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- Convenors:
-
Monique Bertrand
(Institut de Recherche pour le Développement)
Berenice Bon (IRD)
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- Stream:
- Politics and International Relations
- Location:
- Appleton Tower, Seminar Room 2.11
- Sessions:
- Thursday 13 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel aims to address the growing impact of international agendas on cities in African countries. How are these global norms translated and appropriated? What are their disruptive effects on the relations between local and national stakeholders, urban authorities and non-institutional actors?
Long Abstract:
A large number of African countries committed themselves to the global frames on cities in the context of the United Nations '2030 Agenda'. Through strengthened partnerships and new ones, many countries have pledged to report on the implementation of the New Urban Agenda — adopted in 2016 — at events organized by the UN or other transnational bodies, such as the African Union and UCLG.
These global urban agendas have an increasing grip also on cities addressing the challenges of sustainable development, urban regulations and planning, land governance, international cooperation for urban projects. To grasp the various ways stakeholders appropriate and translate these recommendations, research has questioned mechanisms of participation and negotiation practices of local stakeholders. This panel aims to address the equally disruptive effects of these agendas for urban governance and the implementation of urban policies.
It seeks to shed light on the processes of partnerships and financing that reactivate or create new tensions related to such global political arena. Who is likely to have the last word in what is emerging in terms of reforms and funding? Do national governments rethink their urban agendas at the 'urban Africa' scale in a much more unified manner? Are we witnessing real windows of opportunities, or the limits of local mobilization despite recommendations to build concertation and to involve local governments? However, do these difficulties allow certain urban authorities to assert their position? Relatedly, what is their political legitimacy vis-à-vis non-institutional actors that have become part of the urban debate?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 13 June, 2019, -Temitayo Odeyemi (University of Leeds)
Paper short abstract:
This article explores how governments in Lagos and Johannesburg, Africa's most resource-rich, heavily industrialised subnational entities with high levels of vulnerability to climate change, engage with civil society towards strengthening appropriate climate change responses
Paper long abstract:
Climate change is a major issue threatening Africa's sustainable urban development. Its effects in reducing agricultural production and other rural-based livelihoods manifest in rural-urban migration, thus acting as stressors to urban areas. Also, vulnerable urban areas must deal with flooding, natural disasters, human insecurity and other negative climate change impacts. The negative implications are especially devastating for heavily populated and industrialised urban areas, thus requiring efforts in boosting adaptation capacities. Such efforts must be reflected in productive governance networks involving state and non-state actors. This article engages with this necessity in relation to the New Urban Agenda by exploring how governments in Lagos and Johannesburg, Africa's most resource-rich, heavily industrialised subnational entities with high levels of vulnerability to climate change, engage with civil society and how this implicates appropriate responses. What is the nature and effectiveness of policies, tools, techniques and institutional frameworks put in place by decentralised governments in the two cities for appropriate responses? How does civil society feature in these? How are the two cities domesticating the commitment of their respective countries to the New Urban Agenda? Are there possibilities that the drive to align with these commitments promote exclusion of important stakeholders at the city governance levels? Drawing primarily on interviews with key stakeholders, augmented with relevant policy papers and records, the paper enlightens understanding of key actors, activities and processes involved in the drive towards sustainable urban development in Africa.
Berenice Bon (IRD)
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the role of UN-Habitat in the appropriation of global urban agendas in Kenya. It questions the functioning of UN-Habitat headquarters in Nairobi and the presence of local experts, as well as its territorial integration in Kenya and its relations to political and economic fields.
Paper long abstract:
Kenya occupies a special position in the global urban governance arena. The capital hosts the headquarters and the regional office for Africa of UN-Habitat. This UN agency led the elaboration of the New Urban Agenda and is now monitoring its implementation. UN-Habitat also organized the 2018 World Urban Forum, where the Kenyan delegation presented the report submitted to the UN on urbanization in Kenya, and the guidelines for Kenyan city planners. With South Africa, Kenya has led discussions on integration between the African Union's Agenda 2063 and the New Urban Agenda. This paper examines UN-Habitat's relations to local political and economic fields, and to platforms set up in 2016 in Kenya for assessing sustainable development objectives. Does UN-Habitat play a role in the modalities of appropriation of these agendas by local actors? The multiscalar and multilocalized modalities of action of UN-Habitat pose a methodological challenge. To counter this, I conduct investigations both within the agency on working practices, recruitment policies and internal dynamics, and within local urban platforms, strategic planning projects and the elaboration of reforms for which the agency provides technical assistance. The territorial integration of UN-Habitat varies significantly, and there is a high degree of circularity among experts. The agency plays a mediation role in the consultancy markets that have increased with these agendas. But it has little control over structural decisions, in the face of donors whose experts are located directly in the ministry offices, and politicians who intervene during the steps of finalization of the expertise.
David Simon (Royal Holloway, University of London) Sylvia Croese (University of the Witwatersrand) Sandra Valencia (Chalmers University of Technology) Michael Oloko (Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and technology)
Paper short abstract:
We analyse the emerging multi-level relations for engagement with and implementation of the New Urban Agenda and the SDGs in Kisumu and Cape Town. These relations are explored through the national guidance (or lack of) and the collaborations around urban boundary definitions and local indicators.
Paper long abstract:
The New Urban Agenda (NUA) and Agenda 2030's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) recognise the key role of 'sub-national entities', including cities, in achieving sustainable development. The NUA remains aspirational and is couched only in very broad terms, while the SDGs, which constitute a monitoring and evaluation framework for Agenda 2030, include a standalone urban goal on making cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable (SDG 11). However, since these agendas were agreed and signed by national governments, implementing them at the local level requires a process of localisation to fit local realities. This presentation reports on our international comparative research project in 7 cities across the world, two of them in Africa, which has shown the very varied role of national governments in the localisation processes. We analyse the national guidance (or lack of) and the collaborations emerging between local, regional and national-level actors in the implementation of these global agendas. Apart from understanding the respective local authorities' degrees of engagement, key issues emerging include the need to delimit the urban boundary and the adaptation of SDG indicators to the local level. The paper draws particularly on the experiences from Kisumu, Kenya and Cape Town, South Africa, contextualised with reference to the 5 other cities: Buenos Aires (Argentina), Gothenburg (Sweden), Malmö (Sweden), Sheffield (UK), and Shimla (India).
Alexander Jachnow (IHS)
Paper short abstract:
Global agendas promote "Sustainable Urbanisation" as the way forward. Research in Africa however evidences that urbanisation remains unsustainable the way it is driven by urban stakeholders. We assess here how urban actors within the local political economy use or contradict international agendas.
Paper long abstract:
African cities are expected to follow and apply global frameworks provided by the United Nations such as the '2030 Agenda' or the New Urban Agenda. Specifically the claim for "Sustainable Urbanisation" found its rather undisputed way into the development discourse. Current research in Uganda and Somaliland however evidences that urbanisation negatively impacts on urban sustainability, which cannot be attributed alone to dysfunctional governance structures. Urban governments in Africa need to act within the local political economy and do have to consent to developments that are highly unsustainable, especially in terms of territorial growth over hinterlands.
Urban expansions, both formal and informal, impact on the sustainability of urban areas in various aspects: socially, as segregation is increasing through unbalanced territorial growth, environmentally, as urban-rural ecosystems are endangered and economically, as urban fringes in rapidly growing areas are more often than not impoverished and underserved, sometimes containing "islands" of middle-class condominiums which however further contribute to imbalanced growth.
The paper will discuss how this threefold challenge is partly created by the local political economy which opposes what global agendas promote in terms of sustainability. As urbanisation is a process that - in one way or the other - is caused and simultaneously affects all urban stakeholders, the core question addressed here is "What is the relevance that is seen by local stakeholders in global agendas and how could they better contribute to its implementation?".