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How can Africa create supportive environments for important innovations? >>
What’s Africa’s approach to the New Urban Agenda?
by
Developed Africa
25. January 2017 11:14
Bolstering urbanisation efforts
In 2016, Africa was the only region to provide a coordinated response to what should go into the United Nations’
New Urban Agenda
. The action-oriented document set global standards of achievement in sustainable urban development.
Regional leaders must resist parochialism— understanding that collaboration with neighbours is imperative at a time when competition is global, not local.
Once proven in one region, innovations in governance and policy must be spread—adapted and tailored for other areas and other cities.
Sanitation delivery in Africa continues to be a problem, though urban areas offer much more access to vital services such as water, sanitation and electricity.
Without a clear vision for how to grow cities to accommodate half a billion people over the next 20 years, Africa’s cities will continue to sprawl.
Africa’s urban future will benefit from better planning, but the risk is that the pendulum swings too far and that cities are over-determined, unable to adapt to change, and lacking in creativity.
Many experts—pointing to examples like the Chinese-built city of Kilamba outside Luanda—believe Africa’s cities will be built by foreign interests. The lack of skills, institutional capacity, and finances present a significant challenge to Africa’s urban agenda.
Successfully managing Africa’s urbanisation involves finding the balance between getting the basics right in megacities and promoting population and industrial de-concentration into secondary cities.
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