In one of the tented settlements of 300 Syrian families — most escaping the bombardment of Homs — in the Lebanese town of Bar Elias, sunset and the call to prayer marks an end to a day of Ramadan fasting. The iftar meal, surrounded by eager family members, sits on the floor of makeshift shelters constructed from tarpaulins, some with UNHCR stamped on them. The rooms are creatively divided by cloth walls, improvising a fragile separation of living space. 1.5 million Syrian refugees, 20,000 refugees from other places and a long-standing population of Palestinians[i] give Lebanon, with a population of…

Analytics based on mathematics can solve important real world problems. Applied mathematical modelling belongs to a discipline called Operational Research which was developed in Britain at the time of the First World War when planning based on systematic analysis was enlisted in the war effort. Few real world problems are more important than the impact of climate change on people’s lives, especially in those places on the climate change front line. Vietnam — with its long coastline, increasing rainfall and danger of flooding — is one of these hotspots.

A British Academy-funded research project, led by Professor Maria Paola Scaparra[i]…

Public transport forms the vital arteries of city life. Without it everyday life is difficult and slow as people navigate gridlocked traffic in cities like Nairobi where movement is measured in inches and faster on foot. Public transport infrastructure makes a city run: it is a crucial part of city life and vitality. With only a fledgling public transport system, Lahore — already a megacity of over 11 million and rising — badly needs a mass transit system.

The Orange Line

The orange line is a 26.2 km train line and part of a larger system that will provide mass…

A social enterprise called Safetipin has devised an app women can use to map their sense of safety and danger as they go about their everyday lives. This technological solution is aimed at making Indian cities safer for women to navigate. Safetipin is the local partner in a British Academy-funded project led by Ayona Datta of King’s College London, which aims to improve women’s access to safe infrastructure and which is being trialled in Trivandrum and Kochi1. India’s National Crime Record Bureau (2016) records alarming increases in the rape of women and girls2. …

It is impossible to imagine the experience of getting around Kampala until you are trying to push your way along one of the city’s main streets. Kampala has a population of 1.5 million (https://www.ubos.org/onlinefiles/uploads/ubos/2014CensusProfiles/KAMPALA-KCCA.pdf) and it feels as though they are all on its main street at the same time. A jumble of motorised vehicles — trucks delivering merchandise, private cars, 14 seater collective taxis, busses, literally thousands of motor cycles, many of them working as taxis, known as Boda-Bodas, some of them organised through Uber — tangle with pedestrians forced off the narrow pavements as they navigate parked vehicles…

Walking in the Katwe informal settlement (slum) on the edge of Kampala is difficult because torrential rain has turned its red dirt roads into rivers. Even as the rain subsides, the deep drainage ditches are full, and pitted roads shimmer with muddy puddles. Spilling out of tiny (rented) cement houses — a family in each room — children gather in small groups; mothers wash clothes and hang them on lines to dry and clean vegetables for dinner.

Waste and Water

The water for these domestic duties comes from outdoor taps owned by households who able to pay for a piped…

Nairobi, which has a population of 6.5 million, has doubled its size since 2009 (http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/nairobi-population/). Nowhere is urban population expansion more keenly felt than on the streets — the circuits of circulation that make cities run. Or not.

Naming the progress of the taxi I am sitting in and the long periods of not moving at all as a ‘traffic jam’, I am swiftly informed by my local colleagues that this is ‘not a jam’. A traffic jam ‘is when you switch off the engine and go to sleep’. It is office closing time and armies of workers are marching…

The northern city of Tamale, which has a population of just under a quarter of a million, like the rest of Ghana, is getting hotter. In fact its temperatures are rising faster than the global average, putting it among the front-line cities at risk from deadly heat. Tamale is also experiencing severe flooding. Both types of extreme weather conditions may be made worse by climate change.

Experiencing High Temperatures

Funded by the British Academy Cities and Infrastructure Programme, researchers from Loughbrough University, the University of Ghana and the University for Development Studies in Tamale led by Professor Katherine Gough have…