Avsnitt
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“Sustainability for us would mean leaving behind capability and capacities, not dependency.”
In the informal settlement of Okerube in Lagos, the community faces significant challenges in accessing clean water and sanitation, which disproportionately impact women and children. An ACRC action research project is aiming to address these issues through establishing a sustainable, community-driven social enterprise model.
In this podcast episode, Deji Akinpelu is joined by guests Temilade Sesan, ACRC Lagos city manager, Funmilayo Daniel, a woman leader from Okerube community, and project co-leads Oluwaseun Muraina and Rasheed Shittu. They discuss the importance of building trust with the community, harnessing existing women-led structures to advance water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) solutions, and supporting residents to advocate for their rights, so they can actively shape their community’s future.
Highlighting how community-driven initiatives like these can challenge urban inequality – by strengthening the capacities and capabilities of residents, and advocating for greater representation of informal settlements in urban planning – they also talk about the need for collaborative planning and community ownership, to ensure sustainability over the long term. Looking beyond Okerube to other informal settlements in Lagos, they conclude by talking about what a just and sustainable future would look like for these underserved areas.
> Read more about ACRC’s work in Lagos
Deji Akinpelu is co-founder of Rethinking Cities, an advocacy group working on urban development issues in Lagos, and part of the ACRC Lagos uptake team.
Temilade Sesan is a social development researcher and ACRC’s city manager for Lagos.
Funmilayo Daniel is a woman leader from the Okerube Water Committee in Lagos.
Oluwaseun Muraina is a doctoral candidate at the Centre for Housing and Sustainable Development, University of Lagos, and co-lead of the ACRC WASH action research project in Lagos.
Rasheed Shittu is the founder and executive director of the Shantytown Empowerment Foundation (SHEF) and co-lead of the ACRC WASH action research project in Lagos.
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Music: Brighter Days | Broke in Summer
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“I think one of the most important aspects that has come out of this space is creating that enabling environment where communities can interact with the state without necessarily throwing accusations at each other.”
In this episode, Chris Jordan and co-host Rosebella Apollo are joined by Harare-based practitioners George Masimba and Shiela Muganyi, from Dialogue on Shelter and Zimbabwe Homeless People’s Federation respectively, to explore what inclusive urban reform looks like in practice. They explore two ACRC action research projects that are currently underway in Harare – the first focused on upgrading urban markets, and the second on building climate change resilience among informal settlement communities.
Reflecting on the urban markets project, George talks about working with market associations across 13 sites in Harare, on elements including data collection, policy engagement, capacity strengthening and infrastructure upgrades. Building on an earlier project based in the Glen View 8 Furniture Complex, he explains how the action research is supporting traders to improve their livelihoods and build resilience in the face of repeated market fires. Shiela then discusses the Informal Settlements Climate Change Action (ISCCA) project, exploring how climate change has become a catalyst for informal settlement upgrading, improving tenure security and driving community-led action in low-income areas. They unpack the role of the Urban Informality Forum as a collaborative platform that brings together communities, city authorities and researchers, and talk about how it could be replicated in other African cities to drive inclusive reform.
> Read more about ACRC’s work in Harare
Chris Jordan is communications and impact manager for the Global Development Institute at The University of Manchester, and ACRC's communications manager.
Rosebella Apollo is ACRC’s research uptake officer, based at the Partnership for African Social and Governance Research (PASGR) in Nairobi.
George Masimba is head of programmes at Dialogue on Shelter and ACRC’s city manager for Harare.
Shiela Muganyi is a community research leader from the Zimbabwe Homeless People’s Federation and part of the ACRC Harare action research project on climate resilience.
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Music: Brighter Days | Broke in Summer
Sounds: Zapsplat
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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The housing challenge in African cities is far from consistent. With differing historical, sociopolitical and economic contexts, cities are seeing urbanisation play out along differing trajectories – impacting issues around housing demand, supply and justice.
ACRC’s housing domain co-leads Alexandre Apsan Frediani and Ola Uduku join Diana Mitlin for a conversation around housing in African cities, drawing on insights from the seven cities studied in their report: Accra, Addis Ababa, Dar es Salaam, Freetown, Lagos, Lilongwe and Nairobi.
Highlighting key issues and observations from the city research, they discuss the importance of local government engagement, the significant challenges facing low-income residents around navigating rental markets and accessing housing finance, and the need for more sustainable construction approaches and building materials.
They emphasise the value of building reform coalitions and developing collaborative research approaches in order to influence housing policy and programming at the city level, also noting the potential that leveraging global issues such as climate change could have to drive sectoral reform.
> Read more in ACRC’s housing domain report
Alexandre Apsan Frediani is a principal researcher in the human settlements group at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and co-lead of the ACRC housing domain.
Ola Uduku is head of school at the Liverpool School of Architecture and co-lead of the ACRC housing domain.
Diana Mitlin is professor of global urbanism at The University of Manchester’s Global Development Institute and CEO of ACRC.
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Music: Brighter Days | Broke in Summer
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As in many cities worldwide, food production and management in Lagos is hugely complex – involving many different actors, shaped by various political dynamics and deeply intertwined with many other urban systems.
With around 80% of food consumed in Lagos brought in from outside the city, the average household faces numerous challenges to getting food onto the table. Conflicts in other parts of Nigeria can cause difficulties with transportation, which then impacts costs and produce quality. Politics within the food distribution value chain can also complicate food access, with different ethnic and gender dynamics in some city markets affecting food prices and availability. Food waste is another key issue, with efforts to manage household organic waste lagging behind similar attempts to tackle plastic waste in the city.
Yet, as Ismail Ibraheem, Taibat Lawanson, Folasade Adeboyejo and Deji Akinpelu discuss in this podcast episode, there are opportunities for improvements across the food system in Lagos, which could help make the city healthier and more liveable. From increasing local food production, as outlined in the Lagos State government’s agricultural roadmap, to building reform coalitions and implementing policies to strengthen the food waste value chain, they explore possible ways forward to enhance food systems and security in the city.
> Read more in ACRC’s Lagos city report
Ismail Ibraheem is director of International Relations, Partnership and Prospects (IRPP) at the University of Lagos and ACRC’s uptake director.
Taibat Lawanson is professor of urban management and governance at the University of Lagos, Leverhulme professor of planning and heritage at the University of Liverpool and was the Lagos city lead for ACRC’s foundation phase research.
Folasade Adeboyejo is a PhD student at the University of Plymouth
Deji Akinpelu is co-founder of Rethinking Cities, an advocacy group working on urban development issues in Lagos, and part of the ACRC Lagos uptake team.
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Music: Brighter Days | Broke in Summer
Sounds: Zapsplat
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As urbanisation accelerates across Africa, cities are under growing pressure to deliver essential infrastructure and public services – such as water, sanitation, drainage and electricity. Yet this expanding responsibility is unfolding in a context where sustainable funding and reliable financing mechanisms remain limited or entirely absent, leaving many local governments struggling to meet rising demands.
So, how can African cities manage their expanding expenditure responsibilities, particularly in the face of persistent funding shortfalls? One potential solution lies in property taxation – a levy applied to the ownership, transfer or occupation of land and physical property.
Ahead of an upcoming ACRC workshop in Accra, Chris Jordan is joined by Samuel B Biitir for a conversation around the challenges and opportunities of urban property taxation in African cities. With a particular focus on the Accra context, they discuss how property taxation could help to improve essential urban infrastructure and services, the need for political buy-in, the potential benefits and blockages posed by digitalisation, and the importance of transparency when it comes to securing citizen support.
> Read more about ACRC’s urban property tax workshop in Accra
Samuel B Biitir is a senior lecturer in the Department of Land Management at SD Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies, and led ACRC's land and connectivity domain research in Accra.
Chris Jordan is communications and impact manager for the Global Development Institute at The University of Manchester, and ACRC's communications manager.
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Music: Brighter Days | Broke in Summer
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School feeding programmes are a vital safety net for vulnerable children, providing them with healthy and nutritious meals that they might otherwise miss out on.
Such initiatives are not new and have run in Kenya in different forms for decades; in Nairobi, for example, the county government has an existing school feeding programme in public schools. But the current programme does not apply to informal private schools, meaning that the majority of children living in the city’s informal settlements have been excluded from the government initiative. An ACRC action research project aims to fill this gap.
In this episode, Veronica Mwangi, researcher and lecturer of economic geography at the University of Nairobi, joins Chris Jordan to talk about the issue of healthy diets and nutrition in African cities – particularly among children living in Nairobi’s informal settlements. They discuss the various economic, market-related and household-level factors hindering access to nutritious diets in these settlements – such as low incomes, high food prices and cultural practices – highlighting malnutrition and food insecurity as major concerns. They explore the potential that expanding the existing school feeding programme has to address these issues and improve the nutrition of children living in informal settlements, outlining how the action research team is working closely with the community to co-create an affordable, sustainable school feeding model that can be rolled out across informal schools.
> Read more about ACRC’s school feeding programme action research project
Veronica Mwangi is a researcher and lecturer of economic geography in the Department of Geography, Population and Environmental Studies at the University of Nairobi.
Chris Jordan is communications and impact manager for the Global Development Institute at The University of Manchester, and ACRC's communications manager.
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Music: Brighter Days | Broke in Summer
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Recently published ACRC research, exploring land and connectivity in African cities, found “land brokers” to be significant players within urban land markets. In Mogadishu, Somalia and Kampala, Uganda in particular, the research found that brokers play a prominent role in influencing land dynamics in the cities – acting as intermediaries in transactions and often directly impacting land prices.
In this episode, ACRC’s land and connectivity domain lead Tom Goodfellow is joined by Abdifatah Tahir from Mogadishu and Eria Serwajja and Muhamed Lunyago from Kampala for a conversation around the role of land brokers in urban land markets in African cities.
They discuss the key role that brokers play in connecting buyers with sellers and facilitating transactions, along with the influence they have over land prices. Highlighting issues that arose in the ACRC research, they also talk about concerns around legitimacy, trust and transparency within brokers’ activities, land value discrepancies, and the need for regulation.
> Read more in ACRC's land and connectivity domain report
Tom Goodfellow is professor of urban studies and international development at the University of Sheffield and co-led ACRC's land and connectivity domain research.
Abdifatah Tahir is a research fellow at the University of Sheffield and was formerly a postdoctoral research fellow with ACRC, working on the land and connectivity domain team in Mogadishu.
Eria Serwajja is a lecturer in the department of development studies of Makerere University in Uganda and was part of the ACRC land and connectivity domain team in Kampala.
Muhamed Lunyago is a PhD fellow at the Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR) at Makerere University in Uganda and was part of the ACRC land and connectivity domain team in Kampala.
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Music: Brighter Days | Broke in Summer
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On Tuesday 10 September 2024, Maiduguri city residents woke up to an unparalleled natural disaster: flooding that severely damaged over half of the city and resulted in the significant loss of lives. The five bridges that connect the city’s two sides overflowed, dividing it into two blocs that were unable to reach out to each other. Almost the entire lower portion of the city remained under water for over two weeks before the flood waters began to recede.
The Alau Dam – situated a few kilometres away from Maiduguri city – collapsed, leading to a flood that killed an estimated 77 people and displaced 300,000. As a city still recovering from the scourge of the Boko Haram insurgency, the flood has further compounded the economic and social challenges that city residents were already facing. The victims were faced with challenges of health care, infrastructural needs, mental health and psychosocial support needs, shelter and food.In this podcast episode, Chris Jordan speaks to Babakura Bukar about the devastation caused by the floods, the factors contributing to the dam collapse and how such a disaster could be avoided in the future.
> Read more in ACRC’s Maiduguri city report
Babakura Bukar was ACRC's uptake lead for Maiduguri in the foundation phase of the programme.
Chris Jordan is communications and impact manager for the Global Development Institute at The University of Manchester, and ACRC's communications manager.
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Accra is home to around 5 million people and plays a crucial role in Ghana’s national political landscape. Located on the coast of West Africa, development trajectories of the city are significantly influenced by national and global events.
More than two thirds of the population are estimated to reside in informal settlements, with a great diversity of cultures and ethnicities across communities. Many of these areas have no or unreliable access to essential services including water, electricity and sanitation, and significant levels of inequality exist among different neighbourhoods.
In this episode, Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai joins Chris Jordan to talk about the major findings from ACRC’s urban development research in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area. He discusses how the city has changed over the last 25 years, including shifting geographical boundaries, along with the slow progress being made towards addressing Accra’s significant housing deficit and improving service delivery in disadvantaged areas.
He notes how attitudes towards informal settlement residents and their needs are slowly changing, with some evidence to suggest that national and city elites are making efforts to enhance basic services in settlements like Old Fadama. Delving into insights from the city research into the political dynamics at play in Accra, he also highlights the importance of the city to national elites – largely due to its significant urban population and position as a swing voting city – and the need for greater cooperation and capacity building among city authorities to drive meaningful urban transformation.
> Read more in ACRC’s Accra city report
Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai is an associate professor in the Department of Public Administration at the University of Ghana Business School, an honorary research fellow at the Global Development Institute at The University of Manchester and ACRC's Accra city lead.
Chris Jordan is communications and impact manager for the Global Development Institute at The University of Manchester, and ACRC's communications manager.
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Music: Brighter Days | Broke in Summer
Sounds: Zapsplat
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Two thirds of people living in Lagos reside in informal settlements, often in flood-prone areas and with limited access to basic services. As more and more people move into the city, the already high population density is rising. With more than 8,000 people per square kilometre in some parts – over 40 times Nigeria’s average – Lagos is struggling to meet the housing demands of its ever-expanding population.
ACRC research highlights a lack of attention on improving the climate resilience of Lagos at the community and city levels. Additionally, it draws attention to major issues with the rental sector, inadequate provision for gendered housing access and challenges around high construction costs.
So, what can be done to increase housing provision in Lagos, and ensure all residents have access to safe, affordable, serviced accommodation?
In this podcast episode, ACRC’s uptake director Ismail Ibraheem is joined by Deji Akinpelu, Lookman Oshodi and Basirat Oyalowo for a conversation around housing challenges in Lagos and how inclusive, affordable and climate-resilient housing solutions might be implemented. They discuss the need for a social approach to housing provision, why transformation must be inclusive of vulnerable populations and how cooperative societies can play a key part in providing accessible housing financing for disadvantaged groups.
> Read more in ACRC’s housing domain report
Ismail Ibraheem is director of International Relations, Partnership and Prospects (IRPP) at the University of Lagos and ACRC’s uptake director.
Deji Akinpelu is co-founder of Rethinking Cities, an advocacy group working on urban development issues in Lagos.
Lookman Oshodi is project director at Arctic Infrastructure in Lagos, which focuses on climate-resilient infrastructure to improve the functioning of urban systems.
Basirat Oyalowo is a senior lecturer at the University of Lagos in the Department of Estate Management and was the housing domain lead for ACRC’s foundation phase research in Lagos.
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Music: Brighter Days | Broke in Summer
Sounds: Zapsplat
This podcast presents the views of the speakers featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.Stay up to date with the latest publications, announcements and insights from the African Cities Research Consortium:
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“No textbook can tell you how to do this.”
Lalitha Kamath | Coalitions and urban transformation: Contributions and limitsDiana Mitlin | The contribution of reform coalitions to inclusion and equity: lessons from urban social movements
ACRC defines inclusive urban reform coalitions as partnerships between government, experts and civil society organisations – often directly involving communities and groups most directly affected by the issues at hand – to drive sustainable urban transformation.
In this episode, Lalitha Kamath – professor in the School of Habitat Studies at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai – joins Ezana Haddis Weldeghebrael for a conversation about the transformative potential of urban reform coalitions and the need to value lived experience.
Talking about how she became interested in governance coalitions during her PhD, Lalitha argues that the value of coalitions lies in the process of self-organising itself – not just the material outcomes. She highlights how inclusive coalitions can serve to visibilise diverse experiences of urban spaces and calls for a reshaping of the politics of expertise.
Lalitha Kamath is an urban planner and policy analyst, and currently teaches in the Centre for Urban Policy and Governance, School of Habitat Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
Ezana Haddis Weldeghebrael is a research fellow in the international development department at the University of Birmingham and an honorary fellow at The University of Manchester. He was previously a postdoctoral research fellow at the African Cities Research Consortium.
Further reading----
Music: Brighter Days | Broke in Summer
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“From the design of the project, from the design of the tools, to implementation, to data collection and everything, the community should be at the lead, at the forefront, speaking about their issues.”
ACRC research in Nairobi has brought together communities, academics, county and government officials and the private sector, to come up with actions that support communities at the city level. Jane Wairutu from SDI-Kenya, and Nicera Wanjiru Kimani and Nancy Njoki Wairimu from Muungano wa Wanavijiji, sat down with ACRC informal settlements domain co-lead Daniela Cocco Beltrame, to talk about their experiences of the first phase of ACRC research in Nairobi.
They discuss the challenges of finding language to bridge the gap between academics and local communities, highlight the benefits of bringing stakeholders together outside of their silos, and stress the importance of enabling communities to lead action research and to have ownership of data for advocacy purposes.
Nancy Njoki Wairimu is a national federation leader for Muungano wa Wanavijiji and a community mobiliser, with a background in community development and as a community health volunteer.
Nicera Wanjiru Kimani is a woman leader in her community, a federation member at Muungano wa Wanavijiji and the founder of Community Mappers.
Jane Wairutu is a sociologist and programme manager at SDI-Kenya, working closely with data and project implementation teams.
Daniela Cocco Beltrame is a PhD researcher in development policy and management at The University of Manchester, and co-lead for ACRC's informal settlements domain.
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Music: Brighter Days | Broke in Summer
Sounds: Zapsplat
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"Informal settlements in Kampala, and in other cities elsewhere across Africa, they are not homogenous, they're very heterogeneous. The kinds of pressures they face – social, environmental, political, economic pressures – they're very different."
More than half of people living in African cities reside in informal settlements. Such settlements often share similar challenges – including inadequate access to basic services and infrastructure, and insecure tenure. But when it comes to understanding the political dynamics of urban informality, the differences cannot be ignored.
In this episode, ACRC's Kampala informal settlements domain lead Peter Kasaija joins Smith Ouma for a conversation around how politics shapes access to basic services in Kampala's informal settlements. They discuss deficiencies in city systems, the multiple players operating in these spaces and the "invisible hand" of powerful local actors in granting access to basic services. They also talk about the often-overlooked political savviness of informal settlement residents in using political support to protect themselves against eviction. And they reflect on the evolution of informal settlements in the city, and why some might disappear in the near future.
Peter Kasaija is a researcher at the Urban Action Lab at Makerere University and leads ACRC's informal settlements domain research in Kampala.
Smith Ouma is a Leverhulme Research Fellow at The University of Manchester's Global Development Institute and part of ACRC's informal settlements domain team.
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Sounds: Zapsplat
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Urban reform coalitions can play a critical role in building inclusive, sustainable and productive cities. Made up of diverse stakeholders who collaborate to achieve common goals, these coalitions can work to strengthen relationships between disadvantaged groups and influential state/non-state actors. This collective action can be powerful in challenging socioeconomic inequality and enabling marginalised groups to capitalise on political opportunities for inclusive reform.
So where do researchers come in?
This podcast episode is a recording from a webinar we held in September 2023 to discuss the role that academics, action researchers and professionals can play in fostering the formation and functioning of urban reform coalitions. In doing so, we wanted to give special focus to how knowledge and evidence can catalyse urban reform coalitions.
Chaired by ACRC research associate, Ezana Haddis Weldeghebrael, the webinar comprised presentations from three panellists, who talked about their experiences of working with urban reform coalitions and shared valuable lessons learned, followed by a question-and-answer session.
Shalini Sinha is the urban Asia lead and home-based work sector specialist at Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO). She discusses the “I, Too, am Delhi” campaign, including the importance of having multi-sectoral partnerships and an intersectional perspective, along with the need to “demystify the technical”.
Catherine Sutherland is an associate professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She shares her experiences and lessons from co-producing knowledge with disadvantaged groups in the Palmiet Catchment Rehabilitation Project, aimed at building flood resilience in Durban, South Africa.
Paul Mukwaya is coordinator at the Urban Action Lab and ACRC's city lead for Kampala. He talks about his experiences as part of the Just City and Informality Working Group, led by Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Uganda.
Ezana Haddis Weldeghebrael is a research associate at the African Cities Research Consortium, supporting research across the crosscutting themes of finance, gender and climate change.
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“The city keeps on growing every day. New infrastructure is being brought in every day. This means we can envisage more and more people coming into Lagos needing housing.”
With more than an estimated 3,000 people arriving every day, Lagos is seen as a city of opportunity. But a rapidly increasing population means huge demand for housing in a city where around 70% of the population lives in substandard conditions.
Speaking to Miriam Maina, ACRC’s Lagos housing domain lead Basirat Oyalowo discusses her research into the Lagos housing value chain, which is looking at the complex connections between various subsystems to better understand what can be done to boost provision and upgrade existing housing in the city.
She talks about how groups including cooperative societies, social organisations and residents’ associations are already working to fill gaps in government service provision and basic infrastructure. With greater recognition and support, she argues, there is ample opportunity for these groups to scale up interventions to deliver housing alongside other neighbourhood improvements. Highlighting the vulnerability of informal communities to climate hazards as well as evictions, she stresses the need for communities to understand the risks they face so they can proactively advocate for better housing conditions.
Basirat Oyalowo is a senior lecturer at the University of Lagos in the Department of Estate Management, and leads the housing domain research for ACRC in Lagos.
Miriam Maina is a town planner and urban researcher. She recently completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at the African Cities Research Consortium, where she was part of the housing domain team.
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"How can the interest and the commitment of those in charge of this city be galvanised, so that they see service delivery as important as an end in itself? For me, we need first to mobilise citizens."
People living and working informally are often the most affected by shortfalls in service provision, impacting their access to education, healthcare, markets, sanitation, roads and more. In this episode, ACRC researchers Badru Bukenya and Buyana Kareem join Junior Alves Sebbanja for a conversation about service provision in Kampala, discussing the systemic and governance challenges underpinning it.
Drawing on findings from their ACRC research, they talk about emerging crosscutting issues, including how limited capacities and inconsistent political support are impacting governments' abilities to deliver on policies. They discuss citizen engagement as a key starting point for building sustainable programmes, highlighting the importance of including communities within planning processes in order to understand their needs and priorities, and to deliver contextually appropriate solutions.
Badru Bukenya is a senior lecturer in the department of social work and social administration at Makerere University, and political settlements lead for ACRC in Kampala.
Buyana Kareem is an interdisciplinary researcher at the Urban Action Lab, Makerere University, and supports ACRC's city of systems research in Kampala.
Junior Alves Sebbanja is a project manager at ACTogether Uganda and part of ACRC Kampala's uptake team.
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Music: Brighter Days | Broke in Summer
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This podcast presents the views of the speakers featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.Stay up to date with the latest publications, announcements and insights from the African Cities Research Consortium:
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ACRC defines inclusive urban reform coalitions as partnerships between government, experts and civil society organisations – often directly involving communities and groups most directly affected by the issues at hand – to drive sustainable urban transformation.
In this episode, Shuaib Lwasa, ACRC's capacity strengthening lead and professor of urban resilience and global development at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, talks to Ezana Haddis Weldeghebrael about building and sustaining reform coalitions, drawing on his experiences as founder of the Urban Action Lab (UAL) at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda.
He discusses how knowledge co-production became the most important aspect of the UAL's research, along with challenges around bringing together disadvantaged and advantaged groups, and how academics and researchers in the contemporary urban space should play a bridging role between communities and other actors – to identify commonalities between different interest groups and empower communities to advocate for themselves.
Highlighting the importance of decency in urban development, he argues that there is a need to look beyond standardisation to achieve this, and to embrace alternative methodologies and tools – such as reform coalitions and other bottom-up approaches.Shuaib Lwasa is professor of urban resilience and global development at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam. He leads the African Cities Research Consortium's capacity strengthening work and is also co-lead for the climate change crosscutting theme.
Ezana Haddis Weldeghebrael is a postdoctoral research fellow at the African Cities Research Consortium, supporting research across the crosscutting themes of finance, gender and climate change.
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Music: Brighter Days | Broke in Summer
Sounds: Zapsplat
This podcast presents the views of the speakers featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.Stay up to date with the latest publications, announcements and insights from the African Cities Research Consortium:
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ACRC defines inclusive urban reform coalitions as partnerships between government, experts and civil society organisations – often directly involving communities and groups most directly affected by the issues at hand – to drive sustainable urban transformation.
In this episode, Joseph Macarthy, executive director of the Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre (SLURC), joins Ezana Haddis Weldeghebrael for a conversation around coalition building for inclusive urban reform, drawing on his experiences in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Discussing SLURC's ongoing work with with the Centre of Dialogue on Human Settlement and Poverty Alleviation (CODOHSAPA) and the Federation of Urban and Rural Poor (FEDURP), Joseph talks about collaborating with community residents as co-researchers, the development of a Community Action Area Plan, and how City and Community Learning Platforms can provide a space for genuine dialogue among different actors in Freetown.
Joseph Macarthy is executive director of the Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre (SLURC) and ACRC's Freetown city lead, also overseeing city of systems and housing research in the city.
Ezana Haddis Weldeghebrael is a postdoctoral research fellow at the African Cities Research Consortium, supporting research across the crosscutting themes of finance, gender and climate change.
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Music: Brighter Days | Broke in Summer
Sounds: Zapsplat
This podcast presents the views of the speakers featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.Stay up to date with the latest publications, announcements and insights from the African Cities Research Consortium:
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As the capital and the seat of the Somali government, Mogadishu has undergone a slow process of urban recovery over the course of the past decade. The city is experiencing rapid urbanisation, growing up to as much as 4% per year by some estimates, with a concomitant building boom driving up land prices. However, central tenets of the political settlement remain unresolved, including Mogadishu's constitutional status.
Drawing on current political settlements and domain studies, ACRC researchers Surer Mohamed, Afyare Elmi, Abdirizak Muhumed and Abdifatah Tahir discuss urban politics and power dynamics, issues of security and citizenship, and the trends they are seeing that give them hope for urban reform in Mogadishu.
Surer Mohamed is the current Harry Frank Guggenheim Research Fellow at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge, focusing on the politics of urban belonging in Africa and the aftermaths of political violence in cities. She is the ACRC uptake lead and domain lead for land and connectivity in Mogadishu.
Afyare Elmi is the executive director of the Heritage Institute for Policy Studies, as well as the ACRC city lead and political settlements co-lead in Mogadishu.
Abdirizak Muhumed is a senior researcher at the Heritage Institute for Policy Studies and co-leads ACRC's political settlements research in Mogadishu.
Abdifatah Tahir is a postdoctoral research fellow at The University of Manchester and former member of Somalia’s federal parliament. He is working on the land and connectivity domain within ACRC.
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Music: Brighter Days | Broke in Summer
Sounds: Zapsplat
This podcast presents the views of the speakers featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.Stay up to date with the latest publications, announcements and insights from the African Cities Research Consortium:
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ACRC defines inclusive urban reform coalitions as partnerships between government, experts and civil society organisations – often directly involving communities and groups most directly affected by the issues at hand – to drive sustainable urban transformation.
In this episode, George Masimba from Dialogue on Shelter Trust – support NGO to the SDI-affiliated Zimbabwe Homeless People’s Federation – talks to Ezana Haddis Weldeghebrael about the trust's experiences of working within reform coalitions to improve access to urban services for marginalised communities in Harare, through initiatives including the development of an inclusive framework for participatory informal settlement upgrading.
He highlights how coalitions have been instrumental in securing buy-in for SDI's approach to informal settlement upgrading in the city, and explores their value in leveraging financial and technical resources, strengthening engagement processes, and creating a community of likeminded stakeholders who can push for change together.
George Masimba is head of programmes at Dialogue on Shelter and is the lead for ACRC's city of systems, uptake and informal settlements domain work in Harare. George appeared on a previous episode, discussing knowledge co-production in the city.
Ezana Haddis Weldeghebrael is a postdoctoral research fellow at the African Cities Research Consortium, supporting research across the crosscutting themes of finance, gender and climate change.
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Music: Brighter Days | Broke in Summer
Sounds: Zapsplat
This podcast presents the views of the speakers featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.Stay up to date with the latest publications, announcements and insights from the African Cities Research Consortium:
> Website
> E-news
> Bluesky
> LinkedIn
> YouTube
> X (Twitter) - Visa fler
