Paper short abstract:

The 1986 UN Declaration on the Right to Development (RtD) and the ‘right to the city’ complement one another but community-based development discourses in marginalised parts of greater Johannesburg resonate more with RtD principles, particularly those captured in the title of this paper.

Paper long abstract:

The 1986 Declaration on the Right to Development is one of the most controversial rights-based claims within the UN, given its emphasis on collective rather than individual rights and its far-reaching demands on the international community. With roots in the anti-colonial movement in Africa and first suggested to the UN from within this continent, it is tailored to the post-colonial problems and potentials of Africa. Individual and collective political consciousness and responsibility in relation to development at all scales, as well as self-determination, equality and fairness, are core to the right to development. Whereas this right was endorsed by the UN’s Sustainable Development Declaration in 2015 and is acknowledged in the UN’s New Urban Agenda (NUA) of 2016, its radical demands and approaches are largely ignored. The ‘right to the city’ in turn has its first recognition within the UN through clauses in NUA. This paper reviews the meaning of the right to development versus the so-called ‘right to the city’ for urban policy. In asking what politically conscientized, self-determined and fair development may mean at the local scale, it takes a deep dive into the everyday development discourses of two community development forums in greater Johannesburg as they struggle to secure the land their communities occupy and as they negotiate with a fraught service-delivery machinery. The paper argues that whereas the right to the city initiative provides important mechanisms for urban policy, in Johannesburg, the right to development resonates more directly within everyday struggles for a better urban future.

Paper short abstract:

This study interrogates how the UN-Habitat discursively constructs African urban futures. It demonstrates that proposals by the organisation represent a unique strand of urban future-making that is complicated, ambiguous and defies easy categorisation.

Paper long abstract:

Current scholarship on new African cities has failed to distinguish adequately between different types of actors and the varying outcomes of their operations. Most studies rightly point to multinational conglomerates – searching for alternative avenues for investment – accompanied by superstar architects and planners. Yet, there is more to this story. The international design and policy arena is complicated and composed of other actors with unique political identities, which impinge upon their modes of urban future-making. In the absence of such a critical lens, certain actors have received very little scholarly attention. The United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-Habitat), which has been instrumental in shaping current global norms around 'good' urbanism, exemplifies this. Through a visual/discourse analysis of its reports published between 1976 and 2016, this study interrogates how the organisation constructs African urban futures discursively. It draws on these to explicate the modes of future city visions that it is pursuing on the continent, vis-à-vis its political positionality. The paper demonstrates how, relative to interventions – real and imagined – by other actors, proposals by the UN-Habitat represent a unique strand of urban future-making that is complicated, ambiguous and defies easy categorisation or rationalisation. The study contributes to our understanding of how multilateral institutions construct and represent Africa's urban future(s) and provides a launch pad for further discourse around how these ideas percolate and shape policy decisions and quotidian urban realities.

Paper short abstract:

The global urban development policies aim at improving people’s lives around the world. However, despite the global policies initiatives, African cities are still not measuring up to fulfilling the narratives.

Paper long abstract:

The global urban development policies aim at improving people’s lives around the world, the Sustainable Development Goals and New Urban agenda, do much more in tackling the root causes of poverty, and developmental issues. It embraces the need for economic development that leaves no one behind and gives every child a fair chance of leading a decent life. However, despite the global policies initiatives, African cities are still not measuring up to fulfilling the narratives. This is because many of the states sees it as a foreign idea that has no place for their value. This work, will explore three interrelated questions: why is the global urban policies not well mainstreamed into the African development framework? What type of urban issues are made salient for African urban future? Which roadmap will transform African’s urban future? The discourse will bring into fore the political leadership and practical policies needed for the African cities future.

Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to rethink new city making in the Global South and suggests a need for a paradigm shift with the possibility of more community and bottom-up approaches. It looks into how the new governance framework implicit in a charter city model can enable this more bottom-up, emergent approach.

Paper long abstract:

Planning is a discipline of shifting paradigms, from the functional modern city to the rational-comprehensive approach to the current return of place. But how has (or will) the discipline shift in response to the rise in recent decades of new city building around the globe? With at least 100 new cities in conception or under construction in India; dozens more underway in each of Southeast Asia, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America; and over 600 new cities currently either being designed or being built in China—the answer to this question will affect the lives of potentially millions of individuals. As it stands, most new cities built recently or currently being developed are over-planned. Currently, urban plans often follow either the Chinese-grid planning paradigm or an American suburban model. Those approaches leave little to no space for local adaptation, emergent market forces, and the agency of residents to shape their cities over time. New cities can be an excellent opportunity to inject urban economic vibrancy, solve market failures, and unlock innovation. However, until a deliberate shift occurs in the planning paradigms of these new city developments, they will continue to suffer from common challenges. It aims to rethink new city making in the Global South and suggests a need for a paradigm shift. The paper examines the possibility of more community and bottom-up approaches in new city developments. It looks into how the new governance framework implicit in a charter city model can enable this more bottom-up, emergent approach.

Paper short abstract:

What explains political and institutional development in Africa's emerging cities? This paper argues that center-periphery relations, chieftaincy affairs, natural resource endowments, and electoral competition shape these outcomes in small cities in Ghana and across the continent.

Paper long abstract:

Most scholarly attention on Africa’s rapid urbanization focuses on its large cities, yet most of the population growth is actually occurring in its smaller cities and towns (UN DESA 2015). Secondary cities face an especially difficult challenge because of their narrow economic base, low levels of human capital, and insufficient local government revenues. This chapter is part of a book manuscript on the contentious politics of African urbanization, which asks why some populations benefit from urban growth while others are left behind. The book argues that local political connections between community members and politicians through clientelist ties or democratic representation explain why some populations secure rights, remain in place, and improve their livelihoods. In addition, claims of belonging tied to land ownership and first-comer status provide the key mechanism through which populations participate in collective action. In Africa’s emerging cities, four factors shape these outcomes: center-periphery relations, chieftaincy affairs, natural resource endowments, and electoral competition. The chapter draws from the cross-national African Cities Dataset, a paired case-comparison of small cities in Ghana, and shadow cases from across the continent.

Paper short abstract:

International metropolitan models play an important role in African’s urbanisation processes. The aim of this paper is to discuss their relevance for small towns caught in big scale plans and to study how local actors react, deal with it and try to find their own way to be a part of the plan.

Paper long abstract:

The contested model of metropolisation (and anything related to it) for dealing with urban growth and inclusiveness in a globalised world is still increasingly important as a key model for urbanisation in Africa. The major agencies and international donors (World Bank, UN-Habitat, African Development Bank, etc.) are imposing it through their reports.

The aim of this paper is to focus on small secondary towns that are a part of those metropolitan models designed at other scales and for other kind of cities. Along the Abidjan-Lagos corridor, characterised by ruptures and territorial inequalities, the importance of small cities makes this analysis particularly relevant. Indeed, if we pay a great attention to the main metropolis (Abidjan, Accra, Lagos and Cotonou and Lomé), we are facing a great diversity of small-scale urbanisation processes questionning inclusivity.

Caught up in metropolitan and infrastructural projects that go beyond them, these towns are interesting laboratories for observing and analysing the strategies of various local stakeholders; their reactions to those urban models imposed from outside; the way they deal with their sublatern place and function within the corridor and metropolitan areas. All of this allows us to contribute to this panel by presenting the various play of actors, made of appropriations, hybridisation and resistance to the metropolitan models. This papers shall be based on empirical fieldwork done in one of these small towns, Bonoua, in Côte d'Ivoire, both caught in the Abidjan metropolitan plan and in the corridor infrastructure project.

Paper short abstract:

Rapid urbanisation in African cities has put pressure on peri-urban areas for development. These areas are predominantly governed by traditional authorities, resulting in the coexistence and conflict of modern and traditional land systems. This is a phenomenon that needs to be further explored.

Paper long abstract:

Due to the rapid rate of urbanisation in African cities, there is a demand for land in the urban peripheries for development purposes. These peri-urban areas are predominantly governed by traditional authorities according to customary land management systems. However, the implementation of the 99-year leasehold in peri-urban areas has resulted in the coexistence and conflict of modern and traditional land practices. Although research on peri-urban land has increased due to urbanisation, there is still a need to delve deeper into the 99-year leasehold tenure and its implications on peri-urban areas of African cities.

Through a qualitative study involving a critical realism, field interviews and critical analysis, this research explores the institutional, developmental, gender and spatial implications of the 99-year leasehold on peri-urban areas, using Mbabane Eswatini as a case study. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the 99-year leasehold system has been instrumental to the development of peri-urban areas amid traditional settings.

From the findings I will share how both modern and traditional institutions have played a role in the enactment and maintenance of the 99-year leasehold. In relation to gender and space I will share on issues of land accessibility, tenure security and how space is interpreted under the 99-year leasehold tenure. In my proposed presentation, I will also discuss how the 99-year leasehold tenure can affect urban, peri-urban and rural areas in the future.

Paper short abstract:

Global urban policy, especially those on housing, has a long history of advocacy for adequate housing for the urban poor, anticipating that countries will strive to achieve similar outcomes. This paper examines urban housing realities in Lagos as informed by residents' daily live experiences.

Paper long abstract:

Housing plays a significant role in country wide development. Research on housing shows that there is a high degree of housing inequality in Lagos, as housing takes up a major part of households' income. Therefore, the objective of the paper, based on a micro-sociological study in the private housing supply system and an ethnographic study in Lagos through questionnaires and interviews, provides a subtle expression of the appealing complexity of situational inequality. Given the city's persistent housing affordability and prevailing social inequality, many people live in unintended housing, and landlords drive up housing rental prices. The findings of the paper show a spontaneous unequal power relationship, which contradicts the city's existing social inequality structure in Lagos. These moments can impose a sense of relief on private homeowners who are assumed to have a particular social prestige while bringing more hardship to semi-formal and slum residents and other suppliers who have lower prestige. This emergent situational inequality, the paper argues, provides lower-class people with affective elements that can contribute to making sense of housing, poverty, lifestyle, and the conceptualisation of Lagos. This dialectical situational inequality does not become a practical living strategy but redefines individual philosophies of living in Lagos, embodied through narratives. Therefore, the paper suggests that the sociological account of situational inequality showcases an approach to interpreting the meaningfulness of micro-housing experiences regarding urban conditions, thereby enriching the understanding of the relationship between housing and inequality.

Keywords: situational inequality, housing, rental price.

Paper short abstract:

The Southern and animal turns have become recognised discourses that are circulating in the academic milieux. However, there has been limited engagement between the two turns. Repositioning livestock geographies in African cities and towns will reveal the limited engagement between the two turns.

Paper long abstract:

The Southern and animal turns have become recognised discourses that are circulating in the academic milieux. However, there has been limited engagement between the two turns. Despite the academics turning South, the animal turn is a limited terrain of research in the Southern turn discourse. Studies in animal geography are polarised that the ‘animal turn’ does not capture the wide ontology of the ‘Southern turn.’ While African cities are ‘livestocking,’ the space of animal geographies of livestock in the ‘Southern turn’ discourse has attracted less research activities. Emerging studies of livestock geographies in cities and towns of the global South view their presence from a perspective of objectification which is anthropocentric, Eurocentric and informed by the discourse of human exceptionalism. Thus, this body of work argues that although animal geography is a vibrant field of knowledge that has attracted a plethora of studies, the idiom of a Southern city has been disguised by the prevailing worldviews of narratives of animal geographies that originate from the West. Repositioning livestock geographies within the ‘Southern turn’ will lead to the revelation of limitations that truncate the illumination of the ‘animal turn’ to African cities. To do so, the study situates livestock geographies within the boundaries of the ‘Southern turn,’ discourse. It analyses limitations of the ‘animal turn’ when sedimented with the ‘Southern turn’ discourse. Furthermore, it discusses ways of decentering animal geographies to capture the analytics of an African city.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines people’s attitudes towards nature and related practices in a medium-sized town in Ethiopia. By grounding nature in place and time it shall open discussion for alternative imaginaries of an African urban future.

Paper long abstract:

The long tradition of seeing the urban as something different to nature has finally been overcome in the 21st century. In the eyes of climate change and environmental crisis sustainable development agendas have started to reintroduce “nature” as part of the urban. This comes in all sorts of, often quite technocratic, understandings where nature is seen as a service, as a solution, or a means of design.

Traditional African conceptions do not make such a division between nature and society. As this research shows, attitudes towards nature are formed by a multitude of cultural, social, and religious values and traditions interlaced with practices of livelihood production and the fulfillment of basic needs. Taking Ziway/Batu, a medium-sized town in the central rift valley in Ethiopia as a case, it shows that daily life routines are grounded in a strong relationship between people and nature. Semi-structured interviews and tracing everyday routines are used to gain insights into attitudes and practices of people living in and around Ziway/Batu.

As an agrarian country that is rapidly urbanizing, Ethiopia has the chance to formulate strategies that appreciate people’s strong attitudes towards nature. Furthermore, localized development goals on the African continent must include cultural conceptions of nature and a complex understanding of how the fulfillment of basic needs of individuals can contradict or support overarching goals.

Paper short abstract:

Using the example of the tensions between informal waste picking and global urban and environmental policies, this paper will show how informality, which is a pervasive African urban reality, needs to be considered if policy prescriptions are to be successfully implemented on the continent.

Paper long abstract:

The role of Global Urban and Environmental Policies in shaping the urban environment cannot be undermined. There is already a growing body of literature that critiques these policies, and the challenges that global South countries face in meeting the set targets. For one, the targets are general, universalizing, and premised on the dominance of efficient formal systems. They do not account for the pervasiveness of informality in African contexts, whether in employment, service provision or housing. As a result, policymakers cannot successfully implement Global Policies because some of the ‘basic’ infrastructures and data that are needed might not be available to begin with. This paper will discuss African urban futures, using the example of the tensions between informal waste picking and Global Policies. Waste picking has long been in existence in African economies as a way for the poor to earn a living, and yet in recent years, due to the need to mitigate against climate change and attain sustainable development, various projects, supported by Global Policies, have threatened the livelihoods of waste pickers. Waste-to-energy projects, for example, have been proposed as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions generated from landfills and provide energy. However, in the context of high unemployment rates, waste-to-energy has been presented as a threat to the earnings of waste pickers. The paper will discuss the waste-to-energy example and others, to make the case that Global Policies need to be inline with African urban realities, if they are to be successfully implemented.