African Just Urban Futures: Digitalization for Local SDG Action

Africa is the world’s least urbanised continent, yet its cities are expanding faster than others worldwide – at 3.5% annually. The rate of urbanisation on the continent is projected to grow from 40% in 2015 to 56% in 2050 doubling Africa’s urban population. Most of this urbanisation is occurring in intermediary cities because of their scale and spatial distribution. Arguably, these cities hold the promise of a more “inclusive, safe and resilient” urbanism, if the youth bulge is effectively deployed.
African governments ascribe to the global commitments that espouse the importance of cities, which include the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the New Urban Agenda, and Addis Ababa Action Agenda. The Africa Agenda 2063 aligns to the SDGs and seeks to inspire Africa to revise and adapt its development agenda due to, amongst other factors, ongoing structural transformations, renewed economic growth, social progress and the need for people-centered development. Local governments are responsible for understanding true needs and providing essential services to local communities.
Digitally enabled solutions and innovations are positively transforming cities and communities, offering vital lessons for scaling and replication. For example, the use of information communications technology (ICT) to improve efficiency of delivery of public goods and services has been deployed in Kenya through the Huduma program launched in 2013. Huduma program establishes a one-stop-shop network of digitized service centres, grouping different government departments under one roof. Rwanda has partnered with the American Zipline to launch the world’s first commercial drone delivery system, transporting medical supplies to remote hospitals by air. In Côte d'Ivoire, a new Drone Academy set up in 2018 by the Ivorian Electricity Company is training pilots to inspect the electricity network slashing inspection times of the 25,000 km of high-voltage lines across the country and lowering costs.
With these advancements, this event is tailored to illustrate the place of digitally-enabled solutions and innovations in accelerating SDG implementation by shaping Africa Just Urban futures. Of key importance is how the digital interface is enabling people-centric measures to sustainable urban development. Technology enabled people-centrism in sustainable development is projected through the lens of governance and management and guided by measurable instruments such as those governing planning and service delivery. Measurability in this case will be demonstrated using SDG indicators, where digitally enabled solutions have been applied. Case studies from selected Cities in Africa that are involved in the VLR will form the backbone of the illustrations. Central to this will be the most recent case of Nakuru in Kenya, where a digitally enabled VLR data platform is leveraging government-citizens spirit of voluntarism in reviewing local actions against SDG performance indicators.