Paper short abstract:

Analysis of current/recent sustainable cities initiatives in Africa and the institutional infrastructure to address and study environment&city improvement. Questioning the inclusiveness of these initiatives and the biases involved.

Paper long abstract:

Africa's cities have grown very fast. Currently the urban population has grown to almost 500 million out of 1.2 billion, and soon more than half of Africa's population will be living in cities, and many among them in metropoles of more than one million inhabitants. Demographic predictions show a rapid further growth and it is not unlikely that Africa in 2050 will have 1.2 billion urban people, out of its expected 2 to 2.4 billion. Africa's cities cope with huge demands and challenges, with many unplanned residential areas, and many dangerous working and living conditions. Coping with climate change is only one of their problems. However, also African cities try to be or become 'green cities', and promote changes in urban design and lifestyles that try to become more sustainable. In this paper the results of an exploration will be presented, based on information on websites and digitally available scientific and other types of publications. Special attention will be given to the African Green City Index (by the Economist Intelligence Unit, sponsored by Siemens), and its approach will be compared with the OURSUS approach, developed under the umbrella of the International Geographical Union. We will explore the inclusiveness of these green city initiatives: are they highlighting green initiatives in the wealthy suburbs, or are they also including initiatives in poor neighborhoods?

Paper short abstract:

Against the background of contested histories of urban planning, this paper surveys the shifting discourses and practices of urban sustainability linked to the challenges of environmental change in African contexts and offers insights from alternative practices of transdisciplinary co-design/co-production.

Paper long abstract:

Urban sustainability discourses in Africa have a history of alignment to elite and middle class discourses traceable to colonial modernist planning legacies and their appropriation by postcolonial elites. The need for profound transformation of urban presents into urban futures that meet the challenges of environmental change to reduce vulnerability and promote resilience through substantive adaptation strategies is now widely recognised across much of the continent. However, making such shifts that are inclusive and widespread in the challenging contemporary contexts of constrained resources, urban growth, profound disparities of wealth and livelihood opportunities, not to mention very variable calibres of urban governance, represents a tall - and some would say - unrealistic order. Nevertheless, cities, including in Africa, are often at the forefront of efforts to meet the challenges since they are today both major sources of emissions and key locations where the effects of environmental change and variability are felt. This paper surveys the various current sustainability discourses and practices, including diverse approaches to 'urban greening', and discursive shifts, before offering insights from alternative practices through versions of transdisciplinary co-design/co-production that might offer locally appropriate approaches.

Paper short abstract:

Sustainable urbanism is among the new development trend in African cities, promising development and prosperity. This paper highlights the challenges of sustainable urban projects within an African context based on the discrepancy between the discourse and the reality on the ground.

Paper long abstract:

This article analyses how sustainable urban development models are helping shape a new and improved urban model for the future of the development of African cities. Rapid urbanisation is fast tracking the need to find models that will cope with the pace of urbanisation without compromising the development of the future generations. In this respect, sustainable and environmentally sound projects have gain tremendous popularity among African countries, with each wanting its own sustainable urban project. Through the SDGs, and various eco-cities megaprojects, was developed a rhetoric of empowerment African countries to take their development process into their own hands, and break free from the cycle of poverty. Equally, it is has been an opportunity for them to reshape their urban landscape and resolve the vicious cycles of uneven development. Those new sustainable urban agendas promise opportunities for many African cities to break free from the postcolonial planning era, and step into an era where social justice, modernization, participation and environmentally sound development are part of the country's long term strategy.

Through an analysis of the mobility of urban models in African cities under this rhetoric, this paper presents the benefits and the flaws of the sustainable urbanism implementation. Looking briefly at the cases of Lagos and Cotonou this paper highlights the challenges of those initiatives within an African context. As well as the discrepancy between the discourse and the reality on the ground.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores factors that drive and facilitate waste management practices in Jinja municipal council in Uganda. Industrial wastes have greatly depleted River Nile where waters are turning green. The capacity of the JMC to establish the tonnage of waste collected per day is examined.

Paper long abstract:

Background: Proper waste management as a preventive measure against diarrhoeal diseases has not been addressed. The study seeks to establish factors that drive and facilitate waste management in JMC.

Methods: The study used a sample of 400 respondents. FGD sessions were held between vendors and restaurant attendants, in-depth interviews with apartment dwellers and industrial workers, key informant interviews with local leaders and JMC officials. Structured observations were conducted to expose restaurant attendants and vendors' waste disposal behaviour within their localities.

Results: JMC generates 149 tonnes of solid waste per day and is only able to collect 40%-60% of the total waste generated hence leaving 59 tonnes uncollected. Among respondents interviewed, 60% disposed of their waste anyhow while 35% used waste bins. 12% expressed ignorance of proper disposal channels. Findings further showed that barriers ranged from physical (distance to the bins), biological (fatigue due to the frequency of disposal rounds), cognitive (ignorance and cultural beliefs) and socio-economic (impoverished people perceive proper waste management through private collection firms to be costly, politics compromises the work of health assistants and lastly attitude to urban authorities). Disgust, comfort and safety were observed as the best motivators for proper waste management. Disgust referred to dirt, contamination and stench while comfort referred how Individuals feel when their localities are free of garbage. Safety refers to avoidance of diseases induced by poor waste management.

Conclusion: Industrial wastes have greatly depleted the source of River Nile where waters are dwindling and turning green.

Key words: Factors, Waste, Management

Paper short abstract:

Tree cover of Accra’s neighbourhoods ranges from 0.2% to 53.6%, a green divide that features in many cities. These intra-city disparities need to be examined within a context that explicitly recognises their political nature if initiatives are to increase urban sustainability and green equality.

Paper long abstract:

Intra-city differences of tree cover are one way in which the urban divide physically manifests itself, adding a green component to the discussion of urban inequalities. Nima and Airport Residential, two neighbourhoods in Accra, are less than a kilometre apart but Nima has a canopy cover of 4.4% while Airport Residential has a canopy cover of 30.4%. These values were determined together with those for the whole of Accra and its remaining 74 neighbourhoods using the 'dot method' approach where random points are displayed on aerial photographs and then categorised as being located either on a tree or not. A total of 38500 points were classified like this to add to the literature about Accra where waste management, water and sanitation have been investigated, but limited attention has been paid to urban trees. More specifically, an analysis on neighbourhood level allows relating tree cover, ranging between 0.2% and 53.6%, to within-city variations of other indicators (e.g. level of income, sanitation or type of waste disposal) that were used to assign neighbourhood poverty ratings during a mapping exercise. While the average crown cover of non-poor neighbourhoods was 23.1%, this continuously declined to 3.5% for those in the highest poverty class, resembling findings from other studies. These correlations suggest that the socio-political nature of the urban environment needs to be clearly acknowledged and should explicitly feature in any kind of urban sustainability initiative if green inclusion is to be achieved.

Paper short abstract:

Urban sprawl in African cities is widely considered unsustainable, while the concurrent urban densification processes taking place, arguably constitute a sustainable tendency. This paper examines the development of three informal settlements in Maputo, characterized by increasing urban densities.

Paper long abstract:

The intricate relationship between sustainability and urban density is a subject of discussion among urban planners and academics worldwide. While the debate is divided, policy has largely been supporting curtailment of urban "sprawl" and enhancing "compact city" development through urban planning mechanisms. While most studies point towards increasing urban expansion in African metropolises, few studies focus on the concurrent, urban densification processes taking place in most unplanned and non-formal peri-urban areas, which arguably constitute a more sustainable tendency at a macro-level. This paper examines the development of three such settlements in Maputo, Mozambique, where rapid population growth causes widespread transformations of the urban landscape and increasing urban densities, without state involvement. This study uses analysis of satellite photos for three case study areas with varying distance (0, 5 and 10 km) from the city center over a 10-year interval. The study finds increasing Floor Area Ratios (FAR) and decreasing green coverage in all three cases. However, the case farthest from the center both multiplied its FAR by 2.7 and increased the number of trees. The cases 5 and 10 km from the city center had comparable urban densities by 2016, thus contesting the significance of location factors. Although the peri-urban non-formal settlements of Maputo are widely considered dense according to local planning discourse, the densest case in proximity to the city center had a 0.39 FAR, which is relatively low for more centrally located urban areas, thus exemplifying the data interpretation dependency of the cultural context for any density measure. this paper was developed together with Paul Jenkins)

Paper short abstract:

With focus on Dar es Salaam, TZ this paper examines how households and factories sought alternative modes of provisioning goods as urban infrastructures and supply chains failed in the 1970s. I will also discuss the legacy of Africa’s “woodfuel” crisis with regard to narratives of sustainability.

Paper long abstract:

By the late 1970s, many of Dar es Salaam's residents and factories were having to rethink how they would access the basic commodities necessary for their survival in the city. In some cases, factories began creative recycling programs and re-evaluated previously overlooked raw materials to help keep themselves online during tough times. Urbanites meanwhile vastly expanded urban agriculture to help meet their food needs. They also turned increasingly to alternative fuels like charcoal since other fuels remained unaffordable. Meanwhile, there was a growing international campaign to stop the use of fuel wood because of anxieties over deforestation and desertification. The city also became a much more polluted place during this period as space was contested for multiple uses. Along with these material shifts, state ideologies also began to reimagine what 'development' should look like, and what Tanzania's relationship should be to its own resources. This occurred as President Nyerere faced the spectre of IMF intervention and the opening of Tanzania's markets. My paper aims to discuss the complicated and mixed legacy of this period in terms of what soon became called "sustainable development". How does this serve as an example of citizen-led sustainability in the city? Without romanticizing economic crisis, what might be learned from this period and what changes when sustainability is implemented from the outside? How does this also help us better understand one African city's complex relationship with its own hinterland?

Paper short abstract:

African cities are struggling to implement measures to respond to climate change due to the lack of municipal assets. On the example of Cape Town, this paper introduces the concept of Urban Change Agents (UCAs) as alternative approach to drive low-carbon transitions with limited assets and resources.

Paper long abstract:

In the majority of cities, climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies are developed by municipalities in collaboration with experts from the fields of climate science, energy, economics, technology and urban planning. Besides ambitious goals, African cities are struggling with economical and human resources to implement sustainable measures due to the lack of municipal assets such as administrative power, financial resources and urban development tools (ARUP and C40 cities, 2015). Meanwhile, the same cities act as the breeding grounds for innovative bottom-up solutions and creative start-ups that are transforming urban environments and shaping urban systems on the base of limited resources and finances (Seyfang and Smith, 2007).

In this paper, creative actors and innovative Urban Change Agents (UCAs) are acknowledged as potential drivers for climate actions. The results presented derive from recent field research in Cape Town, South Africa, and give an insight about barriers and opportunities of grassroots , start-ups and creative agencies who are active in the process of low-carbon urban transition.

The paper argues the following questions: How can African cities benefit from such initiatives and actors in their pathways to low carbon urban futures? How can creative small businesses be more integrated into top-down climate change planning instruments? What would support the up-scaling and multiplication of innovative and non-established operational models of self-driven climate-friendly initiatives? How could the impacts be measured?

Paper short abstract:

The German-Rwandese project RAPID PLANNIG evaluates the legal & policy instruments to exploit the sustainability potential within urban planning processes to respond on urgent demands of district settlement and environmental infrastructure for the fast growing city Kigali.

Paper long abstract:

While the proliferation of mega cities postulates most of international headlines, much of the rapid growth raises tremendous importance also for smaller cities, which have usually less personal and natural resources to tackle fast urban development. The rapid growth of urban areas implies urgent responds by public authorities to plan and guide the increasing demands of district settlement and environmental infrastructure development (energy, water supply and wastewater management, solid waste management, urban agriculture). One of these smaller but fast growing African cities under pressure is the capital city of Rwanda. The population of Kigali has been increasing of almost 50% since 2002, accounting for 1.135.428 residents. Rwanda is challenging to keep up with the pace of growth and develop rapidly in compliance with the policy "Vision 2020" of a green growth capital city and the "Kigali City Master Plan".

Under the umbrella of the Future Megacities Research Program of the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research and in collaboration with the City of Kigali, UN Habitat Kigali and the Rwanda University, 12 German research institutions are developing a rapid trans-sectoral urban planning methodology to use existing synergies of urban services and infrastructures to exploit the sustainability potential for Kigali (RAPID PLANNING). The study provides a critical discussion on the legal and policy framework of Rwanda to respond on rapid growth within urban planning procedures under sustainable premises. The objective is to indicate legal implications to foster transsectoral joint planning for green growth within public decision making processes in Kigali.

Paper short abstract:

With its annual growth rate at 5%, the city of Lusaka faces significant ecological pressures. While spatial planning is seen as an important instrument for ensuring ecological integrity and sustainable urban development, planners’ views, knowledge and practice seem to be static and problematic.

Paper long abstract:

Zambia is the third most urbanised country in Sub-Saharan Africa with 40% of the country's population living in urban areas. Lusaka city is Zambia's capital and is the largest urban centre with over 30% of Zambia's urban population. The City has been growing at high rate, averaging 5% per year, and now it is close to a metropolis. This growth has brought to the fore challenges facing spatial planners in the City. The City has expanded into natural rural and semi-rural lands and has consumed important ecological systems. This has challenged the role of planning as an instrument for urban development management. This is against the fact that Lusaka City Council (Local authority) through the Department of City Planning working in collaboration with Lusaka Province Planning Authority have legal mandates to ensure sustainable urban expansion and development. This paper seeks to investigate the extent to which city planners consider nature in formulating development frameworks for Lusaka. The paper will analyse how planners' views, knowledge and practice impact on ecological systems of cities.