Name Sennan Mattar Programme, Year mphil/PhD, 1st Year Project Title

Name

Sennan Mattar

Programme, Year

MPhil/PhD, 1st Year

Project Title

An investigation into socio-environmental challenges and proliferation of informal settlements in Zambia from a climate justice perceptive.

Background to the project

It has been well-documented the threat to food security and access to water posed by climate change in Sub-Saharan Africa (Thompson et al, 2010; Ludwig et al, 2009), specifically the increased risk of persistent drought caused by reduction in overall precipitation (Barrios et al, 2006) and the disproportionate impact these changes have on the poor (Dahou et al, 2010). However, the majority of literature and policy responses have focused on adaptive measures in rural poor populations whilst limited research has explored adaptive measures for urban poor (Satterthwaite et al, 2007; Crush and Frayne, 2010).

This discrepancy in research does not reflect the upward trend in urbanisation that has been observed globally, but more relevant to this study, rapid urbanisation in Sub-Saharan Africa has already increased the total population living in urban areas from 27% in 1990 to 37% by 2014 and further growth is predicted to continue with 55% living in urban areas by 2050 (UN, 2014¹). The results of this rapid urbanisation are that local governments in the developing world have been unable to accommodate urban poor with the necessary infrastructure (WHO, 2010; WHO, 2005). In the case of Sub-Saharan Africa, this translates into 62% of the urban population living in informal settlements/slums in 2012 (UN, 2014²).
Zambia is especially relevant for a study of informal settlements/slums due to having one of the highest fertility rates in Africa (6.2 children per woman) and being the most urbanised county in Sub-Saharan Africa (excluding South Africa), with 35-40% of population living in urban areas (Ministry of Finance and National Planning, 2010; UN, 2015).