"It is small-scale providers that sell water to urban poor communities in Metro Manila. The quality may be substandard, supply irregular, and prices higher than those purchasing water directly from private concessionaires. The threat of physical violence in cases like Alan and his competitors, or financial losses for communities as they spend substantial portions of their incomes on water are significant aspects. In urban settlements in Metro Manila, Cathy, Michael, and Alan and his competitors may be referred to as ‘syndicates’. Unlike cooperatives, which are endorsed by Maynilad and Manila Water—private concessionaires responsible for water provision, and the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (mwss), the government institution responsible for oversight—syndicates are deemed to operate illegally."

Despite some gains on SDG 6.1 (access to clean and affordable water for all), the world is falling behind. One out of four people lack access to water. In addition to increased funding, a deeper understanding of experienced water shortages (invisible in global metrics) is crucial. 1. Global monitoring frameworks like the JMP of the UN and WHO should include a focus on links between water access and informal settlements. 2. Local governments and international development agencies should fund research co-created with local communities on water governance. 3. Local governments should play a strong role to ensure affordable and clean water for the urban poor communities. Such knowledge could contribute towards the success of SDG 6.1.

Although privatisation in Metro Manila has resulted in increased access to piped connections and reduced pilferage, the urban poor pay more for low-quality water and access it through small-scale providers including cooperatives and syndicates. While forming cooperatives can represent efforts of urban poor communities to claim legality, the selling of water to neighbours or offering protections for pilfering by local providers illustrates everyday illegality. Governing logics of the postcolonial state and concessionaires shape these Janus-faced survival practices of urban poor communities.

Recent trends reveal a significant increase in the use of violence to generate profit as illustrated during the sanitary crisis. The Economies of Violence, understood as the actions or behaviors leading to a financial benefit to the detriment of another person, organization, or institution, are therefore detrimental to better apprehend as a concept and phenomenon. Hence, addressing this violence requires an examination of the multiple forms it may take in all fields of the economy and their evolution across time and space.

Water provision is “more lucrative than drugs,” said one of the interviewees in our research in Karachi, Pakistan. Competition for control of the city’s water includes water mafias and formal institutions. As water becomes increasingly scarce due to ongoing climate changes in the Indus Basin, it is already a source of intense economic and political competition. If not addressed in time, water scarcity may deepen fault lines in this highly fractured, multi-ethnic, populous city.

This event summary is reproduced from UTokyo IFI’s description of an event that I organized at UTokyo IFI. In the event titled “Past, Present, and Future through the Lens of Cities: Perspectives from South Asia” at IFI, Univ. of Tokyo, discussed the nature of challenges facing South Asia in general and Pakistan in particular.

Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6.1 for safe, sufficient, and available water has always been important. Compounding challenges—from climate change and increasing migration within and across borders to COVID-19 and its multiple variants—makes achieving the human right to water more urgent. But what is often missed in discussions related to water access is that what determines access to safe and sufficient water is about more than gaps in governance or lack of funding—it is intertwined with entrenched inequality in societies, including the planning of urban spaces.

This event summary is reproduced from UTokyo IFI’s description of an event that I organized at UTokyo IFI. In the second meeting of the two-part research workshop on “Complex Challenges in an Urban World” at IFI, Univ. of Tokyo, scholars discussed the myriad challenges that cities are facing, including the situation brought upon by the COVID-19 pandemic.

This event summary is reproduced from UTokyo IFI’s description of an event that I organized at UTokyo IFI. In the first meeting of the two-part research workshop on “Complex Challenges in an Urban World” at IFI, Univ. of Tokyo, scholars discussed a range of daunting crises confronting societies and governments around the world in general.

This event summary is reproduced from UTokyo IFI’s description of an event that I organized at UTokyo IFI. It was hosted by the SDGs unit at UTokyo IFI. This was the third event of the four-part series on aspects related to challenges of governance and precarious living in an increasingly urban world. Dr. Noman Ahmed (Prof. & Dean, NED Univ. Karachi) spoke about the challenges of informal housing in Karachi, and Dr. Chester Arcilla (Assistant Prof., Univ. of Philippines) spoke about the same issue within the context of Metro Manila.

This event summary is reproduced from UTokyo IFI’s description of an event that I organized at UTokyo IFI. It was hosted by the SDGs unit at UTokyo IFI. This was the final event of the four-part series on aspects related to challenges of governance and precarious living in an increasingly urban world. Dr. Markus Schultze-Kraft (Arnhold Associate Fellow, Georg Eckert Institute, Brunswick, Germany) discussed the nature of governance in Latin America , and Dr. Jeffrey Paller (Assistant Prof. & Program Director, University of San Francisco) spoke about the same in the context of Africa.

In traditional accounts of state and governments, informality evokes boundaries—between formal and informal, developed and developing, legal and illegal, and state and society. Yet, scholarship tells us that it is much more than that. If we get it right, informality helps makes sense of how urban planning, governance, and politics clash and converge to shape cities, be they in developed or developing countries. This is equally true in an urbanizing Asia where despite many cities being the hubs of global finance and production, informality is a persistent theme.

Whether controlling violence in Rio de Janeiro, or carrying out relief operations after floods in Karachi resulting from heavy rains, poor infrastructure and contested governance, militaries operating in cities is not a new phenomenon. The presence of militaries in cities, as well as their lasting effects on local politics, societies, and governance, have long been a topic of heated debate. Yet, in an increasingly urban world marked by risks associated with climate change, flows of migrants and refugees, and resource scarcity, militaries may be called upon more frequently.

From climate change, to influx of migrants and refugees, to resource scarcity, and now, a pandemic—cities are in the heart of action. It is here that social and political groups and governments are interacting and responding to emergent and present concerns. These interactions are producing political geographies by shaping new or revisiting pre-existing concerns about inequality and claims to the city. They also bear implications for political stability of societies.

The world is on a losing streak. Extreme events like wildfires, droughts, floods, as well as changes in patterns of rainfall and seasonal temperatures are contributing to social, political and economic stresses. Large numbers of migrants and refugees have become a new reality. In 2018, 70.8 million people, more than at any point in human history, were displaced by conflict and extreme weather events.

On June 29, 2020, four members of the Baloch Liberation Army (Majid Brigade) attacked the offices of Karachi Stock Exchange. Seven people died, including the four attackers, two security guards and a policeman. It came at the heels of multiple low-intensity attacks in Sindh weeks earlier that claimed the lives of two soldiers and a retired paramilitary official. The Sindhudesh Revolutionary Army, a separatist organization banned by the government, claimed responsibility.