A publication of the Gender Research in Urbanisation, Planning, Housing and Everyday Life (GRUPHEL) Research network, aiming to play an active role, and adopt a capacity building approach to meet the huge challenges of human settlement development, sustainable urban housing, and changes in social structures in Southern Africa. The book brings together contributions from thirteen women and six men from seven Southern African and Scandinavian countries. Contents: housing provision and home-ownership schemes amongst low-income groups; a gendered case study of Bulawayo; exploration into changing gender roles in self-help housing construction in Botswana; women and housing insecurity in Malawi; housing policy and institutional practice in Swaziland; participation and sanitation technology from a gender perspective; housing and survival strategies of Basotho urban women tenants; black women building contractors in South Africa; and the privatisation of public housing and the exclusion of women: a case study in Lusaka, Zambia.

Be it a house or a makeshift, a shared or rented room, or a home of one's own, a place to live is central in the survival strategies of all urban households. In this volume the above authors explore the gendered experiences of housing and housing rights in African countries. The collection begins with articles on conceptual and methodological problems in gender-aware research. The following articles present cases showing a wide variety in housing experiences, a variety which depends on urban setting, tenure forms, stage in the life cycle or other factors. There are many differences but also many similarities in the pattern of women not having the same access and control over housing as men have. While women are often the main bread-winners, they are also the home-makers, in the literal sense that it is women who put intense efforts into making a place home.

The volume presents a pan-African perspective, giving an overview of the 'African debt dilemma', causes, effects and policy options. It presents case studies on virtually all the southern, central- southern, and east African countries, and comparative studies on debt and poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa in general, and in the SADC region in particular. An entire section is devoted to theoretical perspectives, covering topics such as debt forgiveness initiatives and poverty alleviation; debt, poverty, compliance and the classics of regression; the urbanisation of poverty, and dichotomous poverty alleviation strategies; and population variables.

Presents a selection of papers from the programme, which is intended to provide further knowledge through capturing voices of men and women across generations to represent the elderly, adults, boys and girls in different positions within the urban context.

There is little research easily available on how gender relates to urbanisation and housing in Africa. This is a compilation of documentary sources in Southern Africa, and elsewhere, covering subject areas such as gender and housing policy, income and urban settlements, environment, justice and land acquisition. It served as a reference tool for the GRUPHEL (Gender Research on Urbanisation, Planning, Housing and Everyday Life) project. The study provides over a hundred detailed entries, physical locations of documents and full contact details of the information sources. Limaktso Ranko is the Documentalist at the Institute of Southern African Studies, National University of Lesotho, and an expert in information management and research economics.

This is a study of everyday life and the quality of living in a poor neighbourhood of Chitungwiza, an independent Zimbabwean town about thrity kilometres south of Harare city centre.