ABSTRACT
While the need to better understand African cities in order to shape the continent’s urban future is increasingly recognized in both the policy sphere and global agendas (e.g., SDGs and NUA), a disjuncture between urban policies and practice remains. This is partly due to a dearth of urban sustainability research that adequately engages with the specific local realities of African cities. This chapter argues that southern perspectives for theorizing the city and urban governance, development, and planning are needed, and, to that end, introduces a selection of research from the AURI network, a pan-African research platform intended to inform a sustainable urban transition. Providing an overview of Africa’s urban challenge, the chapter introduces emerging modes and methods – expanded on in subsequent chapters – to reframe that challenge through localized knowledge co-production. Adopting innovative approaches and comparative experimentation to examine pertinent issues (inequality, climate change, food economies, land, and housing), this volume offers insights on how governance, development, and knowledge co-production itself differentiate across diverse African urban contexts. Presenting new, localized knowledge that speaks concretely to the challenges experienced by those who govern and are governed on the ground, it serves as a contribution to new forms and methods of knowledge production.
