique, Angola and the Sudan, with interventions concerning infrastructure improvements as a major area of activity described in the rst two studies, and interventions concerning more stable tenure and income-generation together with neighbourhood improvements described in the thrid. The Africa section includes studies from South Africa, Kenya and Zimbabwe: in all three cases, shelter improvements are a major entry point, with income generation being an area where activities have been attempted but with less emphasis. Shelter improvements have been used as a means through which stronger local organizations can be consolidated. Income generation is more strongly represented in studies from Asia, with Pakistan, India and Bangladesh all providing examples of NGO interventions that have sought to support improved employment, with subsequent benefits for the quality of shelter and neighbourhoods.

IX. URBAN
More Urban, Less Poor; An Introduction to Urban Development and Management Goran Tannerfeldt and Per Ljung, 2006, 190 pages, ISBN 1 84407 381 5. Published by and available from Earthscan Publications, 812 Camden High Street, London NW1 0JH, UK; e-mail: earthinfo@earthscan.co.uk; website: www.earthscan.co.uk. Also available in bookshops; price: 19.99. In the USA, available from Earthscan Publications, 22883 Quicksilver Drive, Sterling, VA 20166-2012, USA. This book presents the case for a stronger focus on urban issues by local and national governments and international agencies and it justies its provocative title by explaining how urban development can be the engine of economic, social and cultural development with benets for both rural and urban populations. Both authors have many decades of experience, working in international agencies. Goran Tannerfeldt had a central role in developing the urban policy of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) from the mid-1990s to the present, and Per Ljung headed the World Banks central unit for policy development and research in urban development. This is one of the most accessible discussions of urban development, and the text is illustrated throughout with many graphs, diagrams and photos. After an initial short summary and conclusions section, the book is organized into ve chapters. The rst describes urban trends and discusses what underpins these including the association between urbanization and economic development and ruralurban linkages. Chapter 2 describes the scale and nature of urban poverty including issues of health, safety and livelihoods. Chapter 3 is on Cities and towns facing problems, but with an emphasis on the fact that it is not urbanization but rather, inadequate or poorly conceived or implemented policies that are the root causes of these problems. It discusses the size of slum populations in selected cities, the lack of secure tenure (and the difculties in addressing this), and the difculties that slum dwellers face in getting housing finance and basic services. It also has sections on environment and health, on AIDS, and on urban challenges in the transition economies of Eastern Europe and Central Asia also on obstacles to addressing urban problems, including weak local governance, poor municipalities, the backlog in infrastructure deciencies, distorted land and housing markets and inappropriate regulatory frameworks.

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E N V I R O N M E N T & U R B A N I Z AT I O N Chapter 4 is on managing urban growth. As it states at the outset, slums and inadequate infrastructure are largely the result of failed policies, bad governance, inappropriate legal and regulatory frameworks, unresponsive financial systems, corruption and lack of political will. This has sections on governance at local and national level, civil society and accountability, transparency and corruption. It then discusses different aspects of urban management, including inclusive city development strategies, land management, providing secure tenure, urban transport, and environmental management and protecting cultural heritage. This chapter also discusses how to improve municipal nances, enhance service delivery (including the use of community-based alternatives) and create a functioning housing nance service. The chapter ends with a two-page checklist of key areas in pro-poor urban development. Chapter 5 examines the role of development cooperation, and lays out a powerful rationale for supporting urban development and how it can be realized. The book ends with the comment: National governments and donors have for too long ignored the challenges of rapid urban growth; they have neglected urban poverty, slums and environmental degradation. The result is an urban crisis. Concerted and well-targeted efforts are now required. Governments must undertake fundamental policy reforms, and development cooperation must increase and be more effective. A full understanding of these issues the purpose of this book is the rst step towards the ultimate goal, an urban world without poverty (page 163). There is also an annex with a series of tables containing urban statistics. State of the World Cities 2006/2007: The Millennium Development Goals and Urban Sustainability UNHabitat, 2006, 204 pages, ISBN 1 84407 378 5. Published by and available from Earthscan Publications, 812 Camden High Street, London NW1 0JH, UK; e-mail: earthinfo@earthscan.co.uk; website: www.earthscan.co.uk. Also available in bookshops; price: 18.95. In the USA, available from Earthscan Publications, 22883 Quicksilver Drive, Sterling, VA 201662012, USA. The 2006/2007 edition of the State of the Worlds Cities focuses mainly on cities, slums and the Millennium Development Goals. Following a ve-page overview, it is divided into four parts. Part I reviews urban trends, and includes a short essay by Peter Hall on why some cities ourish while others languish and a case study of Chinas rising cities. It also gives a global overview of slums, including trends in the growth of slum populations, and regional overviews for Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean. There are also short essays on Mumbais quest for world city status, womenheaded households in cities, age pyramids for slum and non-slum populations in Brazil and South Africa, and the shortcomings of the MDG on slum populations in

Vol 18 No 2 October 2006 relation to housing rights. There is also a section reviewing national trends in slum populations. This discusses which nations have had a rapid, sustained decline in slum growth rates and/or low slum prevalence; which countries are starting to stabilize or reverse slum growth rates; and which countries are at risk or off-track (in relation to meeting the Millennium Development Goals). Most low-income nations are offtrack. This section ends with a summary of measures needed to meet the Millennium Development Goals in urban areas. Part II provides a more detailed discussion of the state of the worlds slums looking at issues of housing durability, overcrowding, deficiencies in safe water supply and provision for sanitation, and tenure issues. This includes an essay on the massive evictions in Harare in 2005, illustrated by aerial photos showing one of the affected areas before and after the eviction. Part III discusses how inadequate housing and lack of basic services threaten the health, education and employment opportunities of slum dwellers. This includes sections on: the social and health costs of living in a slum; hunger; infant and child mortality; and various diseases including diarrhoea, acute respiratory infections and HIV/AIDS. There is also a section discussing environmental problems in cities, with sections on air pollution, trafc deaths and the inadequacies of solid waste management systems. There are also sections on conict and disaster in cities (including an essay on New Orleans and hurricane Katrina) and urban insecurity. Part IV is an assessment of slum upgrading and prevention policies in different nations, which highlights the countries where slum policies are effective and where pro-poor reforms on slum upgrading are being implemented. It also discusses what governments and international agencies should do to address the problem of slums. For the City Yet to Come. Changing African Life in Four Cities AbdouMaliq Simone, 2004, 297 pages, ISBN 0 8223 3445 3. Published by Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina; price: US$ 23.95. This can be ordered at http://dukeupress.edu/contactus/howtoorder.shtml or through Duke University Press, Books Fulllment, 905 W. Main St., Suite 18B, Durham, NC 27701, USA. This book documents and analyzes shifting forms of social collaboration between individuals within a changing society, and the impact this has had on the development of African cities. It provides an historical, political and socioeconomic context for the emergence of these shifting forms, and their importance in the remaking of a broad range of African cities. The four cities that are examined are Pikine (Senegal), Winterveld (South Africa), Douala (Cameroon) and Jidda (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia).

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BOOK NOTES The book concentrates on social relationships and how these affect the development of the city, and the four cities are used to examine the role that the imagination plays, and the different social groupings, whether women, youth, national or language groups. It presents the case that there is individual denial of urbanization, with residents referring to the quarters where individuals come from rather than the city as a whole. The four main themes are the informal, the invisible, the spectral and movement. In the Senegalese city of Pikine, the ever-increasing importance of the informal sector in the face of globalization, the dismantling of the public sector and the breakdown of traditional hierarchies between men, women and their children is examined. In Winterveld, South Africa, the study examines the invisible, i.e. activities that are not open the unspoken yet present political force within community life. In Douala, Cameroon, spectral refers to the role of witchcraft, magic or healers within the city, and their impact on how individuals live in the city. The final theme, movement, draws on the connections between countries both within and outside Africa, and how important these are for the urbanizing forces in Africa; the Sufi model of the zawwiyah (lodge) is used as an example of how networks are built and how these influence the development of the city. Following these case studies, Chapter 5 looks at the history of urbanization in Africa, and discusses labour markets and how they have been organized, how cities are administered and the colonial legacy. Chapter 6 examines how African cities are shaped through macroeconomics and approaches of municipal administration, looking at new forms of urban governance and how these can or cannot be assimilated by more traditional approaches. It considers how rural institutional structures are brought into the city, and how the imposing of, for example, structural adjustment programmes impact on these. The ownership and use of land and the issue of shelter are also examined in order to demonstrate how individuals use the resources available to them. The nal chapter draws the conclusion that there are numerous dichotomies within the African city: attempting to maintain social cohesion while creating new realities in order to survive, . . . maintaining a sense of place while at the same time reach(ing) a larger world. There is a sense that African inuences are rooted in rural life even where experience would demonstrate the contrary. This demands that individuals take on a range of different identities and networks. Lhasa: Streets with Memories Robert Barnett, 2006, 244 pages, ISBN 0 231 13680 3. Published by and available from Columbia University Press, New York, USA, website: www.columbia.edu; price: US$ 24.50. Also available in bookshops. This book juxtaposes contemporary accounts of Lhasa from local and exiled Tibetans, foreign observers and Chinese migrants in the city with architectural observations by the author to describe Lhasa and its current status as both an ancient city and a modern Chinese provincial capital. The narrative reveals how historical layering, popular memory, symbolism and mythology constitute the story of a city. Besides the ancient Buddhist temples and former picnic gardens of the Tibetan capital, the book describes the urban sprawl, the harsh rectangular structures and the geometric blueglass tower blocks that speak of the anxieties of successive regimes intent upon improving on the past. The authors excavation of the citys past, the buildings and the streets, interwoven with his own recollections of unrest and resistance, recount the story of Tibets complex transition from tradition to modernity and its painful history of foreign encounters and political experiment. For example, the author notes: In the days of open protest, everything seemed clear. But Lhasa became again a city where, all around, the signs speak more loudly of the global entrancement of desire than they do of politics, and where the foreigner wanders around in an ignorance that he or she has no sure way to measure. It is a city in which the memories and stories that belong to each street and house still speak, if they can be heard, more audibly than the inhabitants (page xix). The book starts with an overview of the controversies surrounding Tibets history, before delving deeper to explain the complexities that lie beneath the unitary and often contesting views of the city, as presented by the exiled Tibetan elites, local Tibetans and the Chinese ofcials. In the later chapters, the author presents a narrative of the change in the ofcial Chinese policy on Tibet after 1987 that has had much the greatest impact on the city. The new policy aimed to integrate the local economy rapidly with that of inland China, and to stem dissent by increasing infrastructure expansion, urban wealth and consumer satisfaction. The policy depended, as before, on central government subsidies, but included encouraging Chinese migrants to open private shops and businesses in Tibet in the name of deepening reform. From the mid-1990s, the culture once reviled in China as being feudal and barbaric became a tourist attraction for wealthier Chinese, with a million a year visiting Tibet to enjoy its exotic architecture, customs and religious traditions. At the same time, much of the old city of Lhasa was torn down to make way for new developments. All this has led to a rapid surge in Chinese migration into urban areas, and a GDP increase of around 12 per cent per year.

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E N V I R O N M E N T & U R B A N I Z AT I O N The author goes on to describe how religion, the Tibetan language and tradition are increasingly associated with the countryside, the poor, the uneducated and the elderly. Although, controls on religion are not obvious to casual observers, the author writes, . . . those who work in government bodies and those who study in schools know that they are not supposed to visit a monastery or practice any form of religion if they are Tibetan Buddhists (page xxix). This book offers a powerful and lyrical exploration of a city long idealized, disregarded or misunderstood by outsiders. Looking to its streets and stone, the author presents a searching portrait of Lhasa, its history and its illegibility. The book serves not only as a manual for thinking about contemporary Tibet but also for questioning our way of thinking about foreign places.

Vol 18 No 2 October 2006 conictive relationships between citizens and the state and a more manageable scale of work, with different ofces or departments of government more willing to work with each other and to share information. The smallness of an urban centre can make more informal accountability measures work better for instance, easier contacts between local politicians and civil servants and those who are unserved or ill-served. Local governments in small urban centres may be more willing to accept partnerships with community organizations and local NGOs in part because sophisticated engineer-dominated agencies are not the decision makers. This book presents many examples of innovations in small urban centres that reduced unit costs for example through ofcial water and sanitation agencies (whether government, private sector or NGO) working in partnership with groups of households. This includes component sharing, as local utilities provide water mains and/or sewer connections to groups of households and these groups have responsibility for funding and installing the infrastructure that connects them to the water mains and sewers. Examples include condominial water supplies and sewers in many urban areas in Brazil, and the work of the Orangi Pilot ProjectResearch and Training Institute in small urban centres in Pakistan (see the paper in this issue by Arif Hasan, which is based on a background paper prepared for this UN report). Where such component sharing is still too expensive or not possible for instance in low-income informal settlements with high levels of room renting communitymanaged provision of shared taps or of public toilets with washing facilities may be the most appropriate response and the book has various examples of partnerships between water providers and community organizations. Most of the innovations that beneted low-income groups described in this book arose from a change in the relationship between local government and the urban poor from hostility or indifference to engagement. Sometimes, this was a result of changes within local government (or national agencies that support local governments) but more often, it was the result of what local grassroots organizations or local NGOs (or partnerships between these) did, and then what they negotiated. Local government reforms were often important in allowing more possibilities for this, but they rarely produced any change, by themselves. Many innovations set precedents that then encouraged action and investment in other urban centres as they were much visited by staff from local governments, local water utilities, NGOs and community organizations. The local organizations that developed them are often called on for advice in other urban centres. Some local precedents inuenced national policy. This book also has many examples of ways in which lower-income households get better provision for water

X. WATER AND SANITATION

Meeting Development Goals in Small Urban Centres; Water and Sanitation in the Worlds Cities 2006 United Nations Human Settlements Programme, 2006, 288 pages, ISBN 184407305X. Published by and available from Earthscan Publications, 812 Camden High Street, London NW1 0JH, UK; e-mail: earthinfo@earthscan.co.uk; website: www.earthscan.co.uk. Also available in bookshops; price: 25.00. In the USA, available from Earthscan Publications, 22883 Quicksilver Drive, Sterling, VA 20166-2012, USA. This is the second Earthscan book on Water and Sanitation in the Worlds Cities. The rst, published in 2003, was an overview of deciencies in provision worldwide and measures to address these in all urban centres; this second report focuses on small urban centres. Chapter 1 serves both as an introduction and a summary. Chapter 2 documents how a large part of the worlds population lacking adequate provision for water and sanitation lives in small urban centres or large villages that have urban characteristics. Much of the growth in the worlds population over the next 10 to 15 years is likely to be in these centres and the Millennium Development Goal target of halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation between 1990 and 2015 will not be met unless there are significant improvements in the effectiveness of government and international donor programmes in these centres. This book also discusses the potential for action in such urban centres. It is often assumed that it is more difcult to support good provision for water and sanitation in small urban centres than in large cities because of weaker local governments, fewer economies of scale for infrastructure and management and less capacity to pay. But many small urban centres have some advantages over large cities, such as less

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BOOK NOTES and sanitation that are not water and sanitation initiatives for instance, through slum and squatter upgrading programmes and secure tenure programmes, or programmes through which urban poor households get land on which they can build new homes with water and sanitation infrastructure. Housing nance programmes that support households and communities fund improved provision in existing homes, or fund them to obtain (and build) new better quality housing also support better provision for water and sanitation. These programmes are important not only for the tens of millions of urban households that have obtained much improved provision for water and sanitation, but also for the way in which they can complement investments in big water and sanitation infrastructure and reduce the cost of this infrastructure. This book is less positive about the current role of international agencies. Most pay little attention to water and sanitation in urban areas, and many have reduced their support to this. For these agencies, supporting innovative, low-cost innovations in small urban centres can be staff intensive in relation to the funding disbursed, and it may not deliver results quickly for instance, they need to allow those lacking provision to develop their own responses, and build consensus and negotiate with different official agencies. In theory, international funding agencies should applaud interventions that need little external funding, because this means greater possibilities for increasing the scale of the interventions and greater possibilities for sustaining the initiatives effectiveness. For governments, keeping down the need for loans also means keeping down the debt burden. But all the bilateral agencies and the multilateral development banks are under extreme pressure from the governments that fund them to spend their budgets or increase their loan portfolios, while keeping down their staff costs. This makes it difcult for them to fund a multiplicity of lowcost interventions. Governance of Water and Sanitation Services for the Peri-urban Poor; A Framework for Understanding and Action in Metropolitan Regions Adriana Allen, Julio D Dvila and Pascale Hofmann, 2006, 125 pages, ISBN 1 874502 60 9. Published by and available from the Development Planning Unit, UCL, 9 Endsleigh Gardens, London WC1H 0ED, UK; fax: +44 20 76791112; e-mail: dpu@ucl.ac.uk; price (including postage and packing) 12 in UK and 20 in OECD countries; it can also be downloaded at no charge from www.ucl.ac.uk/ dpu/pui. This book and an accompanying 12-page summary booklet (also downloadable from the website above) are two of several outputs from a three-year collaborative research project coordinated from London by the Development Planning Unit, UCL. They aim to offer . . . a conceptual and practical tool for those involved directly or indirectly in the long-term planning and daily management of basic service provision in the metropolitan regions of developing countries. They do not, however, focus on the more . . . technical aspects of designing and building infrastructure but seek instead . . . to provide guidance to better comprehend the institutional and governance challenges of improving access to these basic services for poor peri-urban households and small-scale enterprises. At the core of the research project lies the observation that policies and practices by formal-sector suppliers of these services, such as municipal utilities and formal private companies, tend to leave out poor periurban users, who are instead served by a very diverse range of means, most of which are informal and not registered by formal policies and institutions. Using the results from primary research carried out by five partner institutions in their respective metropolitan regions (Caracas, Venezuela; Mexico City; Chennai, India; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; and Cairo, Egypt), the authors of the book argue that policies designed to guarantee peri-urban access to these services require a better understanding of this diversity, as well as of the specificities surrounding peri-urban growth and change in metropolitan regions. This is a challenge made more urgent, they argue, by the rapid pace that is a feature of peri-urban change, the obvious fragmentation of government responsibilities for planning and supplying basic services to peri-urban areas, and the crucial environmental functions played by these areas. The contents of the book are the result of consultation and discussion with a broad range of people from more than 20 countries, from urban professionals and practitioners to engineers, politicians, academics, staff from national and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and peri-urban poor women and men. The research project included a series of local and international workshops (in three regions of the world), some of whose presentations are made available on the projects website. The book is structured in three parts. Section I (Understanding the Issues) presents some background information on the basic concepts and denitions that support the research. This is based on a combination of information collected expressly for this project and research done in different countries of the developing world by other authors. Section II (Taking Action) uses the socially constructed water cycle to highlight the specic issues that arise in the provision of water and sanitation services in the context of the peri-urban interface, paying particular attention to the actors involved in the process and their roles, strengths and weaknesses. This section also examines the challenges faced by peri-urban dwellers, service providers and regulators to improve access to water and sanitation for the poor and to enhance the management of the natural resource base. Section III

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E N V I R O N M E N T & U R B A N I Z AT I O N (Learning from Experience) summarizes a number of initiatives from around the world, which address the problems and illustrate some of the principles outlined earlier in the book. The discussions in Sections I and II are supported by evidence from the ve case studies examined as part of the project, as well as with the occasional use of case study material from Section III and other sources. Water, Power and Citizenship: Social Struggles in the Basin of Mexico J E Castro, 2006, 232 pages, ISBN 1 4039 4879 8, 55. Published by Palgrave Macmillan, New York. This can be ordered from http://www.palgrave.com/home. This book examines the social history of water-related conicts in the Basin of Mexico, where Mexico City is located. It illustrates how and why the struggles over water are linked to struggles for citizenship. Following a brief introduction, the first chapter explores the relationship between the physical and social aspects of water in and around Mexico City, setting out the broad outlines of the arguments explored in the rest of the book. An overarching claim is that the water conicts are not just symptoms of physicalnatural and technoadministrative problems. Rather, they are also linked to long-term socio-historical processes (e.g. the development of citizenship), as well as shorter-term political shifts (e.g. the dismantling of the benefactor state). The second chapter examines the social origins of water stress in the Basin of Mexico, from preColumbian times to the present. Even before colonial times, the basin had been subject to signicant human modications, including a wide range of waterworks involving dams, causeways, aqueducts, canals, irrigation systems, terraces and island cities. The colonial period saw a continuation of pre-Hispanic systems, despite confrontations over the control of water as the Spaniards wrestled control of the water systems from the Indians, initially provoking acts of sabotage and eventually transforming the physical and social dynamics in radical ways. The environmental and ecological shifts that accompanied the changes in the basins waterscape during this period were transformative, and linked to the break up of the Indian economic and social systems. Change and conict continued to characterize the basins water system through independence (1821) and revolution (19101917), up to the present day. The third chapter also takes an historical perspective, and considers: the evolution of power congurations related to water control; the changing role of water experts; the power structures that have emerged to help control water; and the links to the development of citizenship. Some challenges have persisted for centuries, including protection from floods, the delivery of water

Vol 18 No 2 October 2006 supply, and the disposal of wastewater. Despite unprecedented progress in water science and technology, changes in the basin continue to undermine long-term sustainability, as well as fuelling conicts over access to existing water-related resources. The fourth chapter examines the water conicts of recent decades, drawing on reports of about 2,000 occurrences of water conict, ranging from petitions and denunciations to rallies, threats and direct action. The events are found to follow a seasonal pattern, related to precipitation, and their spatial distribution indicates a higher prevalence in more peripheral areas. The more detailed analysis shows, however, that these occurrences cannot be explained simply in terms of natural cycles and the technoadministrative delays in rapidly developing areas, but have important social dimensions. The chapter examines the protagonists of these events, their opponents, the instruments employed, and the specic features of events to gain access to water services, to improve the quality of service delivery and to contest control over water resources and infrastructure. The last two chapters focus explicitly on water and citizenship, emphasizing specific links between the control and management of water and the formation of citizenship rights in Mexico, and examining Mexican water policy in light of the confrontations that have underpinned its evolution since the late nineteenth century. On the one hand, as the author points out: . . . the formal granting of universal rights to essential water supplies and related services to every Mexican-born person enshrined in the revolutionary 1917 Constitution was an unprecedented historical achievement in the struggle over the territory of citizenship in the country. On the other hand, as his analysis makes clear, the numerous struggles over water and how it should be controlled including the recent debates over treating water as an economic good and giving private actors more control continue to place water at the centre of citizenship debates, in Mexico as elsewhere. The Business of Water and Sustainable Development Jonathon Chenoweth and Juliet Bird (editors), 2005, 277 pages, ISBN 1 874719 30 6. Published by and available from Greenleaf Publishing Ltd, Sheffield, UK, website: www.greenleaf-publishing.com; price: 40. This book brings together the ideas of a range of theorists and practitioners attempting to nd ways of reaching the Millennium Development Goals in the context of the recent changes in approach to water and sanitation provision, including the increased involvement of the private sector and the shift in perception from that of seeing water as a public good to one that must be paid for at a realistic supplydriven price.

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BOOK NOTES Part I looks at the general theory of improving water supply under these new paradigms, including the discussion of demand-side information, water pricing policy and the balancing act between cost implications and sustainability of supply and the importance of effective risk management. Key ndings show that information must be effectively gathered and shared in order to keep costs to a minimum, while still allowing for crucial investments for both improved water supply and resource sustainability. The second part discusses the impact of privatization and how this can best be used, including assessing the range of options available for flexible contracts, and the importance of looking beyond conventional economics in awarding contracts. A further contribution finds that the relationship between ownership and performance of water utilities is inconclusive: this finding reflects the range of opinions and options offered by the diversity of the writers of this section. Part III examines alternative technologies for improving water and sanitation service delivery, including case studies of a desalination plant for a remote island community, the use of ecological sanitation, a metering strategy to promote sustainability, and the importance of social as well as technical systems for sustainable development. This section shows the effective use of both high and appropriate low technologies for the resolution of the water crisis. Parts IV and V feature case studies in rural and urban environments, respectively. The rural section looks specically at the importance of local knowledge for project planning, and the involvement of industry in improving sustainability (chlorine industry in Guatemala). In these case studies, it is clear that the involvement of local communities and organizations is crucial, in order to maximize the use of local knowledge and to develop systems that are appropriate for the local social environment. The urban case studies in Part V stress the importance of effective structures for water supply management, over and above the existence of plentiful supplies of water. IIED Human Settlements Programme Discussion Paper Series Theme: Water The IIED Human Settlements Programme has brought out a series of discussion papers on the theme of water and the urban poor, which examine access to water for the urban poor from local water and sanitation companies and local vendors, and also issues of governance. This book note reviews discussion papers 2, 3 and 4. Governance and Getting the Private Sector to Provide Better Water and Sanitation Services to the Urban Poor Gordon McGranahan and David Satterthwaite, 2006, 37 pages, ISBN 1 84369 564 2. Human Settlements Discussion Paper Series, Theme: Water2. Published by IIED, London; this can be downloaded at no charge from www.iied.org/ pubs/pdf/full/10528IIED.pdf; printed copies are available from Earthprint Ltd, PO Box 119, Stevenage, Herts SG1 4TP, UK, website: www.earthprint.com; price: US$ 5 (UK), US$ 6 (Europe), US$ 20 (USA), US$ 10 (elsewhere), plus postage and packing. This paper notes that the debate raging between private sector and public sector delivery service systems ignores the fact that governance issues are central to efcient and equitable access to water. This paper starts by assessing the Millennium Development Goals and access to water and sanitation, stating that the ofcial statistics are often misleading, underestimating the true scale of the problem of access to water and sanitation. Sections II and III cover the reasons why a debate between public and private delivery systems can be unhelpful for equitable delivery, particularly for the urban poor. Section IV discusses the difference between the business-as-usual bureaucratic approach to governance and the more effective transparent, inclusive and integrated approach that creates opportunities for all members of civil society to take part, not just the afuent or political elite. The fth section looks at ways of improving the mechanisms for inclusivity, and Sections VI and VII examine two potential threats to this, namely the General Agreement on Trade in Services, and corruption. The paper draws the conclusion that the concerns surrounding governance for private sector participation in water services are similar to those for public sector management of water services, and that effective governance is equally necessary for both approaches. Informal Water Vendors and the Urban Poor Marianne Kjellen and Gordon McGranahan, 2006, 32 pages, ISBN 1 84369 565 0. Human Settlements Discussion Paper Series, Theme: Water3. Published by IIED, London; this can be downloaded at no charge from www.iied.org/ pubs/pdf/full/10529IIED.pdf; printed copies are available from Earthprint Ltd, PO Box 119, Stevenage, Herts SG1 4TP, UK, website: www.earthprint.com; price: US$ 5 (UK), US$ 6 (Europe), US$ 20 (USA), US$ 10 (elsewhere), plus postage and packing. This third paper in the series continues the theme of water delivery to the urban poor, concentrating on informal water vendors, providers of a crucial service to a signicant minority of the urban poor. While recognizing that much water vending does not offer an ideal solution, with many disadvantages compared to piped water delivery, water vendors are indispensable

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E N V I R O N M E N T & U R B A N I Z AT I O N as long as water delivery systems fail to provide adequate supplies to the urban poor. This paper examines how water vendors operate and whether this approach can be improved in order to deliver water services more effectively, efciently and equitably. Local Water and Sanitation Companies and the Urban Poor Gordon McGranahan and David Lloyd Owen, 2006, 32 pages, ISBN 1 84369 565 0. Human Settlements Discussion Paper Series, Theme: Water4. Published by IIED, London; this can be downloaded at no charge from www.iied.org/ pubs/pdf/full/10530IIED.pdf; printed copies are available from Earthprint Ltd, PO Box 119, Stevenage, Herts SG1 4TP, UK, website: www.earthprint.com; price: US$ 5 (UK), US$ 6 (Europe), US$ 20 (USA), US$ 10 (elsewhere), plus postage and packing. This paper examines the contribution that local water and sanitation companies make in delivering services

Vol 18 No 2 October 2006 to the urban poor. All too often, the debate on private sector participation has centred on international companies, failing to recognize the importance and prevalence of local water and sanitation companies. This paper assesses the differences between multinational, local/national and micro/informal private sector water and sanitation service providers, and goes on to outline the range of different local water and sanitation companies currently operating, which includes those operating water and sewerage utilities, independent networks, and the provision of water tankers and suction trucks for sewage disposal. The paper concludes that more consideration should be given to local companies, including a review of existing laws and regulations, in order to improve their ability to deliver services equitably and efciently.

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