Ọmọ Yorùbá tọkàntọkàn

Water for African Cities Programme facilitates the adoption of measures to ensure access to environmentally sound water and sanitation service provision to the un-served, as well as improved access for underserved populations of the target cities. Through demonstration projects and capacity building interventions carried out in collaboration with national partners, regional and international financial institutions, the programme supports water supply and sanitation utilities, local governments, NGOs and communities to leverage resources for scaling up and replication at the country level.

President’s seminar series – “Distinguished Women Researchers in the Built Environment” - Kathy Michell

Cities across the globe are facing rapid urbanisation and are expected to be at the frontline of addressing issues of global sustainability. More specifically, African cities in the main are characterised by multiple forms of poverty, growing inequality, environmental degradation, slums and informal settlements, social and economic exclusion, and spatial segregation.In this regard, sustainable development and management may be seen to be the defining challenge of the 21st Century. The Habitat III – New Urban Agenda makes significant strides in providing policies and strategies for sustainable urban development and management but fails to articulate their actual implementation. More often than not these policies also fail to articulate how the sustainable developments are to be managed and more importantly, do not require built environment professionals to be cognizant of the management of property and urban precincts in the development phases of projects. In addition, the 4IR is sometimes punted as the panacea to Africa’s problems. More specifically, the integration of technology (smart city concept) is touted as having the potential to turbo-charge the sustainable development and management of cities across thecontinent. Is this a possible reality for African cities or is it a pipe dream?The objective of this talk is to unpack the challenges faced in African cities and to discuss ongoing research in the pursuit of sustainable urban development and management.
BiographyKathy is on the full-time academic staff at the University of Cape Town and was Head of the Department of Construction Economics and Management from 2017 to 2020 and the Deputy Dean for Undergraduate Studies (Teaching & Learning) in the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment from 2021 – 2023.Kathy holds a Doctorate in property and facilities management from the University of Salford (United Kingdom), an MPhil in cost and systems engineering and BSc (Hons) in Quantity Surveying from the University of Cape Town. She is the Director of the Sustainability oriented and Cyber Research Unit for the Built Environment at UCT. She is a registered Professional Quantity Surveyor with the South African Council for the Quantity Surveying Profession and a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the Association of South African Quantity Surveyors, and the South African Facilities Management Association.Kathy is a Past-President of the South African Council for the Quantity Surveying Profession and served a four-year term as a Council Member on the Council for the Built Environment in South Africa. She was the Africa Market Seat on the Governing Council of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (2020 – 2023), is a current member of the Board of the CIB International Council for Building and Construction Research, a member of the International Facilities Management Association Research Advisory Committee and is a founding Director of the Africa Facilities Management Association.

Most discussions on the origin of human rights refer to the global North, the formation of the UN in 1945 and the adoption of the first international human rights instrument – the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR), three years later. Today, the UDHR remains one of the most influential human rights instruments across the world, having influenced the inclusion of human rights provisions in many national constitutions, and further human rights instruments. However, there is debate around viewing various elements of human rights as indigenous to many societies in the global South, including African societies, albeit articulated differently.


In recent years, there is increasing criticism of the exclusion of global South countries in the processes to develop the UDHR, which thereby excluded perspectives and iterations from these contexts. This has led to the tension between advocates for universalism and cultural relativists. This debate is a reminder of the need to reflect from an African centered lens about the origin of human rights. Doing this requires asking difficult and uncomfortable questions. Are human rights foreign to Africa? Did the fabric of pre-colonial African societies and cities have elements of human rights embedded in them? Was there observance of human rights which predated colonial Africa in our cities? Is it true that the historical evolution of human rights can be traced only to the North? What contribution has Africa made to the evolution and understanding of human rights in today’s cities and societies?


This session attempts to spotlight these questions through multiple lenses in today’s African cities. It brings on board advocates of varied voices in today’s African cities including women, children and persons with disabilities, to share different processes by which champions are enabling both differing and collective voice in urban development

Susan Boyle is BACK! Susan returns with "Wild Horses" by The Rolling Stones and earns the golden buzzer from Mel B.

You will be astonished to see the wonderful act.

What do you think of the performance? Let us know in the comments below.

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#gottalent #talent #agt

Opportunities for African Cities to Meet Their Transport and Urban Planning Needs in a Greener, More Sustainable Way

African cities are the most rapidly growing and youngest cities in the world, and they’re changing fast. This offers immense opportunities as well as challenges for urban planning to meet the needs of the people and the economic growth, alongside meeting the urgent progress needed to address climate change. This session looks at the opportunities in urban and transport planning for African cities – considering trends such as transit-oriented development (TOD), where people live closer to jobs and services reducing time and environmental burden on transport and boosting economic growth.

Chair
Heather Thompson | Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, CEO

Speakers
Chris Kost | ITDP, Director Africa
Paul Curtis | Vectos, Director
Gail Jennings | World Bicycle Relief, Consultant

Objective: How Municipal Finance can transform local development; also the discussions looked at how municipal bonds can help alleviate the government burden to finance income generation projects.

Panelists: Masefatang Dorcas Khomotso Letsastsi- Chief Officer Municipal Finance, Fiscal Policy and Local Economic Development at South African Association of Local Government Authorities,
Mr. Nicodemus Mkama- CEO Capital Market and Securities Authorities,
Dr. Charles Mwamaja-Commisioner for Financial Sector Development Ministry of Finance and Planning Jaffer Machano - Global Program Manager Municipal Investment Finance UNCDF

Moderator: Peter Malika.

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Switzerland is a popular place for trading expensive art. Apart from offering discretion and security, there is also a lot of money. Swiss television took a glimpse at the country’s private collections. (SF/swissinfo.ch)

By 2050, African cities are expected to be home to an additional billion people. This dramatic growth is expected to pose challenges to governments, the private sector and individuals, but it also presents immense opportunities to service and engage with a young, growing, increasingly digital population that will be key to the continent’s economic transformation.

Digital technologies, such as IoT, have a critical role to play and enable the development of smart cities that are improving everyday life to make them more liveable, sustainable, and resilient. Digital innovation in cities is also unlocking access to new financing instruments, which are critical for cities to overcome the huge investment gap needed to confront climate change and fulfil the SDG agenda.

At MWC Kigali 2023, on 18 October, we hosted a session, in collaboration with the Ministry of ICT in Rwanda, that brought together private sector innovators, city leaders, funders, mobile operators, and enabling organisations to discuss the role of technology and innovative financing in advancing inclusive climate-resilient urban development.

This is the recording of that session.

#mwc23 #M4DatMWC

Michael Turner presents an overview of twenty-four African cities and towns from the rooftop of the Kenyatta International Conference Centre, Nairobi, Kenya