Managing the Urban Transition at the Local Level in Tanzania and Ethiopia

The rapid growth of urban population is a universal phenomen throughout the developing countries. By 2015 more than 50 per cent of Third World populations will live in an urban centre. A central issue in research on small-scale urbanisation is that of urb an poverty. Much of the earlier research on this theme focused on the large and primate cities. As the project will investigate urban poverty in smaller urban centres, it will add new knowledge to the problematic for the governments, donors and for the in ternational research community. By using both qualitative and quantitative methods, the project aims to: -Study how local authorities are managing the urban transition including how small urban centres are governed, and its implications for the u rban poor. - Obtaining information on survival strategies connected to informal institutions, thereby giving an understanding of how poor people organise themselves. Such empirical knowledge demonstrates how important these networks are, compared to the services offered by local governments. -Elaborate on urban environmental issues as well as housing markets, by focusing on people's access to services, as well as showing how the infrastructure in the towns is coping with the increased ur ban populat ion.