africa's urban poverty: This book takes a new look at the urban poverty debate at a time when there is renewed interest in urban poverty and management from the World Bank and other multilateral development agencies. It brings together contributions from academics, practitioners and urban poverty specialists to present a multi-disciplinary approach to the debate, highlighting the need to link policy, institutional, and grassroots efforts. The first part of the book considers the structural contexts: how poverty has arisen, how poverty theory has sought to increase our understanding and how the policies of municipal and national authorities have impacted on the poor The second part deals with institutional responses to urban poverty and is concerned with the possibilities for constructive action. Here, contributors look at poverty assessments that have been instigated by the World Bank and how these should be used, as well as multi-layered approaches to poverty alleviation that could be supported by donor agencies, and housing creation by governments as a method of poverty alleviation. Real case studies on the work of a South African NGO with the homeless and the work of NGO promoted microfinance programs in the Horn of Africa emphasize the initiative of the poor themselves. The third part explores the grassroots survival strategies of the poor themselves. It looks at the strategies of poor families with particular reference to womens health-seeking behavior, the plight of street children, and old women living alone in Tamale, Ghana, and considers the livelihood strategies and the significance of rural-urban linkages for the poor in Africa.

Urban Poverty in Africa : from Understanding to Alleviation The publication of this book brings together contributors from academics practitioners and urban poverty specialists to present a multi-disciplinary approach and has the advantage of discussing urban issues from different perspectives as there is rural-urban linkages with poverty. The topic of the first chapter,"Urban Poverty :some strategic consideration", explores issues of the structural contexts of urban poverty .In the second one , entitled " Coping with Urban Poverty: institutional responses " deals with institutional responses to urban poverty and about poverty assessments instigated by the WB. Then ended by the third chapter , which is entitled "Coping with Urban Poverty :Livelihoods strategies ", that explores aspects of grassroots survival strategies as it looks at the response of poor families to the challenges of the urban environment .so this book describes the contexts and structural conditions of poverty in African cities with linkage to urban issues. As we can see that the book is already divided into three main themes, so within the First chapter, the author, started by explaining the historical background of urbanization in Africa during the pre-colonial, colonial period and from 1950s, searching for the reason of the slowing pace of urbanization in Africa after its cities were urban as European ones in the past. and he discussed two important approaches for urban poverty which are structural adjustment thought the WB and IMF interventions and the participatory development one as some theories stated that "the poor are integral to the socio-economic & political system and not separate from the marginal of development process " and that assure that poverty is linked to the whole strategies of the country.so it`s interesting to start with the historical reasons for urbanization to compare the status at different African cities at the later chapters . At the following chapter , there were more details about the various definitions of urban poverty where the author raised critical questions at the conclusion regarding the effectiveness of the donors aid towards identifying the needs of the poor and I think that the donor`s agencies or even the government itself supposed to conduct deep analysis for the related poverty issues in order to serve better effective strategies that depend on facts .Then , another author argues about the role of the government , he pointed out to the linkage between the adequate urban government & the production of the city wealth , as how the cities can develop their wealth of their rural surroundings ,for instance urbanization at Sub Saharan Africa led to more food production .But the current problem now is the poor performance for urban functions by the public agencies of the state .i totally agree with the author as there must be capacity building programs to enhance the weak performance of the government within developing the urban areas cause that affect badly the poor through the unfair distribution of services and public assets .as well as the importance of organizing its actions to reduce the costs associated with urban concentration such as sanitation and drainage. At the next part of this chapter, he explained about the relation between SMEs in Africa with the macroeconomics & growth strategies and how the structural adjustment programs affected badly the African cities since 1990s. And within the last part, which focused on a case study for Harare city in Zimbabwe where a survey has been done to indicate the significant issues faced the poor people after applying the structural adjustment which apparently led to less GDP , raise the unemployment rate and decreased the subsides , so it had a terrible impact on urban livelihoods in Harare ,therefore ESAP turned its meaning to be " Ever Suffering Africa People ". This chapter was fruitful as it provided the reader with different aspects about urban poverty ending by significant case study as an example of the deteriorating conditions facing the African Urban cities nowadays . At chapter two, it started with the poverty assessments undertaken by the WB during 1993-7 and how the WB linked between knowledge and policy for poverty reduction and then moved to how to translate urban poverty analysis into a framework for action that could be acceptable to a donor agency. she argues about how the urban poverty is a complex interlinking of problems that requires concentrated efforts & strategies to be cured .therefore I think that this part is extremely important as it highlighted the necessity of detailed analysis .also the author focused on the Housing issue especially in Sub Saharan Africa where the urban housing is needed and he referred to the linkage between the employment rate and the informal sector of housing , as it`s the major output for most of the African cities development , as well as indicating the importance of encouraging the government for adapting labor based techniques for the informal sector. this part was ended by case studies such as the municipal responses to urban poverty for Gaborone city, and it`s obvious that this program covered various sectors as housing for the poor and social welfare activities, therefore this experience is worth applying in other developing countries as it`s a comprehensive one that took into consideration many aspects and provided access to land for the poor as well as enabling planning practices , access to infrastructure that led to urban development at the end . Then finally the authors discussed the livelihood strategies at different African cities ended by emphasizing on urban development as a central factor for the social and economic change in Africa. it explained too the importance of rural-urban linkages in the livelihoods of African urban dwellers . Actually the book is unique as it composed of different research papers and case studies that tried to cover various topics related to the urbanization in different African cities to give the reader a whole picture of the current situation and how the strategies taken by the governments could lead to more development in urban areas or not . there is a tendency to focus more on poverty issues and its linkage with other aspects of life , but I found that this is book worth reading for its particular perspectives , but it needs to be mention the lessons learnt from other developing countries in other regions as Asia or Latin America , in order to get wider perspective that for dealing with the urban poverty issues .