Latest News + Insights
Podcast: Improving access to healthy school meals in Nairobi’s informal settlements
Veronica Mwangi joins Chris Jordan to talk about the issue of healthy diets and nutrition in African cities – particularly among children living in Nairobi’s informal settlements.
Handing on the African Cities Research Consortium
The University of Manchester has recently advertised a new role – which involves taking over as CEO of the African Cities Research Consortium. In this blog post, our current CEO, Professor Diana Mitlin reflects on her own career, experiences and what comes next.
New research: Assessing climate change impacts and solutions across 12 African cities
For ACRC research, climate change was a key crosscutting theme, which we investigated across all of our 12 cities and eight urban development domains. The synthesis report was led by ICLEI Africa and co-authored by Hayley Leck, Zakiyya Atkins, Luka Dreyer, Yakhuluntu Dubazana, Clara Marais, Lorena Pasquini, Tashi Piprek, Meggan Spires and Kate Strachan.
Catalysing change in Nairobi: Launching the city foundation phase report
On 7 February 2025, ACRC convened more than 100 stakeholders in Nairobi to officially launch the city’s foundation phase report. This report brings together diverse perspectives on Nairobi’s urban trajectory, offering an in-depth analysis of the political dynamics that drive urban change and examining the key city systems influencing access to services across the city.
New research: Productive partnerships and citizen agency key to urban reform in Kampala
A new report by Paul Isolo Mukwaya, Judith Mbabazi and Henrik Ernstson draws on ACRC’s holistic conceptual framework components – politics, systems and domains – to analyse urban development in Kampala.
New research: Pathways towards inclusive urbanisation in Nairobi
Nairobi is central to the Kenyan economy, as a key political battleground and a hub for business networks and national and transnational trade. Yet it faces an increasingly complex set of socioeconomic, health and spatial inequalities.
Magicians, powerbrokers and workhorses: The keys to structural transformation in African cities
Structural transformation involves the movement of workers from low-productivity to high-productivity sectors – often from agriculture to manufacturing and services – and is a necessary condition for sustained economic growth.
Reflections on my time in Manchester as an ACRC Visiting Writer
The African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC) Visiting Writers Scheme provides young African scholars in the consortium with the invaluable opportunity to develop their writing and researching skills, through four weeks of mentorship from a senior researcher at a supporting institute.
Lessons from Africa – for Manchester
A recent conference on African Urbanism has provided a useful space for me to reflect on what the African experience has brought to my work and that of my colleagues. This has included academic scholarship, professional and policy engagement and activism. Given their potential to improve development in Manchester and the role the University plays in this, two lessons are immediately worth sharing.
Podcast: Why do land brokers matter in African cities?
ACRC’s land and connectivity domain lead Tom Goodfellow is joined by Abdifatah Tahir from Mogadishu and Eria Serwajja and Muhamed Lunyago from Kampala for a conversation around the role of land brokers in urban land markets in African cities.
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