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42. Gender and Urban Sanitation Inequalities in Everyday Lives
- Author:
- Susan Esme Chaplin
- Publication Date:
- 06-2017
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for Policy Research, India
- Abstract:
- Even though sanitation was established as a separate human right by the United Nations General Assembly in January 2016, there has an been overall failure to reduce by half the proportion of the global population without access to basic sanitation (Millennium Development Goal 7, Target C). The Sustainable Development Goals have targets of gender equality, and the sustainable and universal provision of sanitation. Hopefully this will mean increased attention being given to the interests and well-being of poor women and girls living in slums and informal settlements who still lack access to adequate sanitation. The sanitation needs of women and girls are different from those of men and boys because of the former’s requirements of personal safety, dignity and menstrual hygiene; there is also the issue of the disproportionate burden of unpaid labour in managing household sanitary needs. These inequalities in urban sanitation access have a great impact on the health, well-being and socio-economic status of women and girls. These inequalities continue to exist despite efforts to make the needs of poor urban women and girls an integral part of sanitation policies and project planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Despite the emphasis of low-income countries on gender inequalities and sanitation in their development goals, programmes and projects, there is still only a limited number of qualitative and quantitative evidence-based research articles available focusing on gender and sanitation continue to be available. This number further decreases when it comes to gender and urban sanitation in the Global South. The grey literature is more numerous, particularly that commissioned by international development agencies and non-government organisations. Missing from much of this evidence-based and grey literature are studies on the broader social, economic and environmental impacts on poor women and girls of daily life without access to adequate and safe sanitation. This means that there is very little evidence-based literature which examines how these inequalities in sanitation access affect the lives of poor women and girls who have to queue each morning to use public toilets, or decide which open defecation (OD) sites are the least dangerous to use. Also missing are studies on the socio-economic, health and well-being impacts on and coping strategies of women working in the informal sector, poor women and girls with a disability, elderly women, adolescent girls and homeless women or those living on the pavements, who all lack access to adequate and safe sanitation facilities. These sanitation inequalities are exemplified by the time poor women and girls have to spend each morning queueing to use the toilet or getting up earlier to go with other women to OD sites. The necessity for such actions furthers gender inequalities because it puts at risk the time women have available for paid employment and other household responsibilities. Truelove (2011, p. 148) has argued that this ‘curtailment of opportunities (from income to education) due to water and sanitation activities reinforces a further level of physical insecurity and emotional violence, as some women become locked in a feedback cycle that brings them into distinct spaces and networks in order to access water and sanitation’. Women and girls living in slums often report instances of gender-based violence, shame and loss of dignity when walking along badly lit narrow paths to poorly designed and maintained community toilets or places of OD (Bapat & Agarwal 2003, Lennon 2011, McFarlane 2015, SHARE 2015 and Amnesty International 2010a). Phadke, Khan & Ranade (2011, p. 85), in a study of women and risk in Mumbai, have suggested that ‘[what] the lack of public toilets says is that women are less equal citizens than men and don’t deserve the same consideration’ in the design of urban spaces and the provision of urban infrastructures such as sanitation facilities. These gender inequalities continue to exist despite the use of the concept of ‘gender mainstreaming’ in water and sanitation projects since the mid-1990s, which was designed to make the needs of women and girls an integral part of sanitation policies and project planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Instead, gender has become a term that is widely used in project documents and organisational policy documents ‘but is little theorised and ill-defined in most projects and supporting policy documents’ (O‘Reilly 2010, p. 49). Gender, according to the Water and Sanitation Program (2010, p. 9): is a concept that refers to socially constructed roles, behaviour, activities and attributes that a particular society considers appropriate and ascribes to men and women. These distinct roles and the relations between them may give rise to gender inequalities where one group is systematically favoured and holds advantages over another. Inequality in the position of men and women can and has worked against societies.
- Topic:
- Gender Issues, Water, Urbanization, Women, Inequality, and Sanitation
- Political Geography:
- South Asia, India, and Asia
43. Horizontal and Vertical Inequalities Explaining Disparities in Access to Urban Sanitation
- Author:
- Aditya Bhol
- Publication Date:
- 04-2017
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for Policy Research, India
- Abstract:
- Burgeoning urbanisation coupled with policy implementation gaps have resulted in growing disparities in the provision of public infrastructure services in urban areas of India. Apart from the impact of this, a household’s ability to procure basic amenities is also subject to its economic and social condition and the prevalence of social or spatial inequalities. This paper considers a basic household amenity – toilets – and using survey data gauges a household’s likelihood of owning one based on economic and social conditions and infrastructural parameters such as water supply and drainage using a binary multivariate logistic regression model. Horizontal or social group-based inequalities, which are often neglected in the sanitation discourse in India, are found to have a significant impact on access to toilets along with the existence of disparities based on consumption expenditure and drainage. The findings ascertain the existence of multidimensional disparities at the state level, refuting centralised programmes adopted to meet Sustainable Development Goals.
- Topic:
- Infrastructure, Urbanization, Inequality, Sustainable Development Goals, and Sanitation
- Political Geography:
- South Asia, India, and Asia
44. Plugging In: A Collection of Insights on Electricity Use in Indian Homes
- Author:
- Radhika Khosla and Aditya Chunekar
- Publication Date:
- 12-2017
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Centre for Policy Research, India
- Abstract:
- Electricity use in Indian homes – from lights, ceiling fans, televisions, refrigerators, among other appliances – has increased 50 times between today and 1971, even though India’s per capita residential electricity consumption is less than a third of the world average. Residential electricity now outpaces growth in industrial, commercial and agriculture sectors. This striking statistic is on the increase, as India moves towards one of the largest urban transitions in history in the coming decades. What is the implication of this transition for household electricity use, as the urban population grows and income levels rise? What do we know about how electricity is currently used in homes across the country? And what drives our dramatically changing consumption patterns?These questions form the basis of a series on residential electricity consumption, jointly authored by the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi and the Prayas (Energy Group), Pune. The collected insights that formed the series are compiled in this document.
- Topic:
- Demographics, Energy Policy, Urbanization, and Electricity
- Political Geography:
- South Asia, India, and Asia
45. URBAN CONFLICTS IN NORTHERN AMAZON REGION: DISORDERED GROWTH OF WETLANDS/RESSACAS IN MACAPÁ
- Author:
- Bianca Moro de Carvalho
- Publication Date:
- 05-2017
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs
- Abstract:
- Internationally recognized for its immense wealth of natural resources, the Brazilian Amazon Region and its enormous forest are characterized by significant urban conflicts. The growth of illegal settlements in Amazon cities is a sad reality that has transformed the region’s space. The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate part of my doctorate investigation in which I present the squatter-settlement development process (called favelização) of wetlands in the city of Macapá where there is intense occupation of environmental protection areas for precarious housing construction. Also by virtue of such phenomenon, the Federal University of Amapá, via its extension project called “Planning with the Community,” has been seeking to answer some questions relating to informal urbanization processes and their effects on communities living in ressaca areas.
- Topic:
- Environment, Urbanization, Conflict, and Settlements
- Political Geography:
- Brazil, South America, and Amazon Basin
46. A Comparison of Hindu and Muslim Caste System in Sub-Continent
- Author:
- Ahmed Usman
- Publication Date:
- 01-2017
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- South Asian Studies
- Institution:
- Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
- Abstract:
- Caste system is an essential feature of both Hindu and Muslim societies in the sub-continent. This paper compares the dynamics of traditional caste system practiced across Hindus and Muslims of India and Pakistan respectively. Birth-ascribed statuses, definite occupations, hierarchical positioning of caste groups and endogamous form of marriage are found to be the common characteristics of caste system practiced across Indian Hindus and Pakistani Muslims. In the Hindu caste system, membership in a Jati determines the rules and regulations regarding food and touch ability for the members through socio-religious rituals of purity and impurity. In contrast the notions and rituals of pure and impure are virtually absent in Muslim Pakistan. Caste system in both India and Pakistan is decaying with time because of the increasingly urbanization. However, geographical isolation and long established social structures in rural India and Pakistan are the favorable conditions that uphold the caste practices.
- Topic:
- Religion, Culture, Urbanization, and Inequality
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, South Asia, India, and Punjab
47. Does Unplanned Urbanization Pose a Disease Risk in Asia? The Case of Avian Influenza in Vietnam
- Author:
- Sumeet Saksena
- Publication Date:
- 01-2017
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- East-West Center
- Abstract:
- Cities are expanding very rapidly in Asia, often without adequate housing, transportation, water, or sanitation. ese new “peri-urban” areas may be hot spots for disease, both in humans and domestic animals. Research into the possible link between unplanned urban expansion and disease outbreaks compared patterns of land-use change with two major outbreaks in Vietnam of highly pathogenic avian in uenza (HPAI, subtype H5N1) that killed millions of chickens between 2003 and 2005. Work began by classifying communes into land-use categories: rural, peri-urban, urban, and urban core. e study found that peri-urban communes had at least a 150 percent higher risk of experiencing an H5N1 outbreak than did other types of commune, and that urbanization entails a spatial convergence of several key risk factors for H5N1 transmission. By focusing prevention programs on communes with these factors, the Vietnamese government can potentially improve disease prevention at lower cost. is research may also help explain the epidemi- ology of other infectious diseases, both in humans and livestock.
- Topic:
- Health, Urbanization, and International Development
- Political Geography:
- Asia
48. A Political Economy Framework for the Urban Data Revolution
- Author:
- Benjamin Edwards, Solomon Greene, and G. Thomas Kingsley
- Publication Date:
- 04-2016
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Urban Institute
- Abstract:
- As the global population grows increasingly urbanized, city governments will assume ever-greater responsibility for addressing the challenges of poverty, inequality, and environmental sustainability. To meet these challenges effectively, city leaders must base their efforts on good data and reliable evidence. This paper develops a framework for understanding the conditions under which city leaders access, analyze, and apply data to solve problems. We also suggest how the new UN Sustainable Development Goals can help overcome the institutional constraints and competing incentives that cities face in using data to drive decisionmaking for sustainable development.
- Topic:
- Urbanization, Sustainable Development Goals, International Development, and Cities
- Political Geography:
- United Nations and Global Focus
49. Gateways to the World: Port Cities in the Gulf
- Author:
- Center for International and Regional Studies
- Publication Date:
- 09-2016
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for International and Regional Studies: CIRS
- Abstract:
- Glittering skylines, high urbanization rates, and massive development projects in the Gulf have increasingly attracted the attention of urban development scholars and practitioners. Within the GCC, an average of 88 percent of the total population lives in cities, while on average only 56 percent of Yemen, Iraq, and Iran’s populations lives in urbanized spaces. The tempo and spatial ethos of urbanization in the Gulf differ markedly from patterns of traditional urbanism in other developing countries. Within a matter of decades, Gulf port cities have rapidly evolved from regional centers of cultural and economic exchange to globalizing cities deeply embedded within the global economy. Explicitly evident features of Gulf cities such as international hotel chains, shopping centers, and entertainment complexes have classified these cities as centers of consumption. Other urban trends, such as exhibition and conference centers, media and knowledge cities, and branch campuses of Western universities have integrated Gulf cities within numerous global networks. From the advent of oil discovery until the present day, forces of economic globalization and migration, national conceptualizations of citizenship, and various political and economic structures have collectively underpinned the politics of urban planning and development. While oil urbanization and modernization direct much of the scholarship on Gulf cities, understanding the evolution of the urban landscape against a social and cultural backdrop is limited within the academic literature. For instance, within the states of the GCC, the citizen-state-expatriates nexus has largely geared the vision and planning of urban real-estate mega-projects. These projects reflect the increasing role of expatriates as consumers and users of urban space, rather than as mere sources of manpower utilized to build the city. Other state initiatives, such as the construction of cultural heritage mega-projects in various Gulf cities, reveal the state’s attempts to reclaim parts of the city for its local citizens in the midst of a growing expatriate urban population.
- Topic:
- International Political Economy, Migration, Urbanization, and Citizenship
- Political Geography:
- Middle East
50. Understanding India’s Urban Frontier: What Is behind the Emergence of Census Towns in India?
- Author:
- Partha Mukhopadhyay, Marie-Hélène Zérah, Gopa Samanta, and Augustin Maria
- Publication Date:
- 12-2016
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for Policy Research, India
- Abstract:
- This paper presents the results of an investigation of selected census towns in northern India. Census towns are settlements that India’s census classifies as urban although they continue to be governed as rural settlements. The 2011 census featured a remarkable increase in the number of census towns, which nearly tripled between 2001 and 2011, from 1,362 to 3,894. This increase contributed to nearly a third (29.5 percent) of the total increase in the urban population during this period. Only part of this evolution can be attributed to the gradual urbanization of settlements in the vicinity or larger towns. Instead, the majority of census towns appear as small “market towns,” providing trade and other local services to a growing rural market. The case studies of representative census towns in Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, and West Bengal show the role of increased connectivity and growing rural incomes in driving the demand for the small scale and non-tradable services, which are the main sources of nonfarm employment in these settlements.The case studies also reveal that the trade-offs between urban and rural administrative statuses are actively debated in many of these settlements. Although statistical comparisons do not show a significant impact of urban or rural administrative status on access to basic services, urban status is often favored by the social groups involved in the growing commercial and services sectors, and resisted by the residents still involved in the traditional farming sectors.
- Topic:
- Urbanization, Economy, Census, and Rural
- Political Geography:
- South Asia, India, and Asia