African cities research selects four action areas
The African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC) – a major six-year investment by FCDO to fund development research in African cities – is commencing pilot action research projects in four localities: Nairobi, Kenya; Harare, Zimbabwe; Maiduguri, Nigeria and Mogadishu, Somalia.
These interventions represent the first in a portfolio of urban reform initiatives in ACRC’s pipeline, with the goal of accelerating transformative change in African cities.
- In Nairobi, the pilot intervention focuses on improving children’s access to healthy diets.
- The project in Harare centres around upgrading and regularising informal enterprises located in the Glen View Eight complex.
- Maiduguri’s intervention builds on an existing effort by the Borno State Geographic Information System, which aims to better integrate informal settlement residents into land titling processes.
- The Mogadishu pilot seeks to increase tenure security and access to justice for informal settlers and internally displaced people (IDPs).
Led by The University of Manchester, the African Cities Research Consortium comprises research institutions, policy think tanks, civil society organisations and community-based researchers with a long history of helping to understand, facilitate and create positive change for African urban residents.
Through action research that builds evidence and supports coalitions of urban reformers, ACRC aim to show how complex problems in African cities can be solved collectively in the hope these efforts will also be useful to reformers and development organisations beyond ACRC’s focus cities.
To read more about the projects and their aims, head to the ACRC website.