NFPA Journal - Winter 2021 - 33

shantytowns of ramshackle dwellings
cobbled together from scraps of plywood
and corrugated metal.
For underfunded local government
agencies charged with overseeing this
mass of structures, regulatory and
enforcement challenges exist everywhere.
While building in informal
settlements happens generally beyond
the oversight of government building
departments, the construction of
everything else-the so-called " formal "
development, from high-rise offices
and apartment blocks to multifamily
homes, warehouses, and hotels-is, at
least in theory, supposed to follow some
form of government regulatory process.
Like everything in these dynamic urban
environments, however, nothing is
quite so black and white.
Regulations that apply to the formal
built environment can be wildly
inconsistent and haphazard in the
developing world. Whether a regulatory
process happens at all, and to what
extent, can depend on who is building
what and on the resources and attention
government officials have to spare
on any given day, experts say. Corruption-a
persistent problem worldwide,
including in developed nations-can
result in building officials signing off
on permits or skipping regulatory steps
altogether at the behest of deep-pocketed
or well-connected development
interests.
" Many of these countries go through
great effort to have at least some regulations
in place, " said Ana Campos
Garcia, who has worked on regulatory
issues with governments throughout
Africa as a lead disaster risk management
specialist at the World Bank's
Building Regulation for Resilience
Program. " But most of the time there
are financial challenges that limit
their capacity [to properly enforce the
regulations]. They don't have enough
people, such as regulators, because they
don't have enough budget. "
As a result, any step in the process
that a building official from, say, California,
might consider essential to a
robust regulatory system could be missing.
" You may lack some or all of the
typical controls, including everything
from the urban planning component
to set separation distances between
buildings, " said Meacham, who in addition
to being a global consultant chairs
the committee responsible for NFPA
551, Guide for the Evaluation of Fire
Risk Assessments. " You might not have
enough inspectors to review plans or
to go to the construction site to make
sure it's all OK-and even if you did,
you may also lack the enforcement part
that follows. "
The uneven nature of enforcement
in developing nations can mean that
even formal structures, built by professional
construction crews, might be
something closer to " informal " when
viewed through a Western lens. " It's
not necessarily an informal settlement,
but it's informal construction associated
with the normal construction
process, " Meacham explained. " If you
lack resources on the regulatory side in
the government to monitor the pace of
construction, you get into this situation
where you don't necessarily have the
control system that you need for formal
construction. "
As a result, many structures in
developing cities are built without
some of the basic fire mitigation components
typically found in buildings
in the United States or Europe. This
includes buildings constructed with
highly combustible materials, no fire
compartmentation between rooms or
apartments, and often no fire suppression
systems-even in many high-rise
buildings. Adding to those concerns
is the reality that a typical home can
contain many more sources of potential
ignition than in the developed world.
As cities grow larger, for example,
the electrical infrastructure may not
keep pace, leading residents to tap
into power lines illegally so they can
operate their appliances. As Meacham
observed, " You're just adding up the
risk factors. "
Compounding that, the fire departments
in many of these cities are
woefully understaffed and may not
have adequate water supplies, equipment,
or other resources to do their
jobs effectively. In Dhaka, Bangladesh,
one of the most densely populated
cities on the planet, fire departments
literally have to go out on the street
NFPA .ORG/JOURNAL * NFPA JOURNAL | 33
The Numbers
ESTIMATES OF
THE LARGEST CITIES
IN THE WORLD: 2010, 2050,
AND 2100
2010
Tokyo
Mexico City
Mumbai
Beijing
Sao Paulo
2050
Mumbai
Delhi
Dhaka
Kinshasa
Kolkata
2100
Lagos
Kinshasa
Dar es Salaam
Mumbai
Delhi
36 million
20 million
20 million
19.6 million
19.5 million
42.4 million
36 million
35 million
35 million
33 million
88.3 million
83.5 million
73.7 million
67 million
57.3 million
Source: " Population predictions for the
world's largest cities in the 21st century, "
Daniel Hoornweg and Kevin Pope,
University of Ontario Institute of Technology
55
Percentage of world population
that lived in urban areas in 2018
68
Percentage of world population
that will live in urban areas by 2050
Source: United Nations
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NFPA Journal - Winter 2021

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