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Editors introduction, volume 11, numbers 2 and 3
Editorial Deborah Eade
It is my great pleasure to introduce David Westendorff as Guest Editor of this double issue of Development in Practice. David has long been a friend of the journal, having both written and refereed articles, as well as taking a lively and critical interest in its development. He is currently a research coordinator at the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) in Geneva, and has worked extensively in Peru and China, where he coordinated multiple research projects on urban development and planning issues, as he has also done in Brazil, Mexico, India, South Africa, and the USA.
Among development agencies in general, and specifically in the NGO sector, there is a continuing reluctance fully to engage with issues of urbanisation. The prevailing attitude is either that cities are a problem in and of themselves and shouldnt be encouraged, or that their residents enjoy better facilities and so are less needy than their rural counterparts, or that the challenges posed by rapid urbanisation are simply too big, too expensive, and too complicated to handle. A glance through the grants lists and literature of some of the best-known international NGOs suggests that, in part because of their short-term or project-bound focus, if they get involved at all, most find it easier to deal with the specific problems of specific population groups in the towns and cities of the Southstreet-children and sex-workers topping the listrather than getting involved in the messier processes of urban management, such as housing or transport or public amenities. Ironically, the largest human settlements in which many NGOs take a more holistic approach to the planning and management of basic services are refugee campsusually cramped and often squalid settements that earn their description as rural slumsbut again their involvement is characteristically short term rather than open ended or processual.
In his Guest Editorial, David Westendorff underlines the importance of making discussions about sustainability in the urban sector accessible to those institutions of civil society who (potentially) have a pivotal role to play in influencing policy debates and shaping practicethe grassroots activists, community- or neighbourhood-based organisations, social movments, and NGOs, among many others. Development in Practice is privileged to have been chosen to disseminate the enormous breadth of professional and practical experience, and cultural backgrounds, reflected here. We trust that this double issue will help to break down some of the barriers and prejudices that so often limit our understanding of and approaches to urban problems (and their solutions), and to stimulate new thinking in this area.
In association with UNRISD, we shall be publishing this double issue in book form as a Development in Practice Reader, under the title Development and Cities. You can find out more about this and other titles in the Readers series by visiting our websitedevelopmentinpractice.orgour brand-new one-stop shop for Development in Practice.
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