 |
|
In This Update:
Coronavirus Illuminates Legacy of Apartheid-Era Housing Policies in South Africa
In Zimbabwe, Thousands of Illegal Vendor Stalls Demolished During Lockdown
UN-Habitat Publishes Report on COVID-19 in African Cities
Beijing Faces New Coronavirus Outbreak
Creating Access to Safe Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor in Kenya
This Week in Photos
In the News And Around the Web
|
Coronavirus Illuminates Legacy of Apartheid-Era Housing Policies in South Africa
In South Africa, coronavirus has exposed the lasting inequalities stemming from apartheid-era housing policies. The virus has disproportionately hit majority-black informal settlements which are frequently overcrowded and lack access to safe water and sanitation. The City of Cape Town plans to distribute 41 million liters of water to facilitate handwashing to contain the spread of the virus, but it still faces a shortage of test kits, healthcare staff, and hospital beds exacerbates the situation. Researcher Edward Molopi says: "We are seeing townships become virus hotspots because we haven't dismantled the apartheid city...During apartheid black people had to live in sub-standard, crowded unsanitary conditions, far from economic opportunity. Not much has changed."
|
In Zimbabwe, Thousands of Illegal Vendor Stalls Demolished During Lockdown
In Zimbabwe, local authorities have destroyed thousands of illegally built vendor stalls since the start of the country's coronavirus lockdown. In Harare, the local government says it is only trying to legitimize informal trade and ensure city councils are not losing out on potential revenue. They also promise to grant vendors new spaces at the end of the lockdown. But, vendors rights advocates accuse the government of taking advantage of the COVID-19 lockdown to destroy the stalls amid an economic crisis and food shortages. The government pledged to administer $7.20 per month to help residents through the lockdown, but critics say it is not enough for the informal workers, who comprise ¾ of the country's economy and are now facing acute food insecurity.
|
UN-Habitat Publishes Report on COVID-19 in African Cities
UN-Habitat released the report "COVID-19 in African Cities: Impacts, Responses, and Polices," this week. Decades of rapid and poorly managed urbanization in Africa have led to the proliferation of informal settlements and severe infrastructure and service deficits which makes the challenge of confronting the virus especially daunting. UN-Habitat and its partners offer six policy recommendations for African governments: engage with local communities, support small and medium-sized businesses and the informal economy, strengthen local government capacities, apply a data-driven approach to informal settlements, promote access to housing and prevent forced evictions, and integrate urban planning and management as key priorities for recovery and long-term resilience.
|
Beijing Faces New Coronavirus Outbreak
An outbreak of coronavirus infections in Beijing is shedding light on what may happen in other parts of the world as they reopen. Beijing reimposed a partial lockdown earlier this week following 56 consecutive days of no new locally acquired cases. The city has sealed off neighborhoods, cancelled flights, shut schools, and medical workers have tested tens of thousands of residents. The Director of Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention says the outbreak, which originated in the Xinfadi market may have circulated among vendors and workers a month before being reported. An official summary of a city leaders' meeting on Wednesday noted: "The situation for epidemic control is very grim...this has sounded a warning to us."
|
|
Creating Access to Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor in Kenya
Creating access to safe water and sanitation for the urban poor in Kenya will require a systems-change approach, writes Eden Mati-Mwangi at Urbanet. Most of Kenya's urban population live in densely populated and unsewered areas which make them more vulnerable to infectious diseases. Mati-Mwangi explains that while previous efforts have sought to improve water and sanitation, few have proved affordable for residents. She advocates for a systems-wide approach that will strengthen city-wide sanitation through targeted interventions at multiple levels of sanitation system. Mati-Mwnagi believes this approach will succeed because it will truly focus on understanding the constraints the poorest face and then target those constraints at multiple levels of the sanitation market.
|
|
This Week in Photos
-
Lima's Urban Poor Battle COVID-19: Seventy percent of the indigenous Peruvian community of Cantagallo Island have tested positive for coronavirus.
-
Coronavirus and the Relic of Soviet-Era Communal Apartments:
In St. Petersburg, 500,000 people live in dilapidated communal apartments where self-isolation is near impossible.
|
|
In The News and Around the Web
-
The Black Community Braces for Evictions: Black and Hispanic people rent at twice the rate as their white counterparts and may be most in danger of eviction when the federal moratorium on evictions ends.
-
Curfews in American Cities:
There is a racial history to curfews in the United States, writes Linda Poon at CityLab.
-
The Growth of Police Budgets in American Cities:
Over the past decades, police budgets expanded in American cities while funding for anti-poverty programs and social services shrank.
|
|
Residents in the Bashnya communal apartment in St. Petersburg share 100 square meters with little personal space. (Sergey Ponomarev/The New York Times)
|
The COVID 19 crisis underscores the vital importance of livable cities and decent living conditions globally. It sadly demonstrates the mobility of diseases within and between urban centers and across borders and the vulnerability of people who have inadequate health care and sanitation. They cannot social distance or self isolate. Decent living conditions for one billion people worldwide is a fundamental building block of future pandemic prevention as well as societal and economic stability. Now more than ever, we need your financial support and your voice to bring about chage.
Please make a contribution to support IHC Global's fight for equitable urban development around the world. Any amount will make a difference! We thank you for your support!
|
|
|
|
Head Office: 5425 Wisconsin Ave, Ste 600, Chevy Chase, MD 20815
Satellite Office: 430 N. Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60611
|
|
|
|
|
