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- Convenors:
-
Geoffrey Nwaka
(Abia State University, Uturu, Nigeria)
Alice Sverdlik (University of Manchester)
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- Format:
- Paper panel
- Stream:
- Decolonisation and development
- Location:
- B204, 2nd floor Brunei Gallery
- Sessions:
- Friday 28 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
How do we build just and inclusive African cities that are not disconnected from people’s needs? We invite papers that provide fresh insights on pathways to sustainable urban futures in Africa, and on appropriate planning and governance models and visions for the continent.
Long Abstract:
Urban planning and governance in Africa have retained the colonial tradition, and have not adapted fast enough to the reality of rapid urban change in the post-colonial period. Most African cities are growing rapidly large ahead of the resources and capacity for managing them as well as planners wish. UN-Habitat estimates that Sub-Saharan African cities have close to 200 million slum dwellers, most of who work in the informal sector where they do not earn enough to afford the high standard of shelter and services that government officials expect. Some elite neighborhoods enjoy high quality housing and residential environment, but the bulk of the urban poor live in appalling conditions. Many of these idealistic planners tend to dismiss the urban informal sector as ‘a chaotic jumble of unproductive activities’ that should be removed through the misguided policies of forced eviction and repression. We argue that while these officials should uphold the law that protects public health and the urban environment, they must recognize and come to terms with the local reality of rapid urbanization and extensive urban informality in the continent, now and in the foreseeable future. Current research suggests that the path to urban peace and sustainability in Africa lies in building more inclusive, and socially equitable cities that accommodate the ways of life of majority of city inhabitants. The panel welcomes papers that provide fresh insights on realistic pathways to sustainable urban futures in Africa, and on appropriate urban planning and governance models and visions for the continent.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 28 June, 2024, -Paper short abstract:
Addis Ababa has a major water supply-demand gap. This paper explores how city residents manage this at household level, with particular focus on collective and cooperative responses, and the city water governance model’s role in shaping them.
Paper long abstract:
Addis Ababa is home to a wide range of types of housing, with differing challenges in securing household water. In state-built complexes such as the IHDP condominiums, supply chain issues create inadequate infrastructures of water supply and storage even before the blocks are lived in. The state anticipates residents forming local formal institutional responses to these shortfalls, but the reality is that these take time to develop – and are undermined by factors such as ethnic nationalism, unequal relations to capital, and the utility’s governance model.
Addis Ababa’s water utility’s governance approach is dominated by financial concerns, often upwardly accountable. Traditional donors, in particular, place emphasis on economic metrics, leading to disconnections, prevention of water sharing, and an intense focus on commercial NRW.
The city’s poorest residents often act individually in securing water, whereas those who, for example, own fixed assets are more able to depend on social networks across time and space. In wealthy private real estate complexes, formal institutions develop with such effectiveness that they sometimes manage off-grid private piped water networks, independently of the city utility.
Despite these structural challenges, informal institutions arise and evolve between neighbours, family members, and colleagues – the most effective way in which water is secured on a day-to-day basis. Based on extensive qualitative empirical research, this paper explores the ways in which water users across distinct socioeconomic settings manage water supply in the face of substantial water rationing and unpredictability, with particular focus on collective, cooperative responses by communities.
Paper short abstract:
Urban issues cut across boundaries and require inter-municipal cooperation for effective solutions. But what drives this cooperation, and why would cooperation emerge in one setting and not the other under similar conditions in the African Metropolis?
Paper long abstract:
Due to urban fragmentation in sub-Saharan Africa, inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) is required to address integrated urban planning interventions that cut across boundaries. Despite the many known drivers of Inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) in the literature, it is impossible to establish which drivers matter most when service outcomes are intangible and pose a high risk of freeriding. The studies that establish the drivers of IMC are limited to single variable relations and net effects, while in reality, it is expected that the factors that drive IMC will be conjunctural and thus must not be viewed as isolated explanations. This paper fills the methodological gap by adopting QCA to elicit the necessary and sufficient factors that drive IMC. We use a rare comparative case study of IMC in three African metropolises in the implementation of transportation infrastructure projects. The findings show that no overarching factors must be present for IMC success. However, the availability of financial incentives or political alignment between the preferences of local government officials and their principals are critical contributing factors for IMC's success.
Paper short abstract:
Legal status can strongly influence well-being in informal settlements (‘slums’), which are home to 56% of African urban residents. Based on qualitative data from Lilongwe and Nairobi’s informal settlements, we analyse how legal recognition can foster health equity and inclusive urbanisation.
Paper long abstract:
Legal recognition not only can protect against forced evictions, but it can promote health as well as a range of socio-economic and political rights. To date, however, few urban scholars have explored the complex ways that legal status can influence well-being in informal settlements (‘slums’). In 2022, UN data suggest that 230 million people in sub-Saharan Africa lived in slums, where legal recognition is usually tenuous or non-existent.
Using findings from Lilongwe and Nairobi’s informal settlements, we discuss how legal recognition can enhance living conditions as well as fostering health, social cohesion, and political empowerment. We will unravel the multiple links between legal exclusion and urban inequalities; we also explain how legal recognition has strong possibilities for social justice and inclusive urbanisation. Realising these benefits will require an array of locally tailored solutions that constructively engage with informality and develop incremental, flexible strategies. We discuss promising recent initiatives such as the Special Planning Area (SPA) in Mukuru, Nairobi, alongside other lessons for inclusive urban planning research and practise.
While legal recognition can have a range of substantial benefits, it can also be challenging to measure given its multiple dimensions and locally specific meanings. In turn, urban planning scholars and other researchers will need to develop new indicators and conceptualisation of legal recognition. As our paper’s contributions, we will offer recent qualitative data, practical examples, and a framework that can encourage further insights into legal recognition and social justice in African informal settlements.
Paper short abstract:
This paper tries to re-assess the place of second-hand clothes street vendors against the law, state-society relations, socioeconomic justice, formalization, fast fashion, and modernization. It suggests considerations for locally-grounded approaches to constructively engage this sector.
Paper long abstract:
In Africa, second-hand clothes vendors comprise a significant portion of the urban informal economy. Yet, majority of debates on their place in the flow of life in African cities still fail to appreciate the nuance of everyday realities of informal enterprise. These vendors often occupy a deeply-layered position characterized by precarity, ubiquity, fluidity, ostracization, and centrality. Their operating environment is shaped by contradictory relationships with the state, manifested through criminalization, punitive law enforcement, and co-optation. This paper explores how we can decriminalize this sector in an attempt to redefine its place in urban modernization pathways.
It follows a comparative case study design looking at Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda. Case selection was driven by the three countries’ different urban political settlements, approaches to the second-hand clothes dumping menace & subsequent treatment of second-hand clothes vendors, and textile industry rehabilitation ideologies. Qualitative data from key informant interviews conducted in 2023 have been used. This has informed a rethink of the place of these vendors against legal frameworks, negotiation of socio-economic justice, urban governance in predominantly-informal economies, fast fashion, and economic transformation discourses in Sub-Saharan Africa. Based on this, the paper will suggest useful considerations for practical, locally-grounded approaches to constructively engaging this sector on the path toward inclusive growth.
Preliminary findings indicate the intentional and inadvertent creation of ‘Chinese Walls’ in the handling of street vendors. They also show divergent pathways towards formalization and rehabilitation of textile industries, resulting in different consequences for informal vendors.
Paper short abstract:
The study evaluates the Lagos New Town housing policy and programming between 1963 and 2023. It will utilise a triangulation of policy reviews, field surveys, and physical observations to generate outcomes that will inform social justice and sustainable development policy reforms.
Paper long abstract:
Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city is among the fastest-growing in the world. There is a significant housing gap which manifests in quantity, quality, distribution, and access across its five administrative districts. Beginning from the year 1963, the Lagos State Government utilized new towns to improve and redistribute housing and social infrastructures among its citizens. Over five decades later, there is no documented evaluation of the effects of this policy intervention in reducing the housing deficit and/or in enhancing housing quality in the state. Therefore this study is an evaluation of the Lagos New Town housing policy and programming between 1963 and 2023.
For the study, a triangulation of policy reviews, field surveys, and physical observations will be done. An evaluation of the implementation of the new town development policy over time will be done, after which a fully developed new town from each of the five districts of the state will be randomly selected and 50 questionnaires administered to long-term residents. Also, key Informant Interviews will be conducted with representatives of the homeowners association and the Lagos New Town Development Authority. Also to be assessed are the socioeconomic characteristics, allocation, and maintenance records of the Authority. Data obtained will be subjective to both qualitative and quantitative analysis. The study is expected to inform housing and urban development policy reforms, especially towards social justice and sustainable urban development.