Governing Africa's Urban Transitions Ifri's Conference
Ifri's Sub-Saharan Africa Center is launching a new research program dealing with the major socio-economic and geopolitical challenges of urban dynamics on the continent.
Sub-Saharan Africa's cities are experiencing the fastest growth rates in the world. By 2050, most of the countries in the region will have made an urban transition, meaning that more than 50% of their population will live in urban areas. Urban growth is often presented as a cornerstone of the continent's socio-economic development.
This conference will discuss the challenges of urban governance by addressing the multiple stakeholders involved (municipalities, bi- and multilateral cooperation actors, companies, civil society, etc.), their roles and the policy tools (projects, plans, investments, etc.) implemented: what are the determinating key sectors of urban governance? How can the various initiatives that characterize kaleidoscopic forms of urbanism in Sub-Saharan Africa be coordinated ? To what extent does urban governance, which involves a great deal of foreign funding, represent a field of geopolitical competition?
Program of the seminar
Moderator: Alix Françoise, Research Officer, French Development Agency (AFD)
- Margherita Fadda, Junior Policy Analyst, Sahel and West Africa Club Secretariat (SWAC), Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
- Isabelle Lopez, Business Development Director, Urban Domain, EGIS
- Adama Sarr, Mayor of Keur Massar, Dakar region
- Sina Schlimmer, researcher, coordinator of the research program "Governance of urban transitions in Africa", Ifri
The seminar will be held in a hybrid format.
A simultaneous translation service in French and English will be available.
Click here to see the French version of the event page.
To register, you can also write to Sina Schlimmer (schlimmer@ifri.org) and Camille Haba (afrique@ifri.org). In your email, please specify your full name, your organisation and position and whether you wish to attend the conference on-site or remotely. Registrations will be accepted until Monday, May 30 at 9AM. The link to access the videoconference will be shared on May, 30 per email.
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By 2050, about 60% of the population of Sub-Saharan Africa will live in urban areas. The governance of the rapid growth of capital and intermediary cities in Africa is one of the priorities of the international development agenda.
With the expansion of modern production and consumption patterns to large African cities, population growth and urbanization, production of municipal waste has risen sharply. Unregulated dumps are becoming numerous and have strong negative health effects by polluting the local environment....
