Developing REsilient African cities and their urban environMent facing the provision of essential urban SDGs (DREAMS)

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Christine Fürst
• Subject Area: City Planning, Spatial Planning, Transportation and Infrastructure Planning, Landscape Planning
• Term: from 2021 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 462004619

African cities and urban agglomerations face significant challenges in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Urban developments in Sub Saharan Africa are often out of governmental control especially in informal settlements of major cities where growth is largely driven by informal social networks. Our transdisciplinary research project seeks to create new sustainability pathways for African cities based on scenario modelling and development of an impact assessment tool “DREAMS”. DREAMS aims at developing an integrated approach for participatory scenario modelling, impact assessment and integrated strategic planning. Our proposal anticipates the future development of African cities with regard to key driving forces and their social-ecological influences, as reflected in six SDGs, namely #3 (Good Health and Well-Being), #5 (Gender equality); #6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), #11 (Sustainable Cities), #13 (Climate Action), and #15 (Life on Land). Our regional focus will be in West-Africa (Ghana), East-Africa (Uganda) and Southern Africa (Republic of South Africa). We will combine remotely sensed data on urban pattern development and participatory scenario development and planning into a mixed-methods approach to better understand why current city planning instruments, strategies and participation mechanisms fail to better coordinate informal settlements thereby undermining the resilience of urban social-ecological systems being exposed to climate change impacts (e.g. flooding), as well as social insecurity and poor health. By implementing a charrette approach to land use planning as a theoretical framework, we will transfer knowledge on successful participatory planning mechanisms to addressing informal settlements predicament facing cities in the selected regions. From the technical in-novation perspective, we will develop and implement an integrative scenario simulation, assessment and visualization tool. This will help cities to better coordinate activities in informal settlements for sustainable urban development.

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks