Transportation and Public Safety
Ageing in Sustainable and Smart Cities
There is now only a decade left to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and to achieve its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A decade of accelerated action is needed to do so and cities are key actors in this process. In an increasingly digitalized world, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can help cities become more efficient in their operations and services and thus more sustainable, with opportunities for a greater quality of life and well-being of city dwellers of all generations, levels of ability and backgrounds. Focusing on three realms of urban life - housing, green and public spaces, and transport - this brief draws attention to the importance of ensuring that the needs of older persons are taken into account when planning, designing and implementing sustainable development plans at the local level. It addresses the question of how policy-makers, business and civil society actors, citizens, young and old, can design age-friendly sustainable urban environments with the help of new technologies that meet the needs of all generations, overcome the digital divide, foster inter-generational solidarity and ensure that older people are not left behind in sustainable and smart cities for all ages.
Assets for Alimentation?
A recent strand of aid programming aims to develop household assets by removing the stresses associated with meeting basic nutritional needs. In this paper, we posit that such programmes can also boost nutrition in recipient households by encouraging further investment in diet. To test this hypothesis, we study the World Food Programme’s “Protracted Relief and Recovery Operation (PRRO)” in Niger, a conflict-affected, low income country with a high share of malnourishment. Under PRRO, a household could be in one of three groups at endline: receiving food aid to prevent malnutrition, receiving both preventive food aid and food for assets assistance, or receiving no assistance (the control group). When provided only by itself, the food aid has no nutritional impact, relative to receiving no assistance. However, we observe pronounced positive effects when preventive food aid is paired with assets-based programming, over and above what stems from greater household assets. We conclude, first, that certain forms of food aid function well in complex, insecure environments; second, that assets-based programmes deliver positive nutritional spillovers; and, third, that there are theoretical grounds to believe that asset-based programmes interact positively with more nutrition-focused programming.