This book can be considered as a significant documentation effort on this sensitive and important topic. The experiences of Policy Level Interventions for Women and Human Settlements and he nature of impact made on he women related initiatives and the nature support needed in future housing policies have been covered in this book. It brings out succinctly the role of women as reproducers and producers and as community managers contributing to the shelter development process and the specific problems of women headed house-holds in Asian, African and Latin American countries Mrs Sehgal powerfully argues the distinction to be made between practical and strategic gender need to correct the assumption that meeting women's practical needs automatically further women's strategic needs. Built on the initial conceptual frame work, the book brings out series of case studies in subsequent chapters from Asia, Africa and Central and South America, India, Sri Lanka, Peru. Each of the case studies bring vast potential and prospects for application in various project cycles with experiences of women in self-help housing programmes with grassroot level initiatives as well as involvement in construction, housing and human settlements.

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.

Red tape is a significant stumbling block to the provision of affordable shelter to the urban poor and, indeed, slums are largely the result of inappropriate regulatory frameworks. This practice-oriented manual tackles the issue of regulatory frameworks for urban upgrading and new housing development, and how they impact on access to adequate, affordable shelter and other key livelihood assets, in particular for the urban poor. It illustrates two methods for reviewing regulatory frameworks and expounds guiding principles for effecting change, informed by action research. The downloadable resources contain case studies, methods, exercises and tools, references and website links, and a video on reviewing regulatory frameworks.

The challenge of housing is increasingly recognised in international policy discussions in connection to the processes of migration, climate change, and economic globalisation. This book addresses the challenges of housing and emerging solutions along the lines of three major dynamics: migration, climate change, and neo-liberalism. It explores the outcomes of neo-liberal »enabling« ideas, responses to extreme climate events with different housing approaches, and how the dynamics of migration reshape the urban housing provision in a changing world. The aim is to contextualise the theoretical discourses by reflecting on the case study context of the eleven papers published in this book. With forewords by Raquel Rolnik (University Sao Paulo) and Mohammed El Sioufi (UN-Habitat).