Latest News + Insights
How could urban property tax reform improve infrastructure and services in African cities?
As part of ACRC’s work within the land and connectivity domain, we are organising a workshop focused on effective property tax reform. Running from 19 to 21 May 2025 in Accra, the workshop will examine what works – and what doesn’t – when it comes to the design and administration of property taxation.
Understanding Nairobi through its waste collection communities
The incorporation of community knowledge into action research projects is central to ACRC’s approach in the implementation phase. In this blog post, we look at how the insights, experiences and perspectives of waste workers are helping to generate a more holistic understanding across the whole value chain, as well as benefiting the community researchers themselves.
Urban transformation and the trust triad
This is the second in a series of blog posts focusing on how urban reform happens, and where ACRC fits into change processes. This post explores urban transformation and the centrality of trust in politically engaged development programmes.
Issue-based programming and the parallel tracks of urban reform
This is the first in a series of blog posts focusing on how urban reform happens, and where ACRC fits into change processes. This post focuses on how ACRC’s approach links to issue-based programming.
New research: Interrogating gender, youth and (in)security in African cities
Across African cities, young people experience specific barriers to accessing livelihoods. A new crosscutting report examines this gendered youth–(in)security nexus in African cities.
Amplifying local voices to influence climate policy in Harare
The impacts of climate change are already exacerbating the challenges posed by urbanisation in Africa. For informal settlements, the capacity for resilience remains critically low, leaving them highly vulnerable to both natural and human-made hazards. In response, communities of low-income urban residents are coming up with innovative climate-resilient solutions through locally driven climate adaptation initiatives.
New special issue: The contribution of urban reform coalitions to inclusive and equitable cities
A new open access special issue of Environment and Urbanization explores how urban reformers come together to advance inclusive urban futures.
Reflections from the Nairobi city managers meeting
ACRC’s city managers, uptake officers and members of the senior management and uptake teams gathered in Nairobi last week for the third city managers meeting of the consortium’s implementation phase.
Tell us your thoughts about the ACRC urban reform database
We want to grow and develop the ACRC urban reform database further – and that’s where we need you! We’re looking for survey participants to share feedback on the database, suggestions for improvement and ideas for case studies.
New research: Unlocking urban finance for African cities
A new working paper by Astrid RN Haas and Gundula Löffler highlights trends and lessons on municipal financing in African cities, providing a valuable overview of this crosscutting issue across ten of ACRC’s focus cities: Accra, Dar es Salaam, Freetown, Harare, Lagos, Lilongwe, Maiduguri, Mogadishu and Nairobi.
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