Urban water sustainability challenges in the Global South

Abubakari Ahmed, World Bank
Nazia Hussain, University of Tokyo

Alexandros Gasparatos, University of Tokyo

[Presentation 1]
Urban flooding in West Africa is not only a technical challenge but a governance and equity issue. This study explores how integrated engineering and social interventions reshape flood and coastal risk, social vulnerability, and community resilience in Ghanaian and Liberian coastal cities. The study employs a mixed-methods approach, where quantitative 2D hydrodynamic modeling and benefit-cost analysis are combined with participatory stakeholder workshops, qualitative assessments of community adaptation, and institutional mapping. Findings reveal that while channel conveyance upgrades yield the largest reduction in expected annual damages (41–70%) and lower populations exposed to >30 cm flooding community-based resilience strategies—such as household preparedness and local coordination—significantly reduce social vulnerability and enhance adaptive capacity, even where physical hazard remains. The research discusses the importance of inclusive governance, and the role of local knowledge in shaping interventions. Implications highlight the need for co-produced solutions, robust early warning systems, and financing models that prioritize both infrastructural and social investments for sustainable urban resilience.

[Presentation 2]
Discussions on informality in cities in the Global South remain focused on either poor governance or neoliberalist urban planning. Yet, these systemic explanations do not explain why informality persists despite continued policy interventions. A relational perspective lends insights in why informality remains intrinsic to urban governance and why understanding the nature of pre-existing inequities is crucial for adaptation responses towards equitable and sustainable futures. Drawing on urban political ecology and mixed methods, this talk brings evidence from Karachi, Pakistan, and Metro Manila, Philippines. Analysis reveals that water informality persists due to patronage relationships between political players and residents, brokerage through community leaders, political players (and NGOs in Metro Manila), and government officials, crowding out of collective action against exploitation due to differentiated water access and coping responses to water shortages by residents, selective criminalization in Karachi, and shifting responsibilities of access to the urban poor in Manila. Unless these root causes entrenching inequities are considered, adaptive responses to increasing climate and environmental risks will be counterproductive.

Abubakari Ahmed is an Urban Resilience Specialist at the World Bank with experience in urban research and the design and implementation of urban development projects in Africa. Before joining the World Bank, he served as a Senior Lecturer in urban planning and design at the University for Development Studies (UDS) in Ghana. He has published in multiple academic journals and authored several books related to urban topics. His research interests focus on climate change and sustainability, energy, food security, land-water-energy-food geographies in cities. He often uses transdisciplinary methods anchored on analytical approaches such as GIS, political economy, political ecology, intersectional analysis, institutional analysis, social justice, social practices, and quantitative sustainability assessments. He is a recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship and the Green Talent Award in Germany and a CAD $4.1million grant from New Frontiers Research in Canada. He holds a PhD degree in Sustainability Science from the University of Tokyo, Japan.

Nazia Hussain is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Future Initiatives (IFI) at the University of Tokyo. She studies linkages between water and local politics in cities and beyond through urban processes of capital accumulation, and the resultant implications for human insecurity (including food security). She draws on literatures on state and governance, urban theory, political ecology, criminology, and philosophy of science. Her grant-funded research is focused on understanding governance processes in Asia and Africa in response to stresses posed by climate change and urbanization. She holds a PhD from the Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University. She was a recipient of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Policy Research, United Nations University, and a Fulbright scholarship for an MA in International Relations from Boston University.

gasparatos[at]ifi.u-tokyo.ac.jp
huynhthimailam[at]g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp
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