Since 2009 the world became more than 50 per cent urban, and challenges of habitat—access to secure tenure for land and housing, safe neighborhoods—for all in the urban space are urgent issues not only for city and national governments to pay attention to. The absence of planning for the poor in cities has created huge deficits and exponential growth of slums and poor governance mechanisms have aggravated urban problems. Transformative alternatives require participation of the government as well as the residents of these informal localities, and facilitation for citizens and city and state government agencies to work together to make change happen, The case studies from India, Brazil and South Africa in this volume showcase the potential of organisation of the urban poor working with civil society, exploring interactions with the government for solving urban problems.

Despite the recent global spread of democracy, citizens around the world remain excluded from critical processes of public decision-making and continue to suffer the effects of non-responsive and unaccountable governance systems. There is now growing consensus that genuine democracy can only be achieved through informed and active citizen engagement. If the 20th century is the ‘democracy century’, then the 21st century seems set to become the ‘century of active citizenship’. The case studies presented in this volume provide an insightful and inspirational glimpse at the future of citizenship. Not only researchers and academics, but anyone with an interest in ‘deepening democracy’ will benefit from the fascinating experiences of citizen innovation from India, Brazil and South Africa that are shared in this book.

This is an extremely important account of the interface between citizens and institutions that serve them, within the context of democratic accountability. Aside from all the lessons captured in the case studies is the overarching reality that citizen’s involvement is key in building societies that are accountable and respect rights.

Bhavita Vaishnava is presently associated with Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA) as a Programme Officer.

Kaustuv Kanti Bandyopadhyay is Director, PRIA Global Partnership in Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), New Delhi.