This study examines the role of politics on decentralization and service delivery in South Africa, with a specific focus on Johannesburg and Cape Town. The research delineates how national decentralization has affected service delivery responsibilities an

We examine the implications of the rise of a middle class in East and Southern Africa for food consumption patterns and the food system. A unique classification of food items shows that highly processed food has one-third of the purchased food market, wit

Drawing on insights from Latin America, this paper examines the factors that contributed to the use of populist strategies by political parties during recent presidential elections in Kenya, South Africa, and Zambia. Specifically, the paper argues that the nature of party competition in Africa,...

This paper overviews the debate on the relationship between the measures of globalization, economic growth and pace of urbanization, and speculates on its impact on the quality of life and poverty in the context of Asian countries. After experiencing moderate to high urban growth for three to...

Recent efforts to reinvigorate the connections between urban planning and health have usefully brought the field back to one of its original roles. Current research, however, has focused on industrialized cities, overlooking some of the important urbanization processes in poor countries. This...

This paper aims at economic analysis of economic globalization and urban growth of Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India, as they are related to ICT sector. Overall analyses offer new insights and evidences for ICT sector as a major contributor for degree of economic globalization and urban...

Urbanization is one of the critical global trends shaping the future of humanity. At the same time, it has been argued that full development requires an urbanized environment. This paper attempts to examine and characterize the major phases of urbanizatio

Accepting that successful 'development' is premised on a population's participation in a collective undertaking, we must understand urban residents' interactions and ambitions. In African cities being transformed by geographic and social mobility, it is u

Indonesia went through a process of fiscal decentralization in 2001 involving the devolution of several policymaking and service delivery functions to the subnational tiers of government (provinces and districts). This process is likely to have affected r

Do local improvements in infrastructure provision improve city competitiveness? What public finance mechanisms stimulate local infrastructure supply? And how do local efforts compare with national decisions of placing inter-regional trunk infrastructure? In this paper, we examine how the...