In all areas of academic or practical work related to disaster risk, climate change and development more generally, community and its adjunct community-based have become the default terminology when referring to the local level or working ‘with the people’. The terms are applied extensively to highlight what is believed to be a people-centred, participatory, or grassroot-level approach. Today, despite, or because of, its inherent ambiguity, ‘community’ tends to be used almost inflationarily. This paper aims to analyse the way the concept of ‘community’ has come into fashion, and to critically reflect on the problems that come with it. We are raising significant doubts about the usefulness of ‘community’ in development- and disaster-related work. Our approach is to first consider how ‘community’ has become popular in research and with humanitarian agencies and other organisations based on what can be considered a ‘moral licence’ that supposedly guarantees that the actions being taken are genuinely people-centred and ethically justified. We then explore several theoretical approaches to ‘community’, highlight the vast scope of different (and contested) views on what ‘community’ entails, and explain how ‘community’ is framing practical attempts to mitigate vulnerability and inequity. We demonstrate how these attempts are usually futile, and sometimes harmful, due to the blurriness of ‘community’ concepts and their inherent failure to address the root causes of vulnerability. From two antagonistic positions, we finally advocate more meaningful ways to acknowledge vulnerable people’s views and needs appropriately.

Cities in sub-Saharan Africa are currently confronted with a multitude, and hitherto unexperienced, magnitude of transformative phenomena such as rising inequality, exclusion, poverty and increased residency in informal settlements. These stressors are posing challenges to cities in terms of housing, infrastructure and provision of basic services as well as climate change adaptation. Despite the high dynamics and novel characteristics of city transformation, this urban transition seems to take place rather ‘quietly’ and has, so far, obviously hardly been understood or appreciated by researchers and governments. Subsequently, the multifaceted and extremely challenging problems associated with the process of urbanisation cannot be adequately addressed. Green infrastructure (GI) is currently emerging as a concept for cost-effective urban sustainability and livelihood security. Preservation and provision of accessible urban green spaces is increasingly recognised as an essential part of the liveability of cities. Extensive literature review revealed that the systematic integration of GI concepts in urban planning is seen by an increasing number of researchers as an essential approach to tackle major current and future challenges. Based on the literature review, we suggest that broadening the concept of urban GI by linking it to governance and rights-based conceptualisations will have the potential to unlock more resourceful paths for sustainable, green, and inclusive urban development of cities in Southern and Eastern Africa.

Inner-city transportation looms large in big cities in the so-called Global South due to rapid population and urban growth. To tackle this challenge, a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system was implemented in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) in 2016. This paper reports on the results of a pilot study on the impacts of the BRT on city development and livelihoods in Dar. Our pilot study, which is part of the collaborative research project LIPSINDAR (Linking Partners for a Sustainable and Inclusive Dar es Salaam), was not designed to provide a comprehensive insight into the problems of urban planning, infrastructure modification and their impact on urban livelihoods. Rather, using the example of Dar es Salaam, the study served as an entry point to highlight challenges and future research demands in the context of urban insecurities and risks in large cities of the Global South. In particular, our study investigated the BRT as an element of critical infrastructure in Dar es Salaam and probed into its impact on residents’ livelihoods, focusing on the influence of service disruptions on everyday routines, and on different stakeholders’ views on the functionality of the BRT. Elaborating on this topic, interviews, street vendor surveys and mappings were used as methods to describe the processes. To examine the results more closely, the outcome was divided into groups of different fields of activity, namely Traffic Management, Local Residents, City Administration, Basic Provision Services and Street Vendors. In summary, the pilot study confirms that the implementation of the BRT system has, in general, served to improve urban livelihoods. Reducing commuting times and enhancing access to basic services found positive results. There is, however, still potential for improvement: the bus network, in particular, needs to be expanded and the vulnerability to natural extreme events, especially flooding, needs to be addressed.

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Disaster-related internal displacement is on the rise in many countries and is increasingly becoming an urban phenomenon. For many people, as in the case of the earthquake disaster 2015 in Nepal, protracted or multiple disaster displacements are a lived reality. While the drivers of displacement are relatively well understood, significant uncertainties remain regarding the factors that trigger prolonged or secondary displacement and impede ending of displacement or achieving durable solutions. The purpose of this article is to illustrate and theorise the discourse of reconstruction and return that shapes experiences, strategies, and policies in order to gain a better understanding of the obstacles to pursuing durable solutions that are still shaping the reality of life for urban internally displaced people (IDPs) in Kathmandu Valley. I use the concepts of ‘fields of practice’ and ‘disaster justice’ to provide insights into the theorisation of the links between social inequality, structural forms of governance, and the reconstruction process itself. Findings demonstrate that the application of these concepts has great potential to expand our understanding of ‘realities of life’ and practices of IDPs, and thus contribute to a more differentiated evidence base for the development and implementation of appropriate disaster risk reduction policies and practices.