Paper short abstract:

Challenges and opportunities in achieving meaningful inclusion of young people in the political settlements of African cities. Insights and lessons learned from Addis Ababa, Freetown, Kampala, Maiduguri, and Mogadishu.

Paper long abstract:

By 2050, half of Africa's population will be under the age of 25. As such, young people are indispensable in the pursuit of inclusive development of the continent. Despite their crucial role, state-led interventions focused on youth are limited and often disconnected from youth needs and demands. Young people face multifaceted challenges, spanning from accessing health care, housing, quality education, and skills training programs to securing sufficient work. This research contributes to the understanding of the exclusions and politicization of African urban youth by addressing two key research questions: 1) How do current power relations, policies, and programs hinder young people from fulfilling their capabilities and potential? 2) How are urban youth navigating dominant power structures and challenging social injustices in African cities?

Based on qualitative data from five African cities – Addis Ababa, Freetown, Kampala, Maiduguri, Mogadishu – this research reveals that political elites engage with youth primarily during elections, employing patron-client campaigning strategies. These power dynamics limit youth influence on policy agendas and the ability to hold government agencies accountable. As a result, some youth are compelled to align themselves with the agendas of the current political elite to be included at least in some capacity. However, there is a growing awareness among political elites of youth's disruptive potential and the inadequacy of current clientelist approaches. This awareness opens up increasing prospects for more meaningful inclusion of youth in political settlements, a momentum that youth leverage by disrupting traditional information circuits through social media and community organizing.

Paper short abstract:

This paper uses Rawls’ social justice framework to examine the paradox of extensive structures for youth political representation against persistent developmental challenges faced by urban youth in Uganda. The study findings shall inform policies to address social (in) justice in African cities.

Paper long abstract:

In Rawls' framework of social justice, the fundamental role of a society's basic structure in governing the distribution of primary goods is emphasised (Koller, 2013). This paper critically examines the apparent paradox faced by urban youth in Uganda, highlighting the disparity between substantial political representation and their struggle to access essential goods crucial for individual life prospects.

While youth are well represented in Uganda's political structures, particularly at grassroots levels, district assemblies, and the national assembly, those residing in informal settlements in Kampala grapple with marginalisation and deteriorating conditions. This demographic faces significant developmental and social challenges, including high rates of unemployment and underemployment, teenage pregnancy, underage marriage, substance and alcohol abuse, and deficiencies in public health, education, and financial systems.

This situation raises questions about the effectiveness of youth political representation in translating influence into tangible improvements in their lives. It also calls for an inquiry into potential systemic barriers and economic, social, and political conditions that may impede the realisation of social justice for Ugandan youth, aligning with Rawls' theory. The study's findings aim to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the intricacies surrounding social (in)justice in African cities, informing future policies and interventions to address these challenges.

Paper short abstract:

What forms of politics shape (in)justice in Africa’s informal settlements? Comparative insights from four cities reveals how national political settlement dynamics permeate and shape the everyday politics of informal settlements and prospects for development therein.

Paper long abstract:

Within the growing literature on politics of Africa’s cities, there is relatively little work that tracks how political factors operate across multiple scales to shape the possibilities for social justice. We investigate how politics shapes the everyday realities of survival and contestation within informal settlements in four African cities, with a focus on market operations, land disputes, responses to disasters and social service deficits. We find that the capacity and commitment of local actors to navigate development challenges within informal settlements is profoundly influenced by national level politics and how this interacts with city-level politics and governance. In particular, the specific configurations of power within each national political settlement – dispersed amongst competing factions in Ghana and Sierra Leone and more concentrated around semi-authoritarian leaderships in Uganda and Zimbabwe – directly shapes the local politics of development in informal settlements. The national political settlement disincentivises the provision of public goods in all four cities, as opposed to the politicised distribution of private and club goods; but this is significantly worse in contexts such as Freetown where the ruling party blocks urban development to avoid the opposition party gaining credit. In contrast, the ruling parties in Uganda and Zimbabwe seek to circumvent opposition-led city authorities, reaching urban residents directly through longstanding political structures that penetrate and define local politics and help ensure political dominance nationally. The role of ethnicity in political mobilisation also differs significantly between contexts. We explore the implications for theorising and promoting politics of justice in Africa’s cities.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how residents of two informal settlements in Accra, Ghana have adopted tactics of everyday resistance to contest poor environmental sanitation in their locality and the obstacles to effective community action posed by politics.

Paper long abstract:

Poor environmental sanitation in informal urban settlements is a manifestation of profound social injustice that is experienced acutely by low-income urban residents. It threatens their physical, mental, and social well-being in a multitude of ways, reinforcing existing structures of injustice. This paper explores how urban residents contest inadequate environmental sanitation in their everyday lives. To do this, it draws on interview data from residents and representatives of traditional and formal authorities in two informal settlements in Accra, Ghana. It examines how communities resort to everyday resistance in the face of inaction on environmental sanitation by the authorities. The focus of this paper is on quiet, legal forms of resistance adopted by residents, rather than the more dramatic, organised, confrontational and visible approaches often associated with resistance. It demonstrates how residents pragmatically adopt different tactics of everyday resistance, both collective and non-collective, as they contest the poor environmental sanitation in their locality. Specific tactics of resistance spanning from persistent complaining to community-organised clean-up exercises are illustrated to demonstrate how residents iteratively engage with, and attempt to distance from, formal political and power structures. This paper illustrates how structures of power and politics that contribute to inadequate environmental sanitation also pose obstacles to community-led efforts to tackle the challenge. It concludes by considering what these urban residents’ experiences might mean for realising social justice through environmental sanitation for all.

Paper short abstract:

The paper presents an innovative framework to study how de-facto land regulations produce social (in)justice from the perspective of African urban residents. It discusses challenges and proposes novel concepts to examine how residents understand and navigate social (in)justice in land governance.

Paper long abstract:

Investigating the politics of social (in)justice in African cities, this paper focuses on one understudied source of power imbalances and social (in)justice: the de facto rules-of-the-game of informal land governance in unplanned urban settlements. As known, communities often self-regulate around issues of land ownership, transfer, development, and use, drawing on complex configurations of non-statutory, quasi-statutory and statutory law, norms, and customs. However, we lack an analytic framework to study how these de-facto regulations work on the ground and are perceived by residents, especially the most vulnerable (e.g. women and migrants), regarding the equality and inequality of outcomes. Proposing the formalisation of rights and institutions, the dominant policy approach relies upon a profound lack of knowledge on the diversity and the performance of informal governance systems in various contexts. Since these policies ignore the local needs of residents, they often reinforce dispossession and injustice. Drawing on interdisciplinary fields, the paper presents a new epistemology of informal land governance with an explicit focus on social (in)justice, which will support researchers and policymakers to acquire more fine-grained knowledge on informal governance systems, their perceived (in)equality and diverse policy needs in African cities. In so doing, the paper addresses key questions of this panel: first, it discusses the epistemological and empirical challenges of understanding how residents construct notions of social (in)justice in informal land governance. Second, by introducing notions of ‘negotiated justice’ and ‘tolerated injustice’, the framework provides novel concepts to further understand how residents navigate processes and structures of social (in)justice.

Paper short abstract:

This study delves into the pervasive issue of the marginalization of waste pickers in the outskirts of Beira, central Mozambique. By digging deeper into the multifaceted aspects of territorial marginality and social exclusion this paper contributes to the existing literature on urban marginality.

Paper long abstract:

This study delves into the marginalization of waste pickers (catadores) in the suburbs of Beira, central Mozambique, aiming to explore the territorial and social exclusion they face. The research frames their marginality as a result of historical urban planning, rooted in colonial influences and exacerbated by post-independence factors such as migration and urban expansion. Focusing on the informal bairro of Macuti, the study employs qualitative methods, including semi-structured interviews and literature analysis.

Findings reveal that catadores in Beira experience both physical and social marginalization, stemming from discriminatory colonial urban planning and persistent post-independence challenges affecting marginalized communities. Despite having a self-identified home, catadores live in vulnerable, informal, and decentralized spaces exposed to climatic events, facing discrimination. The study suggests mapping marginality in Beira and proposes ethnography as a research methodology for community involvement in future projects.

By shedding light on the challenges faced by catadores in this specific geographic and social context, this work aims to deepen our understanding of the complex urban dynamic of African outskirts and advocates for cooperatives as a potential solution for catadores, but cautions that their adoption should be considered cautiously, emphasizing the need for improved living conditions before implementation. Overall, the study contributes to the literature on waste picking and urban marginality, urging for a comprehensive understanding of the challenges faced by catadores and suggesting practical approaches for future interventions.