By Francis Mawejje, social worker and programme manager (community-led data) at ACTogether Uganda and ACRC action research lead for Kampala’s electricity access project

The need for access to safe and affordable energy has been recognised at the global scale, but progress towards equitable access for all has been slow in many low-income neighbourhoods.

A newly published open access article in Development in Practice offers important insights into how migration is challenging and reshaping gender norms among young people in Ethiopia.

Drawing on research with migrant youth in Addis Ababa, former ACRC postdoc Elizabeth Dessie explores how everyday experiences of migration are producing both shifts in gender roles and strong reactions against them.

“Unsettling the (dis)order: youth migration and the subversion of gender norms in Ethiopia” highlights that changes to gender norms change in rapidly urbanising contexts is neither straightforward nor uniformly progressive. Instead, it is complex, uneven and deeply shaped by structural inequalities.

Migration as a driver of gender norm change

Over the past two decades, Ethiopia has seen more women and girls accessing education and participating in the labour force. At the same time, rural–urban migration has become a key livelihood strategy for young people seeking opportunities in cities. Some women also move to Addis Ababa after working in Gulf States.

This research shows that migration is a critical site where gender norms are being renegotiated. For young women, moving to Addis Ababa often creates new possibilities to earn an income, support family members and make independent decisions about their lives.

However, these shifts do not happen in isolation from existing social and economic constraints.

Women’s agency in contexts of precarity

The findings highlight how migrant women develop strategies to navigate difficult urban environments, often characterised by informal work, instability and exposure to exploitation.

For many, earning an income represents a significant transformation in their sense of self and autonomy. Yet this agency is shaped by necessity as much as opportunity. Women’s pathways into income generation frequently involve highly precarious activities, including street-based work and, in some cases, sex work.

This underscores a key policy implication: women’s economic participation in cities should not automatically be equated with empowerment. Structural vulnerabilities remain central to their experiences.

Marginalisation of men and the backlash against change

Alongside these changes for women, the study documents growing frustration among young migrant men. Limited employment opportunities and economic insecurity make it difficult for many to fulfil their traditional, socially expected roles as providers.

In this context, women’s increasing economic independence is often perceived as disruptive. Some men interpret these shifts as evidence of a breakdown in social and cultural norms, calling for a return to more traditional gender roles.

Urban informality and gendered inequalities

The research also draws attention to how urban informal economies reproduce gender inequalities. Women are frequently confined to more marginal and less secure forms of work, while facing stigma and limited protection.

At the same time, existing policy responses – such as employment initiatives – often fail to reach migrant populations, particularly women working informally and those without formal residency status. This leaves some of the most vulnerable groups effectively invisible in policy frameworks.

Rethinking responses: Beyond simple narratives of empowerment

A key contribution of this new research is its challenge to simplified narratives. Migration can expand opportunities for women and contribute to shifts in gender norms, but it can also trigger resistance and reinforce existing inequalities.

For urban development policy and practice, this points to the need for more integrated approaches that:

> Address the structural drivers of youth marginalisation;

> Support inclusive employment opportunities for both young women and men;

> Engage with masculinities as part of gender-transformative programming;

> Recognise and protect the rights of migrant populations in informal economies.

As cities across Africa continue to grow, youth migration will remain a defining feature of urban change. This study shows that understanding how migration intersects with gender norms is critical for building more inclusive and equitable urban futures.

Rather than assuming that urbanisation will naturally lead to progressive social change, the findings call for deliberate, gender-sensitive policies that address both economic opportunity and social norms together.

Read more:

• Read the full, open access journal article: Unsettling the (dis)order: youth migration and the subversion of gender norms in Ethiopia
• Read Elizabeth Dessie’s blog post featuring the stories of young female migrants to Addis Ababa
• Read ACRC’s domain report on youth and capability development, co-authored by Elizabeth Dessie

By Jerry Okal, Susan Mwanzia and Ismail Ibraheem

On Wednesday 6 May, ACRC colleagues met with the former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo at his Presidential Library in Abeokuta. The meeting was timely and insightful, and it turned out to be far more than a courtesy visit.

President Obasanjo spoke with enthusiasm and passion about Africa’s progress, missed opportunities, countries and cities getting it right, the true meaning of elite commitment, how to engage them and what happens when research and politics fail to meet the people they are supposed to serve.

It was a conversation that touched on one of the most pertinent questions facing Africa today: how are politics and development connected, and what does it actually take to build countries, cities and a continent that work for everyone?

Those in attendance included Folasade Tolulope Ogunsola, vice chancellor of the University of Lagos; Ismail Ibraheem, ACRC uptake director; Susan Mwanzia, ACRC Nairobi in-city politics lead; and Jerry Okal, ACRC Nairobi uptake lead.

The role of conflict resolution in Africa’s development

Africa’s development story cannot be told without reflecting on its political landscape. Across the continent, the promise of economic growth, social progress and urban transformation has often been hindered – not by a lack of resources or ideas, but by political instability, electoral contestation and unresolved, prolonged conflict, such as the case currently in Sudan.

The evidence shows that countries that invest in peaceful political transitions and conflict resolution consistently outperform their peers on virtually every development indicator – from infrastructure investment, to health outcomes, to foreign direct investment.

This is precisely why the role of respected voices remains crucial on a continent prone to fragile political systems and political uncertainty. President Obasanjo himself has been at the forefront of advancing peaceful transitions on the continent. Most recently, he played a critical role in mediating the post-election tensions that followed Kenya’s 2022 general election – facilitating dialogue between President William Ruto and the late opposition leader Raila Odinga, at a time when the country was on the brink of political turmoil. That intervention helped restore peace and preserve the conditions for governance and continued development at a time of grave national uncertainty.

This is a reminder that conflict resolution is not a soft add-on to development – it is a key ingredient to moving countries forward. You cannot build a country, city, empower a community or sustain a reform coalition in the midst of political instability.

President Obasanjo brings a deep understanding of the political terrain and has built a high level of trust through decades of direct engagement with various heads of state, politicians, governments and civil society across the continent. Hence, he is well placed to foster dialogue, influence strategy and decision-making, and strengthen high-level collaboration in ways that institutional channels alone might not achieve.

Political stability as the foundation of African progress

The importance of political stability to Africa’s development cannot be overstated. When there is political instability or conflict and governments are consumed by survival, citizens suffer and are more preoccupied with safety than prosperity. And the chance for development and investment simply diminishes. Ideally, research, urban planning, community mobilisation and policy reform all require peaceful conditions to take place.

The meeting reinforced something that development practitioners often understate: that in African contexts, development outcomes are shaped not only by formal institutions, but also by relationships, networks and the ability of influential key actors to convene and mobilise different constituencies around a shared vision. Political settlements are complex, and navigating them requires the kind of nuanced, trust-based engagement that figures like President Obasanjo have spent a lifetime cultivating.

ACRC’s work across African cities is premised on precisely this understanding. Building coalitions – between citizens and elites, research and practice, community organisations and local government – requires a political environment in which those relationships can be nurtured over time. President Obasanjo’s long view of African development, shaped by decades in government, diplomacy and post-political engagement, gave the ACRC team a better appreciation of what building coalitions and meaningful and lasting change demands.

With communities, not for them

Throughout the wide-ranging discussion, one message came out clearly: real change is not done for people. It is built with them. Elite commitment, however genuine, is not sufficient on its own. Research findings, however rigorous, gather dust without community ownership. Policies, however well designed, fail without the people they are meant to serve being active participants in their design and implementation.

President Obasanjo’s emphasis on community empowerment alongside elite coordination reflects a deep understanding that enduring transformation requires both top-down political commitment and bottom-up community approaches and engagement. Neither alone is enough. Sustainable urban development demands that institutions and citizens move toward shared goals together – not in parallel or in sequence, but in genuine partnership.

This is not a new idea. But hearing it from a man who has seen it all and has been President of Africa’s most populous nation, brokered peace across the continent, and spent decades promoting development across the continent gives it renewed weight. And it is, of course, the foundational logic of ACRC’s own theory of change.

ACRC’s theory of change

The discussion with President Obasanjo did more than affirm ACRC’s direction – it actively reinforced the importance of the four pillars of ACRC’s theory of change and its conceptual framework. These pillars – which guide engagement, collaboration, evidence-based action and sustainable impact – provide the foundation for ACRC’s approach to addressing urban challenges across the cities where it operates. They exist to ensure that no community is left behind in the process of transformation.

What emerged from the meeting is a recognition that ACRC’s theory of change is not operating in isolation. It is a complementary approach and a potential driver within the broader push for urban transformation that is inclusive, equitable and sustainable. At a time when African governments, multilateral institutions and civil society are all grappling with the pace and equity of urban growth, ACRC’s framework – grounded in citizen mobilisation and elite commitment working together – offers a tested and scalable model.

The opportunity now is to connect that model to the highest levels of political leadership. Political figures like President Obasanjo are uniquely positioned to engage and influence various leaders and make the case for combined strategic action in support of inclusive urban development.

Strategic relationships driving development

The meeting brought into focus how much ACRC’s impact depends not only on the quality of its research and the strength of its community coalitions, but on the strategic relationships it cultivates at the highest levels of influence. By leveraging these relationships, partnerships and trusted networks, ACRC can do something that research programmes rarely achieve: bring urban transformation into the room where national political decisions are made.

The opportunities available to ACRC across the cities where it works are significant but require an intentional strategy of relationship stewardship at the leadership level. These relationships are not one-time engagements; they are long-term assets that must be nurtured, activated, and deepened if they are to translate into the kind of policy influence and political backing that real implementation requires.

80% of urban workers in sub-Saharan Africa are employed in the informal sector and the vast majority work in household microenterprises (HMEs). They are so called because the owner-operator supplies the labour (sometimes alongside other family members) and usually based within the home.

A new paper, led by Stephen Gelb, outlines key findings from ACRC’s neighbourhood and district economic development domain research, which looked at HMEs in five African cities: Accra, Ghana; Lagos, Nigeria; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; Lilongwe, Malawi; and Harare, Zimbabwe.

What does progress look like for HMEs?

The paper argues that “progress” for HMEs is not reflected in better income levels or reducing poverty/inequality at the city scale, but that it involves both the routinisation (stability and predictability) of activities and also security (regularity and permanence) of income – at both the level of individual enterprises and groups of HMEs.

This does not only concern revenues, but also direct and indirect costs for infrastructure and finance, as well as governance arrangements, bargaining power and HME owners’ time – which is especially crucial in small firms.

Understanding HMEs’ productivity challenges

Much existing literature focused on the informal sector and HMEs tends to focus on individual challenges facing these firms, without looking at the interaction between factors and how they are shaped by the political economy of a city. As such, the paper develops a coherent framework for analysing HMEs as firms, bringing together six issues which shape HMEs’ activities, but are often analysed in siloes.

By Peter Elias and Temilade Sesan

African cities are changing fast. They are expanding, absorbing new populations, confronting climate risks, and struggling with long-standing gaps in housing, infrastructure, health, sanitation and basic services. In many places, the pressures of urbanisation collide with flooding, heat, air pollution, biodiversity loss and deep social inequality. These challenges are too complex for any one institution, discipline or government agency to solve alone.

This was the central message of the WUF13 Urban Library session titled “Multilateral Consortium and Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration in Knowledge Co-Production for Climate-Resilient Cities”, convened by the Centre for Housing and Sustainable Development, University of Lagos. The conversation brought together representatives from international research consortia, academia, government and public health to reflect on how African cities can become more inclusive, evidence-informed and climate-resilient.

At the heart of the discussion was a powerful idea: technical knowledge alone is not enough to solve the climate conundrum. Data, maps, models and scientific tools are important, but they must be connected to lived experience, public policy, community priorities and practical action. In other words, the future of climate-resilient cities depends not only on producing knowledge, but on producing it together.

Making invisible communities visible

A major message of the session was the need to make informal and deprived communities more visible in urban planning. Many African cities contain settlements that are poorly represented in official data. Roads may be unnamed, houses unmapped, services undocumented and risks underestimated. When communities are invisible in data, they often become invisible in policy and investment decisions.

The IdeaMaps Network was presented as one effort to address this gap by using spatial data, community knowledge, artificial intelligence and participatory methods to map deprivation and informality. Such mapping can reveal where people lack access to healthcare, roads, drainage, sanitation and other essential services. It can also help identify communities most exposed to flooding, poor environmental conditions and climate-related hazards.

But the panel also warned that data must not become an end in itself. One community voice captured this clearly: communities do not only need data; they need change. For residents living with flooding, poor sanitation, unsafe water or threat of eviction, the value of evidence lies in whether it improves their lives. Data must therefore move from visibility to action.

From research to reform

The African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC) highlighted the importance of reform coalitions: groups of actors who come together around shared urban challenges to pursue practical change. These coalitions may include researchers, civil society, communities, government agencies, students, private actors and development partners.

The value of such coalitions is that each actor brings something different to the table. Academia contributes research and evidence. Government brings planning authority and policy mandates. Civil society brings advocacy and community trust. Communities bring lived knowledge. Development partners may provide resources and platforms. When these strengths are combined, urban reform becomes more possible.

One of the panellists cited an example from Mukuru, Nairobi, which shows how collaboration can move beyond research into concrete improvement. In that example, collective action helped resist forced eviction and later supported efforts to improve access to water and sanitation. This illustrates that resilience is not only about infrastructure; it is also about rights, dignity, tenure security and the ability of communities to shape their own future.

The role of academia

Academic institutions have a critical role to play, but that role must go beyond writing reports and publishing papers. Universities and research centres can serve as bridges between evidence, policy and lived realities. They can help interpret data, validate models, document local knowledge and translate findings into policy-relevant formats.

The experience from the Africa Centre for Excellence for Population Health and Policy (ACEPHAP), Bayero University, Kano showed how research can become more meaningful when communities shape the agenda. Initial work on mapping informal settlements evolved into a focus on access to maternal health services after community engagement revealed this as a priority. This is an important lesson: locally grounded research must be flexible enough to respond to what communities identify as urgent.

Academic institutions also provide continuity. Donor-funded projects may end, but universities and local research centres can remain as long-term anchors for knowledge, partnership and institutional memory.

Government needs practical evidence

From the government perspective, planning begins with data, according to the Lagos State Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development. Policymakers and planners need socio-demographic information, spatial data, environmental evidence and clear records of existing services. They need to know who lives where, what risks exist, what services are missing and which groups are most affected.

However, evidence must be presented in forms that government can use. It must connect with planning cycles, budget processes and institutional mandates. A good report is not enough if it does not speak to implementation. This is why continuous engagement between researchers, communities and government agencies is essential.

Evidence must help answer practical questions: Where should investments go first? Which communities are most vulnerable? What services are missing? Which agency is responsible? What funding source can support implementation?

Communities as partners, not data sources

Perhaps the strongest message from the session was that communities must not be treated merely as respondents or sources of information. They are partners in knowledge production.

Community-based movements such as the Nigeria Slums/Informal Settlements Federation know their realities in ways that outsiders often do not. They understand flooding patterns, water levels, local hazards, social networks, survival strategies and service gaps. Exchanges between the panel and members of the audience revealed how, in Makoko, for example, residents may not be able to describe their experiences using technical climate language, but they understand water, tides, risk and adaptation through daily life.

These reservoirs of local knowledge must be respected. Planning should no longer be about doing things “for” communities but doing things “with” communities. When people are involved from the beginning, interventions are more likely to reflect real needs and gain public trust.

Avoiding extractive partnerships

The session also addressed the danger of extractive research, where international or external actors collect data from communities without leaving meaningful benefits behind. To avoid this, partnerships must be built on dialogue, fairness and local value.

True dialogue means listening carefully, adapting priorities and recognising that not all knowledge comes from subject-matter experts. It also means producing outputs that non-scientific communities can use: maps, briefs, workshops, community exchanges, policy notes, blogs and practical tools, and not only academic articles.

Knowledge co-production should leave behind stronger local capacity, better relationships and evidence that communities and governments can use beyond the life of a project.

The way forward

The discussion ended with a clear call: collaboration must be institutionalised. Too often, partnerships begin and end with donor-funded projects. But climate resilience requires long-term relationships, local ownership and continuous engagement.

African cities need participatory governance systems where evidence, community voice and policy action are connected. They need stronger local government ownership, better inter-agency collaboration and deeper trust between institutions and residents.

For academia, the task is to produce knowledge that is rigorous, relevant and responsive. For policymakers, it is to turn evidence into inclusive planning and investment. For civil society, it is to sustain accountability and amplify community voice. For communities, it is to continue asserting lived experience as legitimate knowledge, ideally with the support of dedicated reform coalitions.

The future climate-resilient city will not be built by data alone. It will be built through shared knowledge, shared responsibility and shared action. It must be not only smart and sustainable, but also just, inclusive, visible and people-centred.

By Kudzai Chatiza, ACRC Harare in-city urban development research lead, and George Masimba, ACRC Harare city manager

Urban reform in Harare is approached by the ACRC action research team from the recognition that the city is shaped less by formal plans and policies than by everyday practices of negotiation, self-provisioning and incremental adaptation across multiple systems.

In a context characterised by deep informality, constrained municipal autonomy and centralised political control, reform cannot be understood as a linear or technocratic process. Instead, it unfolds through contested, relational and often small-scale shifts in practice that gradually rework how the city is governed and serviced.

Guided by this perspective, the ACRC Harare team conceives reform as an iterative and practice-based process that is anchored in the lived realities of residents, informal workers, community organisations and mid-level state actors. Rather than seeking wholesale policy transformation as an immediate outcome, our strategy prioritises identifying and working through everyday entry points where alternative ways of governing, servicing and imagining the city are already emerging.

These entry points are understood as critical sites through which inclusive urban reform can be negotiated and expanded over time. Considering how deeply entrenched some of the constraining urban development practices have become in Harare, our strategy recognises that reforms in Harare are best approached as an incremental process.

Six pathways to urban reform

In operational terms, reform efforts are focusing on six interrelated and overlapping pathways:

1. The team is working to identify concrete reform agendas grounded in empirical research and everyday urban practices, particularly in relation to urban markets, community-led waste management and informal settlement climate action. These agendas are not treated as fixed blueprints but as evolving propositions that are continuously refined through engagement with affected communities and institutional actors.

2. Making progress in Harare depends on carefully identifying the everyday entry points for advancing urban reforms. This relies on closely examining institutional, regulatory and practice-related openings within the city. The ACRC Harare team draws on existing experiences working in the city, as well as maintaining a close check of the pulse around city priorities and on-going development agendas.

3. The strategy emphasises the deliberate building of reform coalitions by bringing together like-minded actors across state and non-state spheres – including municipal officials, community alliances, civil society organisations and technical practitioners who are already navigating the tensions between formal regulations and lived urban realities.

4. Reform is advanced through structured and informal dialogue processes that create space for negotiation, learning and trust-building across fragmented governance landscapes. Sectoral dialogues and thematic engagements are used to surface shared concerns, align interests and collectively interrogate dominant policy and practice paradigms that reproduce exclusion. These dialogic spaces are particularly important in a political environment where overt contestation may be risky and where reform often proceeds through subtle recalibrations of practice rather than explicit policy confrontation.

5. The strategy places emphasis on developing coherent and contextually grounded reform narratives that can circulate across institutional and community platforms. These narratives draw on research evidence and lived experience to legitimise incremental reforms and to challenge exclusionary urban logics without assuming consensus or political neutrality.

6. The ACRC Harare team seeks to catalyse reform through targeted engagements that link everyday practices to broader policy and institutional processes. This includes supporting pilot interventions, documenting small but meaningful shifts in practice and strategically feeding lessons from these experiences into ongoing policy debates and institutional reforms. Given the contested nature of urban governance in Harare, the strategy recognises that reform gains may be partial, fragile and uneven. However, such gains are treated as significant, both in their immediate effects and in their potential to open further reform possibilities over time.

Forum for constructive engagement – from policy to implementation

A central institutional anchor for this approach is the Slum Upgrading Project Monitoring Committee (PMC), which functions as a critical space for everyday reform work within the municipality. The PMC was established by the City of Harare in 2012 to help coordinate the Slum Upgrading Programme, a citywide slum improvement initiative that was jointly implemented by Dialogue on Shelter, Zimbabwe Homeless People’s Federation and the City of Harare.

In a context marked by frequent turnover of officials and punitive responses to policy innovation, the PMC provides a relatively protected forum in which technical staff and senior officials can engage constructively with community actors and researchers. The committee enables the translation of research insights and coalition-driven agendas into operational discussions around planning, service delivery and upgrading practices, thereby bridging the gap between policy intent and everyday implementation.

Overall, the ACRC Harare reform approach is grounded in the understanding that transformative change in the city will emerge not through singular policy moments, but through the accumulation of negotiated practices, institutional learning and coalition building across multiple sites. By working with, rather than against, the everyday realities of informality and governance constraint, the strategy seeks to contribute to a more inclusive and contextually grounded urban transformation in Harare.

By Kudzai Chatiza, ACRC Harare in-city urban development research lead

“Urban development” is a term that is widely used but rarely unpacked. It often evokes images of new roads, housing estates and expanding city skylines. Yet, when viewed from the perspective of cities like Harare, urban development is far more complex, contested and dynamic than conventional definitions suggest.

Drawing on my role as an in‑city urban development research lead under the African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC), this blog reflects on what “urban” and “development” mean in practice, and how urban development is unfolding in Zimbabwe.

Rethinking “urban” and “development”

In Zimbabwe, the term “urban” is commonly used to describe a geographical area with at least 2,500 residents, most of whom do not rely on agriculture for their livelihoods. Urban settlements are also typically more compact than rural ones. Importantly, these areas are not always governed by formally designated urban local authorities. They may fall under the jurisdiction of mines, farms, rural district councils (RDCs) or other authorities responsible for their establishment and management.

“Development”, on the other hand, relates to improvements in quality of life. This includes the provision and management of infrastructure, as well as social, economic and environmental services that support both human and non‑human populations.

When these two ideas are brought together, urban development can be understood as the process of improving areas defined as urban. This involves planning and re‑planning, investing in new and existing infrastructure, and managing urban spaces to meet social, economic, environmental and spatial objectives. These objectives are shaped by political decisions and implemented through state and non‑state governance and administrative institutions.

Ultimately, the success (or failure) of urban development is best judged by outcomes: people’s health and wellbeing, access to decent work and environmental sustainability.

Defining urban development in practice

Beyond formal definitions, urban development is often framed in narrower ways – like physical expansion, economic growth or the upgrading of infrastructure. Other perspectives emphasise development as a response to urban challenges, many of which differ in character, intensity and drivers from those found in rural areas.

Urban development is rarely neat or linear. It is shaped by politics, markets, social practices and institutional capacity. These dynamics become particularly visible in cities like Harare, where formal planning systems coexist with widespread informal development. The decisions and actions that support urban development in Harare (and other urban spaces in Zimbabwe) involve national, provincial and local government institutions alongside non-state actors. Often this results in contradictions and conflict.

Insights from a Harare brainstorming session

A brainstorming session with ACRC partners held at the Development Governance Institute (DGI) on 15 December 2025 provided useful insights into how urban development is understood in Harare specifically and Zimbabwe generally.

First, participants highlighted urban development as a multi‑actor and multi‑modal process of delivering constitutional rights (through providing services) to urban residents. It is not only driven by the state. It also involves self‑provision, self‑financing and non‑state mobilisation, all operating within a political economy that often defies conventional urban management models.

The results of this complexity are visible in the city itself. Houses built outside formal planning frameworks and cars purchased but not “counted” are generating enormous demand for water, sanitation, health, education and transport infrastructure and services. These demands expose persistent service gaps.

Second, there was a recognition that many infrastructure and service gaps in Harare stem from largely informal urban growth. Housing and economic activities often precede infrastructure provision, placing after‑the‑fact demands on institutions already weakened by the pace and nature of urbanisation. In this sense, service gaps are not necessarily evidence of “non‑development”, but of development occurring ahead of formal urban systems.

This reality also challenges the assumption that urban development is solely the responsibility of urban local authorities. In practice, alternative authorities and actors often shape urban outcomes, sometimes bypassing formal institutions altogether.

Third, participants recognised that significant urban development is taking place in spatial and governance peripheries. Communal areas, peri‑urban zones and spaces outside designated urban boundaries host distinctive forms of urban development, often under contested and polarising conditions.

These peripheries have generated important lessons on planning, resilience and governance. The lessons are driven from above, below and through uneasy combinations of the two. Following the backlash against Zimbabwe’s once highly ordered urban development model, institutional reforms have lagged behind demand, especially for housing and economic spaces. As a result, urban development in these areas appears fragmented and emergent. This emergent character is only visible upon closer reflection.

Harare as a case of “indigenous” urban development

When applied specifically to Harare, these reflections reveal a city experiencing rapid and uneven urbanisation. Small‑scale construction, largely dominated by housing, coexists with uneven service provision and evolving, make‑do governance practices.

Viewed through an intergovernmental lens, political tensions between an opposition‑run local authority (the City of Harare) and a ruling‑party-led national government have shaped urban development outcomes. These tensions have often undervalued resident agency, even where political affiliation has been used as a means of accessing urban land and economic opportunities.

At the same time, value and economic dynamism have shifted from formal industry and commerce to informal housing and economic sectors. This has made traditional measures of urban development increasingly blurred and difficult to apply.

In recent years, urban development in Zimbabwe, and Harare in particular, has taken on a distinctly “indigenous” character. The state has alternated across the roles of enabler, regulator and lagging service provider. These overlapping and sometimes conflicting roles help explain the coexistence of notable achievements – such as large‑scale land delivery for greenfield housing – alongside serious infrastructure gaps and service failures in both established and newly developed areas.

Self‑provisioning and self‑financing have become defining features of Harare’s growth. Cluster housing, “micro‑malling”, industrial renewal and the rapid spread of fuel stations, food courts and automobile‑spares hubs all point to a city developing through multiple, decentralised nodes, rather than a single, coherent plan. Perhaps the recently concluded Master Plan, if appropriately funded, will be an instrument for managing spatial governance and development contradictions.

Conclusion: Urban development as a living process

Urban development in Harare, and in Zimbabwe more broadly, is neither static nor uniform. It is a dynamic, evolving process shaped by local realities, institutional gaps and the ingenuity of urban residents themselves. While progress has been made, city authorities continue to grapple with both long‑standing and emerging challenges.

Under my role as the ACRC urban development research lead in Harare, the aim is to deepen understanding of these complexities and support more informed policymaking and implementation. A more sustainable and resilient Harare will depend not only on formal plans and institutions, but also on recognising and engaging with the ways urban development happens on the ground.

By Patrick Njoroge , Rex Otieno and Maureen Musya

In early February, the Akiba Mashinani Trust (AMT) led a nine-person delegation from Nairobi for a weeklong learning exchange visit to Okerube informal settlement in Lagos. The visit built on a previous exchange, when the Lagos city team visited Mukuru informal settlement in Nairobi to learn from an established WASH intervention. It forms part of ACRC’s wider effort to strengthen learning across cities and projects.

The visit aimed to build institutional consensus and strengthen collaboration around an integrated planning process for Okerube – an approach proposed during the earlier Mukuru exchange to support coordinated and inclusive settlement planning. It created a space for the Kenyan delegation – comprising AMT, Nairobi City County Government (NCCG), Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company (NCWSC), and representatives from Mukuru community – to meaningfully engage with local government leadership, research institutions, technical partners, and community actors in Lagos.

The University of Lagos Centre for Housing and Sustainable Development hosted the visit with the ACRC Lagos city team and the Shantytown Empowerment Foundation (SHEF). Discussions focused on governance, service delivery, participatory planning and climate resilience. Further lessons were drawn from the Mukuru WASH intervention in Nairobi and contextualised within Lagos’s institutional framework.