How can peri-urban research better inform sustainable urbanization?

Our man on the ground in Asia, Jyotiraj Patra, recently attended the Peri-urban Development: Concept, Emerging Ideas and Notions of Sustainability conference in Madras. Here he gives us his personal insight into the event. 

Key Take-outs:

• One in every three people will live in cities by 2030 (UN, 2016). This rapid and often unplanned urbanization poses new challenges for economic, social and environmental well-being.
• It is mostly the peri-urban spaces – areas which are closer to cities and relatively less urbanized – which get transformed, and knowledge of these unfolding linkages are critical to understand urbanization issues such as food and water security, flood mitigation, poverty alleviation, energy and transport provision.
• Greater collaboration and co-production - particularly with the private sector - along with an increase in research capacity are essential if we are truly going to make our cities sustainable.

Urbanization is going to increase and intensify in scale. According to the World’s Cities in 2016, by 2030, one in every three people will live in cities (UN, 2016). Rapid and unplanned urbanization have posed new challenges of economic, social and environmental well-being. The outcomes and impacts are likely to be more pronounced in the urbanizing Asia and Africa. Although these regions remain relatively less urbanized at the moment, at 40 and 48 per cent respectively, it is estimated that more than 90 per cent of the projected growth of 2.5 billion urban population will be concentrated in these regions. This has also resulted in the rise of megacities in these regions. For example, India will have seven megacities* by 2030.

Foot prints of such urban transformation and the associated processes and outcomes grow beyond the geographic limit of a city. These processes are deeply intertwined with, and rely on, land, labour and capital from far and near. For most part, it is the peri-urban spaces – areas which are closer to cities and relatively less urbanized – which get transformed and subsequently integrated in to the overall urbanization process.

Such urban - peri-urban linkages are emerging, diverse in nature and very much context specific. Knowledge of these unfolding linkages in a variety of contexts and their outcomes are critical to understand and address many of the pressing issues of sustainable urbanization. For example, the recently launched New Urban Agenda encourages countries to properly plan and manage these linkages to maximize productivity and enhance sustainability.

Peri-urban research in the global south has emerged as a priority for many research funders, national governments, academic institutes, think tanks and others communities of practice. In addition, there are many north-south research collaborations to understand the multi-dimensional nature of these linkages in variety of contexts.

This growing portfolio of research projects and network of researchers have been at the forefront of knowledge generation and dissemination on the ways peri-urban spaces could be better planned and managed. But most of these research and knowledge generation processes remain dis-jointed in nature with limited exchange and collaboration among themselves and also with the people responsible for urban planning and policy decisions.

With an aim to deliberate on some of these issues, the  Indo-German Centre for Sustainability (IGCS) at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) and the Bangalore-based think tank Centre for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP) jointly hosted the Peri-urban Development: Concept, Emerging Ideas and Notions of Sustainability conference in Madras.

Insightful and interesting research projects on diverse issues of peri-urban such as agriculture, nutrition, water security, flood mitigation, energy, transport, social resilience, multi-dimensional poverty, governance, inclusion were discussed. Of particular interest were the lessons and insights from India’s newly launched National Rurban Mission (NRuM), the European Commission-funded PLUREL project (Peri-urban Land Use Relationships - Strategies and Sustainability Assessment Tools for Urban-Rural Linkages) and new approaches to regional planning from the Rurh region in Germany.

This was also a great opportunity for us to share some of our peri-urban work in south Asia and learn from others. With ESPA’s renewed focus on impact, we also took this opportunity to initiate a collective understanding among the research community to identify the emerging opportunities to effectively address the evidence needs of planners and decision-makers. In recent times, south Asian cities and governments have initiated many urban rejuvenation and development programmes and are also part of global initiatives such as the UNISDR-led Making Cities Resilient campaign and are actively contributing to the design and implementation of the SDGs at various scales.

How can peri-urban/research better inform some of these initiatives in the region and contribute to many of these sustainable urbanization initiatives, including the SDG 11 targets?

Some of the key processes identified and agreed towards this end were:

a)      Greater research collaboration: The need for greater collaboration and learning among various peri-urban/urban research projects and networks came up quite strongly. This is essential not only to learn who is doing what but to develop a common and collective understanding of the evidence base on peri-urban issues in a city, cluster, country or region. Such a collective effort is also crucial to ensure the timely availability and accessibility of vital research information and insights to the wider public and other interested stakeholders.

b)      Co-production: Researchers and research projects quite often find it difficult to engage with and inform policy processes. Mis-match in priorities, cultures, and timings are some of the underlying factors. It was suggested to think beyond the existing binary of research producers and users and move towards a co-production knowledge system which involves active and meaningful participation of policy makers, planners, private sector and practitioners. Private sector investments plays a significant role in urbanization and hence the need to have them on board as part of the knowledge generation process.

c)       Capacity development of young researchers: As more young researchers venture into this exciting field of peri-urban research, there is a need to develop capacities of these researchers to effectively engage with, and gain the confidence of, policy makers and planners. Specialised skills and capacity development programmes on research communication, research-into-use and policy engagement should become part of regular research projects and masters’ and PhDs’ curriculum.

ESPA, as an international, interdisciplinary research programme, has been supporting some of these above-mentioned activities but there are more needs and opportunities out there. We hope research programmes, funders, research networks and private sectors would rise to the occasion and invest in these activities for improved use of research in policy and practice.

(*Megacity is an urban area with a population of 10 million)

Featured image courtesy of the Asian Development Bank