For the first time in over 20 years, the World Urban Forum is being hosted on the African continent.
The African Cities Research Consortium will be there – so if you’re attending, please come and say hello! Look out for the ACRC exhibition booth where you can chat to us and find out more about our research and future plans.
To highlight the successful urban reform efforts we’ve been showcasing via our database, we’ll be asking people to tell us about their favourite example of inclusive urban reform. If you’ve got a good story, please come to the ACRC booth and let us know about it!
Learning from community voices
On Wednesday 6 November at 13:00–14:30, we are co-convening a session in Room F: ‘Learning from community voices, universities and knowledge processes: Experiences across Africa’.
Alongside SDI and IUSD, we will be discussing the value of community knowledge in driving urban reform, practical ways it can be incorporated into research and the broader role of universities in validating community knowledge.
Panellists include:
- Beth Chitekwe-Biti, Managing Director of Slum Dwellers International, and ACRC’s Community Knowledge Research Director
- Tapiwa Maruza, Informal Settlement Upgrading Officer at Namibia Housing Action Group
- Baher Shaarawy, Technical Advisor to the Prime Minister and Minister of Housing and Lecturer at HBRC, Egypt
- Sheila Muganyi, Community Leader of Zimbabwe Homeless People’s Federation
Developing city reform coalitions, allyships and better partnerships
On Thursday 7 November at 15:30–16:30, we will be hosting an informal discussion as part of the Habitat Village at Booth 7323 in Hall 4.
We’ll debate the role of reform coalitions in driving sustainable urban transformation, exploring the potential and pitfalls of bringing together communities, civil society organisations, government officials, politicians and researchers to co-produce reform. We hope to share experiences, insights and practical solutions for working together as part of an effective urban reform coalition.
Partner events
We’re also looking forward to attending the events being run by other ACRC partners, including:
- The launch of the Hub for Housing Justice, with IIED’s Alex Frediani (who co-led our work on housing) – Thursday 7 November at 13:00
- The raft of events through the week that ICLEI Africa is hosting
Header photo credit: WUF12 logo overlaying image of Dar es Salaam by Moiz Husein / iStock.
Note: This article presents the views of the authors featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.
The African Cities blog is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means you are welcome to repost this content as long as you provide full credit and a link to this original post.
