Tensions clearly do exist between the brown agenda and the wider green movement. Indeed, it was partly due to a perceived neglect of local urban environmental issues by green organizations that urban development authors and practitioners started using the term brown agenda. However, solutions to brown agenda problems can be problematic from a green perspective – it is sometimes the case that […]

Water Supply Access to safe water and sanitation are two of the most urgent problems associated with the urban environment in the developing world. Globally, 1.1 billion people do not have access to adequate water supplies and more than double that figure – 2.4 billion – lack adequate sanitation facilities. These problems are particularly acute for the urban poor in many […]

In brief, the brown agenda refers to issues of safe water provision, sanitation, and drainage; inadequate solid and hazardous waste management; and air pollution including uncontrolled emissions from motor vehicles, factories, and low grade domestic fuels. The brown agenda emerged as a matter of concern and debate, in part, because of a perceived lack of attention to the specifically urban environmental […]

With the increasingly high profile of global environmental concerns from the 1980s, the urban agenda for developing countries has seen progressive shifts toward a focus on urban environmental issues, collectively termed the 'brown agenda'. The most critical and immediate development issues facing cities of the developing world – those of water supply, sanitation, and waste management – were reconceptualized through an […]