Urban Africa’s futures: perspectives and implications for agenda 2063
ISSN: 1463-6689
Article publication date: 13 January 2020
Issue publication date: 17 February 2020
Abstract
Purpose
The implications of Africa’s growth and urbanisation are the subject of much interest and speculation, and are central to the vision of the African Union’s Agenda 2063. The purpose of this paper is to compare the dominant perspectives on urban futures in Africa to emerging directions in futures and urban thinking, suggesting alternative policy approaches for Africa’s urban agenda.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper scans and sorts through how Africa’s growth and urbanisation are being understood and framed by various futurists and other futures-commentators. It takes the form of a discussion of the issue of how, why and by whom a series of data points, trends and their implications are being computed and combined, and with what validity, so to inform policy and planning responses.
Findings
The paper argues from its findings that futuring about urban Africa has been intense, but not particularly objective, neutral or even empirically grounded. Emerging directions in anticipation theorisation and experimental approaches such as “urban tinkering” are proposed as possibly offering alternative approaches to how nations and policymakers might think and act on urban Africa’s futures.
Originality/value
This original interrogation of which and how actors anticipate Africa’s urban futures could be used to expand beyond the urban visions, assumptions and futuring conventions reflected in Africa’s Agenda 2063, as well as processes advancing the global sustainable development goals and UNHabitat’s new urban agenda.
Keywords
Citation
Karuri-Sebina, G. (2020), "Urban Africa’s futures: perspectives and implications for agenda 2063", Foresight, Vol. 22 No. 1, pp. 95-108. https://doi.org/10.1108/FS-07-2019-0056
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited