This SEI report examines issues that must be addressed to foster community-led initiatives to plan, maintain, restore and expand urban nature spaces.
Lower-income and marginalized communities in urban areas often have limited access to quality urban green spaces and their benefits. This is a growing concern in in low- and lower-middle-income countries where cities are expanding rapidly, and unplanned, informal settlements are common.
The priorities for the amenities of urban green spaces in lower-income areas may differ from the priorities in higher-income areas and countries.As a result, traditional top-down planning may fail to address the needs of local populations.
This report reviews existing literature from cities in Africa, Asia and Latin America (where top-down planning approaches are commonplace), and incorporates insights from the authors’ experiences working on issues related to nature areas near a river running through an informal settlement in Kenya. The brief discusses the following:
• What are the positive and negative impacts of urban green spaces on different
groups of people?
• How can diverse population groups be empowered to offer a complementary
pathway to top-down approaches for implementing urban nature planning,
maintenance, restoration and expansion?
• What barriers keep community-led initiatives from achieving their full potential?
Initiative / This initiative investigates how rapidly growing cities affect residents' wellbeing and how this interacts with the overall health of city systems.
Initiative / The Gender Equality, Social Equity and Poverty Initiative explored the links between gender, social equity and justice, power and sustainability.
Other publication / This publication presents recommendations to help European regions strengthen climate resilience through better policy alignment.
Journal article / Reflecting on projects conducted in Kenya and Thailand, researchers have produced a six-step methodology to support others using citizen science approaches.
Other publication / This research highlights the need to treat social viability as a core part of renewable energy planning, investment and implementation.
