This research examines participation in urban planning, arguing that many contemporary theories and related 'best practice' policies of participation are inadequate in the context of rapid urbanisation in the South, this mainly due to their insufficient attention to contextual variables. This research therefore suggests an approach that gives greater emphasis on the very specific context within which urban planning is taking place, using the concepts of sustainable development and governance as an analytical framework. The analytical framework is applied in the examination of four different participatory planning case studies in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Johannesburg, South Africa, and Luanda and Huambo in Angola. Using a comparative case study approach the thesis shows how the . different results in the case studies are related to the respective contexts. The Angolan case studies further show how participatory planning in this country is especially challenging, due to generally little participation in governance, an insufficient legal framework for planning and very weak state and civil society organizations. The thesis therefore argues that in Angola the dominant theoretical positions on participatory planning and international 'best practice' policy are of limited effectiveness. Rather, emerging spaces of participation in the local context should be explored by using a pragmatic and action oriented approach, based on local capacities through creating long term partnerships with actors from state and civil society and with international experience contributing to, but not dominating, such locally embedded planning approaches.