Oxford Urbanists

Africa’s #urbanisation and readiness raise fresh concerns about climate change. Will urbanisation undermine Africa’s adaptation efforts to climate change? These concerns about her urbanisation trend and the impact of climate change on the continent have never been more pronounced than they are now. These concerns are not farfetched with projections showing that by 2050, 6.7 billion of the world’s 10.7 billion people will live in cities and 30% of those city dwellers will live in #africa With such a magnitude of urban share, one can only imagine the benefits awaiting the young continent. That could mean enormous prosperity, vast inequality and a perennial struggle with a warming climate, depending on how her leaders’ harness or manage urbanisation. Several studies have linked a city’s growing size to massive growths in per capita income from between three and eight percent. Besides, most regions reckoned as “developed” today entered the coveted status through rapid urbanisation. But where there is massive potential for development, there is even greater potential for disaster.   Africa’s demographic advantage may come with some unwanted baggage. Experts warn that without proper leadership and management of her growing population, the continent will only experience the “urbanisation of poverty,” where a large portion of city dwellers cannot access basic amenities such as potable water, healthcare, decent schools and housing. In their 2019 study, Cullis et al. established that mismanaged urbanisation “is often directly linked to the degradation of environmental quality, including quality of water, air and noise. Concurrently, climate is changing. Together, the negative impacts of #climatechange and urbanisation pose significant challenges, especially in developing countries where resources to mitigate these impacts are limited.”   More so, the impact of climate change on Africa is likely to be worsened by the persistent #infrastructure deficit, high unemployment rate, amongst other factors. ·     What then is the way forward? ·     How can the African people harness their demographic advantage to immunise themselves from the worsening climate crisis?  ·     What role will the leaders play in this struggle?  ·     How can the developed international community ease this struggle rather than imposing outlandish energy transition deadliness on developing countries facing this pressure? In this episode of Oxford Urbanists Webinar Series, we’ll be joined by Damilola S. Olawuyi, SAN, FCIArb current holder of the UNESCO Chair on Environmental Law and Sustainable Development at Hamad Bin Khalifa University Doha, Qatar. Moderating the session will be Xi (Sisi) Hu, Program Fellow of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School. Join the conversation on Urbanising Africa and its convergence with Climate Change by registering here: http://bit.ly/3P2nP8y #sustainabledevelopment #populationgrowth