research approach - ACRC

Localising and decolonising ACRC: Taking action

Hannah — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 07:00:00 +0000

From the outset of ACRC, we have recognised the essential contribution of diverse African researchers, including those based in the global North and South. We have also recognised the importance of working with knowledge-rich, city-specific research agencies and other local knowledge leaders.

We believe that it is only through foregrounding African expertise that we can secure our ambitions of better understanding and catalysing inclusive change across cities.

Our approach draws on decades of experience from across the consortium of co-producing research and action research with in-city academics, professionals and community researchers. So far, we have sought to develop and strengthen collaboration in order to deliver the ambitions of ACRC. In the long term, ACRC’s vision will be furthered by a strong group of African researchers, uptake specialists and implementers able to carry forward this approach.

As discussed in a previous blog, the decolonisation temperature check survey and follow-up interviews undertaken in mid-2023 raised a number of insights and recommendations. With some we were able quickly to adjust plans, but with more structural changes, we waited until ACRC transitioned from the initial foundation phase, to the implementation phase earlier this year.

This post attempts to summarise the key shifts we’ve made so far.

1. Localising decision-making and budgets to city managers
Probably the most significant change we’re making during the implementation phase is to give city managers (based within local reform organisations) primary responsibility for determining and developing the portfolio of action research projects within their city. They will also be responsible for the overall allocation of the city budget to undertake this work. While still working closely with SMT and other staff, city managers will ultimately be in control of developing and delivering the ACRC reform agenda within their location.

City managers (from Accra, Harare, Kampala, Lagos and Nairobi) will also come together as a group on a regular basis to share experiences and learning across the cities – and to help identify opportunities for regional or international impact around ACRC. This should enable them to both sharpen their work through learning from other cities, and to collectively challenge the senior management team.

ACRC’s decentralised governance structure for the implementation phase

2. Promoting African leaders and expertise

City managers will be supported locally by in-city researchers, focusing on community knowledge, politics and urban development. They’ll also have uptake support, as well as administrative capacity to draw upon. Again, the intention is to both catalyse urban reform processes within the city, and to provide cross-city learning and insights across these areas, which may be relevant for other African cities.

We’re also really proud of the contribution made by our cohort of postdocs during the foundation phase. We were able to appoint seven African research fellows and one with mixed heritage, all on merit. Half of their time was allocated to pursuing their own research interests, with the other half supporting domain work.

3. Co-developing conceptual framework and theory of change

A major criticism of the foundation phase was that too great an emphasis was given to the use of common research concepts, particularly around political settlements and city systems, with too little flexibility for local teams. The implementation phase will see greater freedom for local research teams to devise approaches that will address the problems being targeted.

We’re also planning a workshop in September with in-city research leads, to review and revise both ACRC’s conceptual framework and theory of change. This will be the starting point for co-developing the research approach throughout the implementation phase.

With respect to political settlements, we’ve already identified areas for improvement when it comes to the categorisation of political settlement types within the conceptual framework developed by ESID (Effective States and Inclusive Development research centre). Evidence from our foundation phase research did support the typology’s high-level predictions about the preconditions required for sustained elite commitment to inclusive urban development. However, at a more granular level, there were both similarities and differences in city experiences that it did not explain.

4. Focused work on community knowledge

Each city will have a lead focused on community knowledge, with this area of work coordinated at the consortium level by a dedicated research director (and SMT member). Developing the contribution of community knowledge – and building capabilities of community researchers and academic researchers who want to work more effectively and equitably with communities – will continue to be important.

Panel discussion on community knowledge and co-production at ACRC’s consortium-wide meeting in May 2022.

This will add value to our work and ensure its relevance for poverty reduction and equitable development. It will also offer lessons to others seeking to enhance the contribution of residents to development.

Reflection around the work on acknowledging and integrating community knowledge has already featured in several ACRC-organised spaces. Discussions were organised at both consortium-wide workshops – at a panel discussion in Nairobi, Kenya (2022) and as a roundtable discussion in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (2023).

ACRC-affiliated researchers are also organising a panel at the UK Development Studies Association conference (26-28 June 2024), titled: “Community knowledge in academic research: in pursuit of epistemic justice”. This will cover collaborative research and knowledge co-production, seeking epistemic justice and exploring emancipatory research practices that meaningfully engage low-income and marginalised communities.

We will also continue to look for opportunities to produce communications outputs on the subject of community knowledge and co-production, particularly via the blog and podcast.

5. Additional support for wider ACRC city teams and researchers

To enhance our contribution to urban reform in the seven cities not moving forward to the implementation phase, we are providing transition grants of £40,000 to each city team, enabling them to maximise the impact of work undertaken so far.

And for Africa-based researchers who want to publish their work in high-profile academic journals, we have also set up ACRC’s Visiting Writer and Publications Support scheme. This provides payment, mentorship and, where needed, time and space in Manchester (or elsewhere) for people to develop and write their papers.

6. Ongoing monitoring of localisation and decolonisation

We fully recognise that localising and decolonising ACRC is an ongoing process. While we are excited by the changes we’re making for the implementation phase, this is something we will continue to monitor, reflect on and change where needed.

We’re keen to share our experiences, as we recognise that we are contributing to long-established traditions to nurture equitable research collaborations. And we also want to learn from others who share similar goals.

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Localising and decolonising ACRC: Taking the temperature

Hannah — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 06:00:00 +0000

Ever since our initial bid for ACRC, we’ve been discussing how we can better localise decision-making and decolonise knowledge processes. While led from The University of Manchester and funded by FCDO, we’ve sought to prioritise African expertise within the consortium partnership, to increase African leadership within the senior management team (SMT) and to undertake research and uptake activities primarily through local city teams.

During our foundation phase, consortium members identified the potential to further refine our structures, communications and research methodologies. Since then, much has happened behind the scenes – and this post attempts to (briefly) summarise the issues people have raised.

Taking the temperature of ACRC colleagues

In March 2023, we surveyed everyone involved in ACRC’s foundation phase research and uptake around perceptions of coloniality, knowledge and power, compared to the development industry as a whole. We wanted to better understand the perspectives and actual experiences of people across all 12 cities and eight domains, to inform our future plans and communications.

Comprising a series of 28 questions, the survey was split into four sections: “colonial attitudes”, “knowledge and power”, “who benefits?” and “looking forward”. It was completed by 56 respondents: 39 of Black African ethnicity (35 resident in Africa) and 13 of non-African ethnicity (all resident outside Africa).

Overall, ACRC generally performed better than the development industry as a whole, though on certain issues, a significant minority judged ACRC unfavourably. ACRC’s weakest area was perceived to be imbalances of power over strategic decision-making. Additionally, African respondents tended to have less favourable views of both the development industry and ACRC compared to non-Africans.

However, ACRC could take some heart from the responses on “dignity and respect”, “partnership” and “authority being justified by skills and knowledge”, where most respondents across all ethnicities judged it favourably. This in particular was encouraging and useful with respect to decentralisation plans for ACRC’s implementation phase.

The survey results and implications were discussed at our consortium-wide meeting in Dar es Salaam in May 2023. A more detailed version of the results is available here.

Follow-up interviews

To bolster the survey findings, Edwin Kibui Rwigi (who was a Nairobi-based consultant at the time) conducted a follow-up qualitative study, which sought to explore the reasons people had for their views. Between May and October 2023, he interviewed 18 participants, with questions exploring perceptions of colonial attitudes, power and rewards in the ACRC project.

Overall, the results suggested that ACRC’s temperature check survey and qualitative interview exercise were well-received, and interviewees appreciated the meaningful discussions they sparked. However, there was a consensus that more progress was needed in decolonising practices.

Respondents were concerned about the role of FCDO and potential promotion of British interests in funding research on African cities. Concerns regarding inclusive representation within ACRC’s SMT were also raised. The use of analytical frameworks was viewed as both valuable for cross-comparison but also limiting due to inflexibility in certain contexts.

Overall, there were calls for a more critical and reflexive engagement with knowledge production in the project. Results also indicated concerns around power and interests in the process of identifying potential action research projects for the implementation phase. Compensation was also a contentious matter, with some feeling that the workload and remuneration were disproportionate.

Despite these challenges, respondents remained hopeful that ACRC would address these issues in implementation phase of the project.

Read the full report

Recommendations

The report made a number of recommendations, which SMT has responded to. In short, these are:

1. Define a clear decolonisation agenda

SMT response: We have an agenda that involves diverse actions to support local ownership, decision-making and multiple contributions, but we appreciate that we may not have articulated it clearly enough. ACRC’s decolonisation agenda engages with issues related to colonisation and also considers the manifestation of unequal power relations and their consequences in other dimensions including those related to gender, age and class.

This is a difficult balance. We do not want to diminish the impacts of colonisation, but we do not want other dimensions of adverse power relations to be overlooked. We recognise the importance of a continuing conversation underpinning efforts to structure and support equity. We are keen to revisit the ACRC approach to decolonising research processes once the city-based research and implementation teams are in place for the implementation phase.

2. Engage a diversity and inclusion consultant

SMT response: While we see the merits in this suggestion, the experience of individual members to date is mixed and SMT collectively believes that we would need someone who understands and aligns with our approach to decolonisation. This will be discussed with city managers at the start of the implementation phase.

3. Enhance transparency in city/project selection

SMT response: We take transparency in the selection of cities very seriously. We presented the framework for the selection of cities and projects to the second consortium-wide meeting in May 2023 and received feedback on the experience of the first set of cities with their submissions. We then modified the submission forms to make the process clearer and to facilitate completion. We also made clear both the decision-making criteria and the decision-making process – and will continue to do our best to communicate this with ACRC members.

4. Establish clarity on decentralisation

SMT response: We have committed to a more decentralised process for the implementation phase. This includes both the revision of key frameworks (including the conceptual framework and the theory of change), and the selection and realisation of action research projects in the cities in which we will continue work in the next phase.

5. Improve on-boarding and internal communication

SMT response: We accept that there were gaps in effective communication and knowledge sharing. Starting work during the pandemic reduced the opportunity for initial face-to-face meetings and the staggered phasing of the cities in the foundation phase (due to the UK government’s decision to cut aid) increased these challenges. While we tried to compensate with Zoom meetings alongside written materials and updates, we recognise this wasn’t always sufficient.

6. Adopt city-specific approaches

SMT response: We tried to navigate an approach to research which balances the original ToR from DFID (now FCDO) and the relevance of those ToR to addressing urban programming challenges, with the need for local contextual sensitivity and required flexibility. We recognise the limitations of top-down comparative research frameworks and enabled the domains and city systems teams to take a more flexible approach to political economy and systems analysis.

We remain committed to collaborative endeavours within a meaningful comparative analysis that develops opportunities for cross-city learning and knowledge development. The implementation phase will allow for city teams to pursue more focused interventions that they think will be most effective at catalysing reform.

In addition to these recommendations, we’ve also made a number of other changes to the structure and approach of the ACRC team for the implementation phase. We’ll cover this in the next blog in this series.

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Reflections from Dar es Salaam: ACRC’s second annual consortium-wide workshop

Hannah — Fri, 09 Jun 2023 07:00:00 +0000

By Hannah van Rooyen, ACRC digital communications officer

As ACRC’s foundation phase nears its end, around 120 consortium members gathered in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania at the end of May 2023 for our second annual workshop. We were grateful to be hosted by colleagues from the Centre for Community Initiatives (CCI Tanzania) and Ardhi University, and delighted to be joined by researchers and practitioners from across ACRC’s 12 focus cities.

Pre-conference workshops

Ahead of the main conference sessions, running from Wednesday 24 to Friday 26 May, teams held individual workshops to discuss city of systems, political settlements and domain studies to date, covering progress, key findings and insights, and next steps within the ACRC programme.

The housing domain kickstarted the proceedings on Sunday 21 May, while city of systems and political settlements, along with health, wellbeing and nutrition, informal settlements, land and connectivity, neighbourhood and district economic and development, safety and security, structural transformation, and youth and capability development domains, held full-day sessions on the Monday.

Safety and security domain

Housing domain

Informal settlements domain

Land and connectivity domain

Youth and capability development domain

Neighbourhood visits

On Tuesday 23 May, workshop attendees were given the opportunity to visit a range of community projects being implemented in Dar es Salaam, kindly organised by colleagues from Ardhi University and CCI Tanzania.

Separating into five groups, ACRC delegates were shown the Chamazi community-based housing scheme in Temeke Municipality, the Vingunguti simplified sewerage system project, self-help housing in Tandale Uzuri, a microfinancing-funded peri-urban housing construction project in Mbezi Msumi, and the Dar es Salaam bus rapid transit system.

Dar es Salaam’s bus rapid transit system

Simplified sewerage system project in Vingunguti

Self-help housing visit in Tandale Uzuri

Chamazi community-based housing scheme

Peri-urban housing construction in Mbezi Msumi

Day 1 | Taking stock and learning from the foundation phase

The first day of plenary sessions opened with warm welcomes from ACRC’s CEO Diana Mitlin and Dar es Salaam city lead Wilbard Kombe, followed by a stocktake of lessons learned from ACRC’s foundation phase and an overview of the objectives for the workshop.

Led by Shuaib Lwasa, groups discussed insights ACRC has generated into urban development challenges within our 12 focus cities. Initial discussions within city teams were captured via flipchart summaries and were followed by a world café style exchange, with consortium members walking around different city tables to compare and contrast issues and experiences.

Diana Mitlin opening the workshop

Wilbard Kombe welcoming ACRC to Dar es Salaam

The day closed with an informal discussion around ACRC’s crosscutting themes – gender, climate change and finance – exploring the key intersections across domains and cities.

Consolidated findings and insights from the ACRC Harare team

Day 2 | How is our research approach holding up in theory and practice?

The second day began with a welcome from head of project delivery Irene Vance and a multilingual “hello” from ACRC members across our 12 focus cities. Political settlements research lead Tim Kelsall kickstarted the first session of the day, recapping ACRC’s conceptual framework and explaining how political settlements, city of systems and domain research leads into identifying approaches to addressing priority complex problems (PCPs).

Neighbourhood and district economic development domain researcher Selina Pasirayi then presented on a pilot PCP from the Harare team, which focuses on the upgrading and regularisation of enterprises in the city. Harare political settlements lead McDonald Lewanika and city of systems lead George Masimba joined Selina to talk about the challenges of accessing urban land, along with the “super coordination” required to bring together research from across the different research areas into a solid PCP proposal.

George Masimba, McDonald Lewanika, Tim Kelsall and Selina Pasiraye discussing Harare’s pilot PCP

The Nairobi city team discussing issues around publication

Participants then divided into city teams to discuss challenges to publication – including time and resource pressures – and possible ways to overcome them. Groups also collated ideas on how ACRC can support publication plans. This was followed by a session on authorship, attribution and acknowledgement, in which Shuaib Lwasa explored two different approaches to attributing authorship, before participants split into larger groups, according to their roles, to discuss further.

Continuing the conversation around decolonisation from our 2022 meeting, Tim Kelsall introduced the findings from a recent “temperature check” survey, which centred around four core themes: colonial attitudes, knowledge and power, who benefits, and looking forward. In a pre-recorded presentation, research consultant Edwin Rwigi covered findings from an ongoing qualitative review of decolonisation that he is conducting within ACRC. Groups then discussed proactive measures that ACRC can take to address issues related to diversity, representation and power distribution across its network.

The afternoon began with a session reflecting on research uptake so far and looking ahead. Chris Jordan recapped the communications and uptake session from our consortium-wide meeting in 2022 – including impact objectives – before leading a panel session with Taibat Lawanson, Wilbard Kombe and Shuaib Lwasa, who provided insights into longer-term processes around urban change. Rosebella Apollo shared uptake approaches and progress from across the cities, before handing over to Hannah van Rooyen to summarise communications highlights from across ACRC’s digital channels, along with the strong media engagement achieved by city uptake teams.

Teurai Anna Nyamangara, Charity Mumbi and Babakura Bukar sharing their uptake experiences

A panel session with Charity Mumbi from Nairobi, Teurai Anna Nyamangara from Harare, Hamza Bawa from Accra and Babakura Bukar from Maiduguri followed, with individual uptake leads sharing highlights and lessons learned from their city engagements. Groups were then asked to share their reflections on what’s been successful in ACRC’s uptake work so far, what’s been a challenge, what additional support would be helpful, and what opportunities should be harnessed. The rest of the session focused on the role of reform coalitions in driving urban change, including a presentation from Diana Mitlin, examples and experiences from our focus cities and plenary feedback around how central such coalitions should be to ACRC’s implementation phase.

The second day closed with research associate Selam Robi presenting progress on the ACRC urban reform database, intended as a platform to spotlight exemplary initiatives already in place in African cities. Beth Chitekwe-Biti talked about the value of having case studies for comparison across African cities and beyond to inform reform in different urban contexts. Diana Mitlin reiterated the benefits of sharing lessons learned, then handed over to Ezana Haddis Weldeghebrael and Smith Ouma to talk about their involvement in producing case studies for the database.

Chris Jordan gauging attitudes towards the centrality of reform coalitions in ACRC’s implementation phase

Day 3 | ACRC moving forward

Irene Vance kickstarted the final day of the workshop with an update on PCPs, providing an overview of the proposals submitted so far and an outline of the process going forward. City teams were invited to provide feedback on challenges encountered in their submissions and share ways that the central ACRC team could improve the proposal and selection processes. A question-and-answer session followed after lunch, with comments around indicative budgets, revised PCP guidance notes, the deadline for the first full round of proposals, and receiving PCP feedback from the pilot round.

The next sessions focused on designing programmes for cities that are not being taken forward into ACRC’s implementation phase, and those that are. For each city not taken forward, it was announced that funding will be made available for teams to use for projects and programme activities. Diana Mitlin asked city teams to think about what activities should be funded, whether investments should be collectively decided or via individual applications, and if there is further support ACRC should consider providing.

Irene Vance providing an update on the PCP submissions received so far

One of the working groups discussing decentralisation

Moving onto cities that are going forward into the implementation phase, Diana started by talking about decentralisation and the need to push the reform frontier within ACRC to advance equitable and inclusive knowledge production, highlighting the importance of quality dialogue. Splitting into four working groups, participants then discussed key principles, city process, the senior management team, and what is being proposed regarding PCPs in the cities that go forward.

Three final sessions ran in parallel in the afternoon, with Irene leading a discussion on designing action research, Chris Jordan talking about maximising impact beyond ACRC focus cities, and Beth Chitekwe-Biti and Daniela Beltrame focusing on community knowledge.

Wrapping up a busy and energising week, Diana expressed gratitude to our hosts in Dar es Salaam and to everyone for participating, before asking groups to reflect on the meeting and share their most joyful moments. Feedback included the value of knowledge sharing across cities and domains, the challenges posed by vast amounts of reading materials and a jam-packed agenda, and the joys of seeing the sunrise, sharing learning experiences and making new friends.

Diana Mitlin closing the workshop

Maiduguri city team

Lagos city team

Freetown city team

Kampala city team

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Can identifying “priority complex problems” catalyse urban reform?

Hannah — Wed, 22 Feb 2023 07:00:00 +0000

By Clare Degenhardt, Chris Jordan and Hannah van Rooyen

African cities are dealing with a range of interlocking, dynamic and seemingly intractable challenges – from managing rapid expansion, addressing rising demand for overstretched services and dealing with unpredictable climate events, to trying to ensure decent jobs for their youthful populations.

It’s within this context that the African Cities Research Consortium is operating. Through research that builds evidence and supports coalitions of urban reformers, we aim to show how complex problems in African cities can be solved collectively. We hope these efforts will also be useful to reformers and development organisations beyond our focus cities.

Ultimately, we want to foster the development of prosperous, inclusive cities with enhanced services and more equitable local governance. We want to help improve the living conditions and life chances for all urban residents, especially disadvantaged communities.

In each of our focus cities, we have been undertaking research to deeply understand the city systems, political settlements and urban development domains – and the interplay between them. One of the main aims of this research is to identify the “priority complex problems” within a city, which we can then address in the implementation phase of the project.

“Panbody” housing in the informal settlement of Kroo Bay in Freetown, Sierra Leone. ACRC researchers in Freetown are working on identifying PCPs across a number of domains, including housing and informal settlements. Photo credit: Abenaa / iStock

But what is a “priority complex problem” in the first place?

We understand priority complex problems (PCPs) as:

A process that is preventing the achievement of poverty reduction and/or economic development and/or exacerbating the climate emergency. Specifically, processes that are related to the political economy and associated political relations, and system failures, particularly those related to the lack of system integration.

We are particularly interested in complex problems that are stopping a city from achieving its potential. Our integrated systems approach is also designed to address political constraints to reform.

As our foundation phase research in many cities concludes, we are actively identifying potential PCPs, with the help of community members, local authorities and other reformers. Along with our focus on political and systemic reform, we are looking for PCPs and approaches to addressing them that:

Reflect needs across urban Africa
Are substantive in scale
Offer solutions that would enable significant improvements to citizen wellbeing and/or pro-poor economic growth
Are significant to national and local government, civil society organisations and other stakeholders
Are approaches of interest to epistemic communities, politically feasible and have buy-in from local actors
Are potential pioneer reforms – that trigger further reform efforts
Are realisable within the ACRC programme in the short (three years) and medium (six years) term

Approaches to addressing PCPs will form the basis for ACRC’s subsequent action-research-oriented interventions. Ultimately, we are interested in projects that are related to political, political economy or systemic challenges and that have reform implications – rather than projects whose objective is solely technical or social.

Building a portfolio of PCP interventions

We are currently consolidating individual problems identified by researchers, and potential approaches to addressing them. After identifying a range of salient issues, we’ll undertake further feasibility scoping to examine precisely what the ACRC team could do to help tackle them in different cities.

Scoping will examine what has been tried previously and why these attempts have failed. Understanding which solutions key stakeholders and reformers favour – and why – is essential to this process. A clear understanding of the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities to scale the chosen solution is also key.

Through this process, we will build a portfolio of different interventions – focused around different domains, and at different scales – in an effort to catalyse research-informed reforms that will effectively tackle the problems we identify. Where they’re successful, we hope these efforts will also be useful to reformers and development organisations beyond our focus cities.

As this process develops, we’ll share more details on what’s happening where – and how efforts to address PCPs are progressing. Do check back on the blog, and sign up for e-news updates so you can follow the story.

Header photo credit: Know Your City TV. ACRC workshop to identify PCPs in Nairobi.

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Unpacking ACRC’s approach to research uptake

Hannah — Thu, 09 Feb 2023 07:00:00 +0000

A major critique of development research in Africa is the poor translation of science-based research and evidence into policymaking and societal outcomes. To address this disconnection between science, policy and society, research uptake should be included as an integral part of the research process. This approach, emphasising inclusivity – and with an awareness that the process is important, not just the findings – has the potential to push the boundaries of innovative policy reform.

But what is research uptake? How is it being foregrounded in the ACRC research process? And what are some of our cities’ experiences with it on the ground? ICLEI Africa – our organisational uptake lead in Freetown and Lilongwe, and uptake support in Accra and Harare – has launched an explainer video series aimed at demystifying research uptake.

Drawing on interviews with experts and researchers on the ground, the series examines what research uptake means in an urban African context; experiences of how it can be, and has been, integrated into the research process; and its potential to underpin successful action and implementation.

Watch the explainer videos below.

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Action research: Co-creating sustainable solutions to critical challenges in African cities

Hannah — Fri, 16 Dec 2022 07:00:00 +0000

By Rosebella Apollo, ACRC research uptake officer

Community representatives, academic researchers and practitioners from the African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC) convened for a three-day workshop in Nairobi on 23 November, to advance preparations for the implementation phase of the programme.

It is envisioned that action research projects based on co-design, and co-production will build new knowledge and test innovative solutions, to address critical complex challenges in African cities. The action research seeks to catalyse urban transformation and urban reforms, including enhancing service delivery and equitable local governance systems.

The workshop focused on exploring learning approaches with the potential to address priority complex problems (PCPs), leading to economic development and poverty reduction while addressing salient issues relating to climate change in the ACRC cities.

Unpacking action research experiences

Working collaboratively through an iterative process, the workshop participants refined the action research component of the ACRC project, sharing a range of experiences, reflections and insights that enriched the action research discourse.

Participants drew on experiences from action-oriented projects, including an urban water initiative in Accra; the Mukuru Special Planning Area and community action research on police brutality in Mathare, Nairobi; a WASH project in Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe; the Orangi low cost housing programme in Pakistan; and a clean energy project in Kampala. These provided a rich blend of insights and reflections, and enhanced our understanding of what action research is and what it is not.

The examples highlighted some of the key characteristics of action research as a highly iterative and organic community-led and collaborative process, which focuses on co-creation, co-production and co-implementation of ideas and solutions to address community challenges. To effectively identify and secure buy-in from different actors, a thorough stakeholder and political economy analysis is a critical step in the preparations for action research, ensuring that prevailing circumstances are properly documented and considered, and serve as a building block for action research.

Whilst multisectoral and multi-institutional capacities were recognised and valued for their ability to coalesce support for reforms, participants were also conscious of the need to create safe spaces for divergent actors to challenge learning and accommodate creativity, while balancing the power dynamics and interests that emerge from engagement between a myriad of actors. The programme was encouraged to invest in capacity-building initiatives, peer learning, and feedback avenues for the community, for whom change – even small-scale change – is crucial.

It was proposed that the implementation phase adopts approaches and methodologies that ensure that communities are actively involved not only in data collection, but also in data analysis and all stages of the process towards defining solutions. In addition, participants agreed on the need for the design and selection of appropriate research tools, that facilitate and capture community views and interpretation, while helping to build a narrative around issues within these communities. They also acknowledged the importance of contextualising action research methods to ensure that tools are fit for purpose, for the areas and themes, and also taking account of any inhibitors to participation, such as language, and addressing these appropriately.

To safeguard co-production and co-implementation in the cities, workshop proceedings reiterated that each project proposal would be jointly defined. Additionally, it was agreed that a strategic leadership approach would be adopted, based on legitimacy, expertise and capability to articulate the shared vision.

Challenges and lessons

The capacity to anticipate risks or problems and visualise flexible pathways for solutions will be critical in the action research phase. Based on past experiences, potential challenges to expect include limited resources (budgetary, human and stringent donor timelines), accountability problems, unintended consequences of programming, power imbalances and competing interests. During the design of action research projects, it will be worth provisioning for managing potential reputational risks, political risks (from community, implementation teams, politicians), economic volatility, and both anticipated and unexpected delays.

Lessons from this workshop will be adapted to design and provide guidelines for the action research phase of the programme. The vision of this phase is to use evidence from the foundation phase to support coalitions of urban reformers in selected African cities.

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Can African Cities help to decolonise knowledge?

Hannah — Thu, 29 Sep 2022 07:00:00 +0000

Since the start of the African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC), we’ve been interested in trying to create more equitable partnerships and processes through the process. The rupture of the Covid-19 pandemic (which saw us establish ACRC almost entirely online) provided us with some opportunities, plus added impetus following reflections within the sector catalysed by the Black Lives Matter movement.

From the outset, we’ve been exploring ways in which we could decolonise the ACRC approach by helping to shift the culture and practice of knowledge creation, which is currently built upon hugely unequal power systems. Of course, we are not starting from scratch but building on traditions of knowledge co-production between diverse groups involved in urban research.

We’re fully aware of the inherent tensions and potential contradictions of trying to do this via a programme initiated and funded by the UK government with strict accountability requirements by the lead agency responsible for the contract. But as FCDO’s recent development strategy makes clear, the ultimate aim of programmes like ACRC is “unleashing the power of people and countries to take control of their own future”. It’s a goal we’re fully committed to, so we’re looking at how ACRC can be best organised to help deliver it.

As such, we’re focusing on three main areas:

Structural issues

The current phase of research is largely characterised by UK-based researchers leading or directing the work in a way that is consistent with the framework of the African Cities programme, with Africa-based researchers implementing within these boundaries. Within these constraints, we have sought to develop the space for community-based researchers, in addition to a range of contributions from African professionals and academics. For the next phase of work, as we move into nurturing urban reform, we need to ensure that ACRC’s agenda and work are owned by those in the cities in which we are active. This requires us to explore a more decentralised structure for decisionmaking and resource allocation.

Communication practices

Language is a powerful tool for communicating research, that can determine who benefits in multi-stakeholder partnerships such as ACRC. All forms of ACRC communications, including images, will be regularly reviewed to address potential unconscious bias issues. We also need to ensure that the dominance of the English language does not skew the understanding of specific experiences of inequalities and marginalisation within ACRC cities.

Methodological practices

In order to ensure co-production of research, local knowledge and experiences should drive the implementation of ACRC research, including spaces for methodologies that challenge Eurocentric approaches. African researchers must have their “voice” and agendas expressed in the agreed research processes and must lead the communication and use of results. ACRC approaches need to be intentionally empowering to all stakeholders involved in the research. This includes community-based researchers whose voice is often excluded in traditional academic practices.

None of this is easy. We’ve not got everything right so far, and many of the issues don’t lend themselves to immediate solutions. Balancing our accountability to both our funder (and ultimately UK tax-payers) and to the reformers we’re partnering with in African cities is a constant challenge. That said, we’re committed to continuing this dialogue throughout the programme and actively looking for practical ways to push things in the right direction.

To explore some of these issues, our uptake director Martin Atela and strategic alignment group member Professor Ola Uduku sat down with our communications manager Chris Jordan, to give their perspectives on decolonisation.

Transcript

The full podcast transcript is available below.

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Chris Jordan Welcome to the African Cities podcast. My name is Chris Jordan. I’m the communications manager with African Cities and I’m joined today in Nairobi by Ola Uduku, who’s from Liverpool University, and Martin Atela, who’s ACRC is uptake director but his day job is at the Partnership for African Social and Governance Research in Nairobi, PASGR. So thank you very much, both of you, for joining me.

Chris Jordan Really interested to get your thoughts and hear your experiences around issues of decolonisation. It’s an issue that has grown in prominence over the last few years, but I’m sure you both have kind of a long history and experience of dealing with these issues day to day, and it’s something that we’re trying to grapple with within the African Cities Research Consortium. So, Ola, if I could turn to you first. You’ve been working in development-related work for a long time. How do you come to the issue of decolonisation and particularly as it’s currently being conceived?

Ola Uduku Well, it’s a hard question, but I guess the whole decolonisation discussion is a long discussion, but it’s also part of a longer process. And I think probably in my academic life there have been times when issues around decolonisation have come up further and certainly since the Black Lives Matter movement, certainly in the UK, I think academically there’s been a significant push towards looking at how we decolonise the way we teach, the way we research and indeed the ways in which we see ourselves. So yeah, I’ve been engaged with it throughout and I think this is certainly a high point again where we’re being asked to really think carefully and it’s from everything from indeed how we teach undergraduates right through to postgraduate research and also the ways in which we frame our research questions. So yeah, it’s a continuing journey, I would say, and most of us are engaged with it in some in some fashion or the other, and I certainly support the process.

Chris Jordan And Martin, you’re based in Nairobi. You’re an African researcher. How do you come at these issues?

Martin Atela Yes. I think through working in the development field, PASGR is my third job, postgraduate, so to say. The issues of decolonisation, you sort of deal and reckon with almost in everyday relations, because most of the work involves working very closely with partners in the global South as well as partners in the global North. And most of our partnerships tend to be around issues around knowledge generation, issues around knowledge creation and the use of evidence for policy and practice. And decolonisation, as Ola rightly put, it’s not a new thing. It’s found a new growth, so to say, because of the Black Lives Matter movement. But even going back and looking at development discourse all through, it’s been at the centre of the conversation around, for instance, aid and how we do aid and development, how we do development assistance, how we do bilateral relationships. And it’s now more highlighted in research because I think academics and funders who fund academics and research are coming to terms with the reality of the fact that those relationships are never equal. And it is time if research processes have to produce the outcomes that they are intended for so that we make relationships a lot more equal and equitable.

Chris Jordan And I guess for all African researchers and academics, it’s a very personal issue, right? This is not just a theoretical, abstract sort of interesting thing. This is day to day reality.

Ola Uduku Yeah. I guess as African researchers, or at least as an African researcher or academic placed in a Northern university, it is our day to day. I mean, when the idea about positionality comes very much into the discussion, I mean, one is effectively employed by a Western body. One is interested in doing research in the South. And where does that place one in terms of both research, research subjects and also, if you like, for those whom the research is being done. And I think that’s probably a good way to bring in the work that the ACRC is doing, which is really, I think, beginning to work much more collaboratively and beginning to look at co-creation of research objectives. Certainly at the beginning of my time as a young academic, it was very much you went and did research there in the South, and it was development research, and there might be a small research fund to do it, but it was very clearly the there and the here, and the fact that this was being done as an aid project to a large extent. So I think that has changed over time, which is good, but there’s still that need to critically think about, you know, the I would call it the “symmetry”. Is it a really symmetrical relationship is there asymmetry, which is often the case.

Martin Atela Yeah. I suppose for, you know, an African academic or researcher based in Africa, you grapple with a number of things. The imbalance in the sense of research funding. So most of our research still is funded from organisations or institutions from the global North, as we would refer to them. And most of what is currently seen as top-tier journals where you publish that research are also based in the global North. So in a way, you’re doomed on both sides because funding is tied to specific ideas. If you look at most calls for proposals, the ideas have already been, you know, outlined for you. You’re responding to other people’s ideas. As you do the research there are conditionalities that are attached to it, so if you want to publish and compete with the global world, you have to publish in journals that have been given premium by, you know, sort of Western academics. So it’s a real challenge, but perhaps even more real in the sense that when we’re talking about decolonising knowledge and knowledge processes or even partnerships, we are starting from the point of view that there is a history and that history has shaped the way things have been done to the point where we are. And that realisation means that beginning to challenge power structures is often not a welcome move, and it means that it begins with you as an individual to self introspect and position yourself, rightly put by Ola, in all this conversation before even engaging with others in it. So it’s a very personal thing because some African academics lived through the process. Some of us have experiences through sort of bequeathed to us.

Chris Jordan So let’s turn to the African Cities Research Consortium, because some of the issues that you highlight, they’re present in this research effort. You know, we at The University of Manchester originally responded to a call from what was then DFID, you know, that kind of marked out the territory. And ultimately we are funded as a consortium by them. So I know you two have both been looking at some of the issues that we need to grapple with, if we’re going to do better as a consortium and if we’re going to move research practices forward. Could you just outline some of the terrain or some of the issues that a research consortium like ACRC needs to be grappling with?

Ola Uduku I guess in some ways, starting from the consortium itself, who are the partners? If we look at the banding of the consortium, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think most of our partners are from the global North. But then I guess it’s that as we put together the bid, I think there was a lot of consultation, but possibly again consultation from partners in all forms, from all those involved in what has now become the partnership. I think some partners were possibly consulted at a later point than others. Obviously, it’s very difficult to put in a large bid. But it’s interesting that as we’ve got to this stage, there are partners who are just beginning to understand the extent of the consortium. So I think at the get go, as the Americans would say, I think there’s an issue about making sure that all those involved have, I guess, at least equal knowledge and ideally equal participation in the task of creating the bid. That would be a start in terms of beginning to dissect things.

Martin Atela Yeah. I suppose ACRC like most research partnerships that bring together these different parts of the world would be grappling with not only the way it is structured, but the way it was created. And for me, I think that’s where the biggest challenge begins, that, Chris, you rightly put it, this was a call by FCDO that defined clearly what is needed. So what is the space for ACRC to deviate from any of that original thinking? So that has to be an ongoing conversation. And it means FCDO, if I could just use the blunt terms, the coloniser, has to be willing to engage with that conversation. And then, Ola’s referred to, you know, how did the partnership come together? We have to recognise that ACRC is made up of partners who enjoy very different capacities and powers. So Manchester for instance, is a highly resourced, globally known university, has been at the forefront of the development of some of the theories we are testing under ACRC; ESID, for instance, a ten-year plus project looked at political settlements and doing politics smartly. And then you bring in SDI, for instance, which is a community-based organisation with deep knowledge and expertise in engaging community at the local level. Those are very different dynamics. So it’s the consortium to find a way of sort of bringing everybody to the table and creating an atmosphere where each partner feels respected, trust can be built and recognise that indeed, we are dealing with an animal here, which is about unearning ways of doing things which we see were unequal. We recognise they are unequal.

Chris Jordan And I guess the other thing, just in practical terms to reflect on, is the experience we’ve had, we’ve all had over the last couple of years of the global pandemic. You know, as if issues of decolonisation and partnership and developing relationships of trust weren’t difficult enough already, we’ve all been stuck in our homes and, you know, two years in, just about this is the first time that we’ve all been able to get together and talk about this face to face rather than through Zoom. Just do you think for you, is there something about that? Have you noticed the difference in conversations when you’re face to face rather than mediated through a screen?

Ola Uduku Oh, definitely. I mean, I think that yeah, I mean, the world basically stopped or paused for at least the first nine months. But then again, in some ways, it again highlights the asymmetries in terms of as the world has got back to business, it is still much more difficult for the South to travel to the North versus the North travelling to the South. So that highlighting about yeah, the differences and divisions in the world in terms of how a global disease affects different places differently must come through the process of being part of ACRC. But I mean, the positives are that, as I have said anecdotally, the first place I heard about Zoom was back in Lagos in November 2019, well before the pandemic. So in some ways, some parts of Africa have been resourced enough in terms of the both the infrastructure and the technology to go onto Zoom. So that has been a positive in some ways. But now that we’re coming out of it, I can see the challenges, still for travel across for particularly our African partners. But it’s been positive definitely to be able to get back together, and it’s been really nice to be in a space together and out of the box, or the computer screen.

Martin Atela Yeah, I agree. Totally. It was amazing, to say the least, that groups such as ACRC could leverage on technology, could leverage technology to connect such a large group of people. Obviously, it comes with its own challenges. One that I would highlight, for instance, is the time difference. So the planning around most of ACRC’s workshops were done in consideration of the UK timings, the British standard time, and for a lot of researchers in Africa and other parts of the continent, they had to stay quite late in the evening to keep up with it. But for me, the opportunity to engage and not allow the pandemic to stop engagement I think overrides these challenges. The issue that Ola raised about I’ll just call it blatantly open discrimination around global travel, still does highlight the inequality that we face in the world. We saw it with HIV and now it’s even more highlighted with Covid and what we call, you know, the discrimination in terms of access to vaccines. Yeah.

Chris Jordan Yeah. And even before Covid, you know, it was difficult enough to get visas for African researchers who wanted to come and visit the UK or participate in workshops or conferences. So yeah, it’s a whole other podcast probably. I just want to turn finally to the agenda going forward. So lots of issues, lots of contradictions, lots of stuff that we’re just going to have to keep on addressing and talking about trying to find a way through. But what do you see as the sort of the positive agenda? What can we be doing as a research consortium to make sure that we really do try and do this research in a different sort of way?

Ola Uduku I think it’s building on what’s gone on so far. I think being able to have sessions like these, apart from the niceness of being face to face, really beginning to address difficult questions about power. Power and indeed, if you like, post-colony as opposed to colonisation. But I would always say in terms of research that I do, particularly in Africa, what is the legacy? So it’s that fundamental question about what’s really good is we’re talking about uptake and so on. So we’re saying the right words. But in reality, as the person I was sitting next to who’s part of the SLD group here, when a project ends, a good project means that the researcher really becomes part of that community, so it’s almost anthropological. And often the researcher has his or her own task and is seen as a very important elder or whatever in that community setting. But when the elder moves, who takes that role on? So if it’s a successful one, it’s back to the whole development discussion. A good development project means that it sustains itself when the developer or the person bringing the aid leaves. So it’s that embeddedness in the existing communities in which we are working with and how the ACRC consortium has its own future, which is not mediated by the North, it’s probably mediated by the cities that we’ve been involved in in the South and grows further.

Martin Atela A good point to start, actually. I remember. I think it’s one of the SDI members who put for us that challenge. What does ACRC want to be remembered for after the five or six years? And perhaps to respond to your question, Chris, what is it that we need to do to ensure that we do the research on the problem differently and better? But I think we have to, as a consortium, decide to go to Beth’s words, what is it that we can achieve? Right. So with very clear indicators around at the end of this five years, we committed to decolonise our processes and do our research better. Who will own the knowledge, you know, who will own the data? Yeah. What’s the balance or share of all of what do we call it, the intellectual property rights, to the publications that are coming out of this, not just to African scholars, but the community as well. Do they feel they own the data? Do they feel they own the solutions that are coming out of this? And for me, it would be a marker of success, of having done things differently, if in our 13 or the five or seven or eight last cities we can leave pointers of real changes that ACRC brought, you know, communities that our evidence transformed, examples of policies that benefitted from our evidence. The number of research projects that were genuinely led and co-designed by policymakers and community members and African researchers. That to me would be a true example of a well done global South/global North research project.

Chris Jordan Thank you. So it’s clear that we’re at the start of this conversation and hopefully something that we’ll come back to over the life of ACRC and beyond. Martin and Ola, thank you very much for joining me today.

Ola Uduku It’s been a pleasure.

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Reflections from Nairobi: ACRC’s first consortium-wide workshop

Hannah — Tue, 31 May 2022 07:00:00 +0000

By Hannah van Rooyen, African Cities Research Consortium digital communications officer

It has been an exciting month for the African Cities Research Consortium, as members from across the consortium met together in person for the first time in Nairobi. Running from 17 to 19 May, our workshop brought together more than 80 delegates – mostly research teams from our focus cities, along with those from The University of Manchester and other partner institutions.

Vibrant discussions were held over the three days of meetings, exploring a vast array of topics including ACRC’s conceptual framework, urban reform, community knowledge, capacity strengthening, research uptake, decolonisation and priority complex problems.

After more than 18 months of meeting and collaborating remotely, the workshop was the first time that many colleagues were meeting in person and provided a brilliant opportunity to share updates on progress, ideas for improvement, and ambitions for the next stages of work.

The key objectives of the workshop were to:

Review and assess progress to date on city and domain studies, enabling experiences to be shared across cities, domains and cross-cutting themes (climate, finance and gender).
Identify which processes are working well and what needs to be improved.
Develop processes for cross-city and cross-domain analysis at the city level, along with cross-domain and thematic analysis at the programme level.
Share information and ideas for the implementation phase.
Review ACRC knowledge generation and knowledge use processes in terms of equitability and inclusivity, including issues related to decolonisation.
Advance a culture of sharing and build knowledge around the contribution of others involved (including cities, domains and uptake) to facilitate engagement going forward.

Outside the Star of Hope School in Viwandani, Mukuru

Mukuru community leader Dorice Moseti welcomes the group

Construction site in Mukuru kwa Reuben

Mukuru field visit

The week of meetings started with an optional field visit for consortium members to the informal settlement of Mukuru. We were separated into two groups and shown around Mukuru kwa Reuben and Viwandani by community members and organisers from Muungano wa Wanavijiji, the Kenyan federation of slum dwellers and an affiliate of Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI).

To help upgrade the settlement, Muungano has long been involved in a process of engaging both the communities and local authorities. This has led to significant progress in Mukuru, especially following its designation as a Special Planning Area (SPA). Over the last 18 months, clean water kiosks have been set up, water and sewerage piping networks extended and many roads improved.

While there have been many challenges and obstacles to overcome, the reform coalition between the community members, civil society organisations, local government, land and structure owners, researchers and national government has been crucial to driving progress.

And the hard work continues. With a vision to improve access to housing for residents in the settlement and deliver further training on community organising, we’re looking forward to seeing what Muungano achieves next.

Day 1 | ACRC overview, urban reform, domains + crosscutting themes

The first day of the workshop began with an overview of ACRC’s research approach and theory of change from Diana Mitlin, followed by a group session discussing the necessary and sufficient conditions for urban reform in African cities.

Next up, we had a round of “turbo talks” from our domain teams, providing the wider consortium with an overview of the issues being explored, updates on progress, overlaps with other domains and exciting findings so far.

Sam Hickey, Seth Schindler and Tim Kelsall then talked through our conceptual framework, with valuable insights provided by Joseph Macarthy, executive director of the Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre, into the work being done in Freetown.

The group split into parallel sessions in the afternoon, discussing domains, city of systems, political settlements and uptake work across our focus cities.

And the final session of the day focused on our three crucial crosscutting themes – gender, finance and climate change – with presentations and smaller group discussions led by Rachel Tolhurst, Gundula Löffler and David Dodman.

Day 1 of our workshop in Nairobi kicks off with an icebreaker – consortium members placing themselves along continua of political economy vs urban systems, research vs programming, and more ↔️

All agreed that effectively communicating evidence is key to driving policy change 🗣 pic.twitter.com/p0WlKQJJvj

— African Cities Research Consortium (@AfricanCities_) May 17, 2022

Day 2 | Decolonisation, community knowledge + uptake

After an overview from Sam Hickey, our second day of meetings commenced with a session on decolonisation, led by Ola Uduku and Shuaib Lwasa. The group explored questions around decolonising research structures, overcoming unconscious bias and prioritising community and practitioner voices.

Next up, Beth Chitekwe-Biti moderated a panel on community knowledge, featuring Nancy Njoki, Dorice Moseti, Nicera Wanjiru, Joseph Muturi and Eva Muchiri from Muungano wa Wanavijiji. The team talked about their experiences of partnering with researchers, NGOs and government on data collection and the importance of community-generated interventions.

ACRC’s uptake director Martin Atela and communications manager Chris Jordan then led a session on research uptake, looking at its role in addressing priority complex problems, the key components of uptake, and next steps in the consortium’s uptake strategy.

Parallel sessions in the afternoon focused on bilateral linkages across domains – or domain “speed dating”, as it came to be known – and the lessons that set 2 cities can learn from set 1 cities. These were followed by open space discussions on capacity strengthening and publications strategy, operations and safeguarding.

The day ended with an update on Covid Collective work and findings, along with a meeting for informal settlements and political settlements leads to agree on an approach for wider discussion and action.

Day 2 of our consortium-wide meeting is underway here in Nairobi! 🙌

⁦@IIED⁩ ⁦@ODI_Global⁩ ⁦@GlobalDevInst⁩ ⁦@PASGR_⁩ ⁦@sdinet⁩ ⁦@UNUWIDER⁩ ⁦@ICLEIAfrica⁩ ⁦@LSTMnews⁩ ⁦@LivUniArch⁩ pic.twitter.com/EOZ0xn05in

— African Cities Research Consortium (@AfricanCities_) May 18, 2022

Day 3 | Priority complex problems, reflections + next steps

Our final day of workshops started with an introduction from Martin Atela, who looked back on the previous day’s discussions and ahead to the remaining few sessions. Diana Mitlin then took over to deliver an overview of priority complex problems (PCPs) – covering the identification process and next steps – and answering questions about the coordination across domain and city teams.

The dialogue around PCPs and the next phase of ACRC continued with group exercises and a “fishbowl” discussion, giving domain leads initially and then everyone else a chance to air thoughts, ideas and queries in an open forum.

Moving on to reflections on progress so far, Shuaib Lwasa invited the group to think about ACRC in terms of its impact on individual members and whether/how the three-day meeting had lived up to its purpose. The general consensus was that simply meeting in person had been invaluable for deepening understanding, and that holding the meeting in Nairobi had been critical to shifting the locus of expertise to Africa.

Wrap-up remarks from Sam Hickey and Diana Mitlin were then followed by an insightful presentation on the development of the Mukuru SPA from urban planner Peter Ngau and consultant Mary Mutinda – focusing on the planning, consultation and implementation process and highlighting the importance of community participation to influence change.

After two days filled with conversations about driving ACRC forward, our third and final day of meetings is underway!@PASGR_’s Martin Atela gets things moving with a run through of today’s activities, followed by a session on Priority Complex Problems from @DianaMitlin 🎯 pic.twitter.com/cYqTRIDmCg

— African Cities Research Consortium (@AfricanCities_) May 19, 2022

Despite a packed agenda and a huge amount to discuss, the levels of energy and investment only built as the days went on. We still have a lot to unpack from the workshop and a healthy amount of feedback to channel into our processes as we drive ACRC forward. But encompassing many of the thoughts, queries, challenges and ideas was a resounding question put forward by Muungano wa Wanavijiji: “What will ACRC’s legacy be?”

As we reflect on lessons learned and look ahead to our implementation phase, it’s a vital question to keep in mind.

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ACRC’s approach to catalysing urban reform

Hannah — Mon, 31 Jan 2022 07:00:00 +0000

Our recent blog series delves into the concepts underpinning the African Cities Research Consortium’s research approach, covering the challenges and opportunities of urban development in Africa, an overview of our conceptual framework, and more detail on how our “city of systems” approach, political settlements analysis and urban development domains will feed into our wider research programme.

To bring all these pieces together, Diana Mitlin sat down to present an overview of our research programme and theory of change. She outlines the various components of our conceptual framework and how we hope to generate evidence and insights to improve the lives and life chances of urban residents in African cities.

Watch the video here:

Transcript

The full video transcript is available below.

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So my name is Diana Mitlin, I’m professor of global urbanism at The University of Manchester, working in the Global Development Institute, and I’m also the chief executive officer, the CEO, of the African Cities Research Consortium that is taking up an opportunity provided by FCDO to rethink urban reform, to put in place a new approach that will ensure that African urban citizens are not excluded from the kinds of development opportunities that so many others take for granted.

What we’re going to do in this research programme is drill down into the systems that exist in the African context, the African urban context, and understand reasons for their fragmentation and their lack of interconnection. We recognise the significance of politics and the political economy, so we’re going to integrate a political understanding into this analysis of system failure. The objective is to secure more effective, more inclusive urban development and find ways to tackle urban poverty, to reduce urban poverty through a new family, a new generation of policies and programmes. And we aspire that our research will be relevant to FCDO and other development agencies, other official development agencies, but also to civil society agencies, national and local governments, who are all working to provide opportunities to Africa’s urban citizens. We wish to change the path of urban reform in African cities by exemplifying how programming can be more effective.

We recognise of course the challenging context in which we’re working. African cities are complex, dynamic, there’s a lot of contestation, indeed growing contestation, and rapid growth in populations, if not rapid growth in economic development and opportunities related to that. In order to address the outcome, in order to achieve the objectives which we’ve committed to doing, we’ve drawn together a group of agencies which we think are particularly well placed. They involve a combination of research groups, policy thinktanks who work on the interface between research and action, and civil society organisations who have been implementing change processes on the ground, but in the context of the consortium have long engaged with thinking and reflection and knowledge development. So we’ve really tried to develop this unique configuration of agencies which are able to take on the challenge.

We’ve identified 13 cities in which we want to begin this work; six of them are in fragile and conflict-affected states. That was part of the challenge that FCDO gave to us, they wanted to ensure that our work was relevant, even in contexts which are very adverse, which have particular circumstances – conflict, war, internal contestation – which mean programming in urban development interventions has been particularly challenging. So when we thought about where we should do this work, we really sat back and looked at the contexts in which urban reform had been possible. We clearly have to develop an understanding about how to trigger change, even in contexts where circumstances are adverse, but in order to begin the story we wanted to work in places where we felt we had a chance of driving a new path for urban reform.

We all recognise that the kinds of change we want require a political commitment from elites – that, to be frank, is to state the obvious. What we’ve really thought about is what are the processes that drive that commitment and drive a commitment that is long-term and robust – ie it’s not a trivial “let’s win the next election in the next three months”. So one of the first preconditions is to have citizens who are mobilised, citizens who are challenging the distribution of resources and looking for a more equitable path, looking for a way in which the 50% of residents, for example, 50% or more of residents who are living in informal settlements, also are able to get the kinds of basic services the citizens in wealthier countries take for granted. We recognise the importance of having agencies that can build short- and long-term state capacity. What do I mean by that? I mean, for example, a planning department in a university that can really ensure that graduates understand how, for example, to do participation, how to nurture co-production, how to think about the immediate neighbourhood scale and also think city-wide. In short, agencies that can ensure that officials are able to respond positively when political commitment is in place. And in addition to those agencies, we recognise the significance of formal and informal reform coalitions, aggregations of agencies and individuals that come together to agree a platform and push for change. What African Cities is going to do is to develop a knowledge platform, develop evidence that is recognised as being useful by all parties, that can provide new insights into challenging problems, existing problems and show how new and effective approaches can be developed. We recognise, of course, going back to what I said earlier, that cities are dynamic – they’re always in motion, things are always changing – and we recognise that there’s an interaction between the coalitions, the citizens, the agencies who are developing relevant capabilities and the political elites who have of course their own interests, but also in many cases are seeking to nurture developmental opportunities.

In order to develop the evidence, in order to generate this evidence, we’re going to work across three approaches, three pillars in a way, that we see as important to drive that knowledge process forward. Politically informed systems analysis, the sub-city level, our domain analysis, I’ll come back to that, which really gives us an understanding of the detail that is required for policy and programme, and action research to test out our work. And we recognise as we go through this six-year programme that we’re going to be working across those three platforms, across those three pillars, and understanding the interaction between them.

So, to begin with the first pillar, we’re going to develop work that enables us to understand the systems and system failure and system fragmentation, with an awareness of the political sensitivities and political complexities of urban change – a politically informed systems analysis that will draw on work around political settlements, the agreements, formal and informal, that elites make. Political settlements theory has primarily focused on the national level and we are using that framework to analyse the sub-national, to analyse cities, politics internal to cities and the engagement of city politics with national politics. At the same time, we’re really going to be looking at systems, the systems and sectors that drive urban development, such as governance, such as water and sanitation, such as finance. We’re going to understand how those two interact, in order to better understand the problems, to have a grounded problem analysis and to inform decisionmakers.

Moving onto the second pillar. We are very conscious that you can only understand so much by looking at the city level – we’re very conscious that a lot of urban interventions are at the sub-city level. We’ve identified eight domains that we think will really drive an understanding, a grounded understanding at the sub-city level, of what are the problems, what are the ways in which those problems are being created and reinforced, and what are the ways in which those active in domains think that change can be catalysed. So our eight domains are broadly grouped into three. We have domains focused on the built environment, such as housing and informal settlements and, in some sense the gold of urban development, land and the connectivity around land that means land has value. We have two economic domains – we’re seeking to understand structural transformation, the opportunities that potentially can catalyse economic development in cities, but also at a micro scale, what is going on at the neighbourhood and district level. And then we have three social domains – we have a domain around youth and capability development – Africa’s population of course is very young and is emerging and those young people want and need development opportunities, health, wellbeing and nutrition, and safety and security, again with a focus on understanding what is happening in the neighbourhoods that make up the urban conurbation. So our domain analysis will enable us to understand the political sensitivities engaged in multi-sectoral work. It will also enable us to compare domains across the city and really to understand the different politics, for example, around land and housing when compared to issues of health, wellbeing and nutrition. So we will do cross-domain analysis and we will do an analysis of the politics and system development at the city scale and at the sub-city scale. We also of course will be able to see how the same domain maps out in different cities, which will also drive a grounded understanding of the challenges which the urban context faces.

As we move through the programme, the African Cities research programme, we will take on action research programmes. We really want to test out the strength of our conceptual framework, so that action research will draw on an understanding of the preconditions, we’ll test our understanding of the preconditions. It will draw on insights from the city-level analysis, politically informed systems analysis, drawing on political settlements and our city of systems work. And it will draw on insights from relevant domains. As we feed knowledge and evidence into that process, we will advance an understanding of how urban reform can be catalysed and can be maintained.

So the African Cities Research Consortium draws together those three areas of work – politically informed systems analysis, domain analysis and action research. We are very conscious that our framework builds on the work that has been going on over recent decades, particularly driven by African experts in academia and beyond academia who are trying to catalyse a pattern of urban reform. There is a huge range of that urban expertise, of course, different individuals have placed themselves differently in different domains and in different agencies that are active. But we provide a way of building a critical mass that will draw together those individuals.

In this way, we hope to draw together the insights and evidence to improve the living conditions, services and life chances for all urban residents, particularly for the most disadvantaged communities, and we hope to develop an understanding that is relevant beyond our 13 cities, relevant to smaller cities and relevant to cities that are not included in this programme. We see this as a real opportunity to rethink the way in which development trajectories in African cities have been put down and to prepare ourselves for the remaining decades of the 21st century, to really ensure that African urban residents are part of, and are not excluded from, global development opportunities. Thank you.

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What are urban development domains?

Hannah — Tue, 14 Dec 2021 07:00:00 +0000

Unpacking the ACRC approach

This is the fifth in a series of blog posts exploring the African Cities Research Consortium’s conceptual framework. Building on our first working paper, our research directors delve deeper into the urban development challenges we are seeking to address, our research approach and the concepts we’ll be using.

The first article explored the key challenges facing African cities and opportunities for development, the second introduced the consortium’s research framework, the third looked at political settlements analysis, the fourth explored the thinking behind our city of systems approach, and this fifth one explains the concept of urban development domains.

By Diana Mitlin, CEO of the African Cities Research Consortium

There is a widespread recognition that narrowly focused sectoral urban interventions tend to fail.

Sectoral interventions are particularly likely to fail in the urban context because of the inter-relationship between consumption and production of goods and services. The presence of multiple agencies and organisations – and complex norms, values and practices, which have an overlapping presence on the ground – exacerbates problems. Improvements in one sector frequently have unanticipated impacts in other sectors that may mean the intervention is ineffective, and can potentially create other difficulties.

For example, improved water services are about much more than just laying down pipes and collecting payments for installation and water services. Pipe installation may require regularisation of informal settlements – where between 50% and 90% of urban residents live – and the re-blocking of existing dwellings (to enable pipes to be laid). The lowest income households may find they cannot afford regularisation costs, some residents may be displaced because of re-blocking of plots to ensure that paths follow straight lines and enable pipes to be laid, and tenants who cannot afford associated rent increases may have to relocate to other neighbourhoods.

Installing water pipes is particularly complex where land is privately owned. In terms of water services, regardless of who owns the land, existing informal providers may block utility provision because they lose their livelihoods – and there may be complex negotiations required for installation to continue. With the shift to utility supplies, households may be required to pay connection fees to benefit from supplies directly to their dwelling or plot. And water can only be safely supplied at the household and neighbourhood level if there is also drainage to remove waste water that needs to be disposed of.

Beyond sectoral interventions

ACRC’s analytical framework uses the concept of urban development domains to transcend both sectoral and traditional systems-based thinking, and to recognise that forward-thinking agencies, alliance and reform coalitions have long moved beyond sectoral thinking.

Domains enable us to drill down into sub-city processes, relations and institutions, recognising that the political economy and systems failures vary across domains. ACRC domain studies will be comparatively analysed between domains, and between individual domains and city-level analyses, to deepen our understanding of outcomes.

There are links between our notion of domains and the idea of a “politically-informed multi-sectoral approach”. However, we prefer the term domain because it draws attention to issues of power and authority as ideas about domain reforms are tested and challenged, and better represents the epistemic communities that emerge around specific domains.

Alongside helping us to see the politics of urban development challenges (which are tied to how particular actors frame problems and mobilise around their solutions) domains also help us analyse outcomes and opportunities across the political economy and city-of-system dimensions of our framework.

Housing in Kampala, Uganda. Photo credit: Ryan Faas / Getty Images

Defining domains

Domains are fields of power, policy and practice that are relevant to solving particular problems and/or advancing specific opportunities in relation to cities. They are constituted by actors (political, bureaucratic, professional and popular) that seek to claim control, influence and rights over a particular field – such as housing or the contribution of cities to national development – through various means.

Urban development domains are multi-scale and multi-system. Systems interactions help to define what can be achieved by programmes and projects that take place within a given domain. Take the domain of housing as an example; housing improvements can only be secured through improving the performance of water and sanitation services, and ensuring the provision of housing finance.

Housing is also an illustration of the importance of multi-scalar improvements. Residential neighbourhoods need to be connected to other residential areas. Residents need to be able to maintain and develop social and livelihood networks. And the density and compactness of a city affects its contribution to climate change, and to climate change adaptation strategies.

Urban development domains play diverse roles in sustaining the wider balance of power at both city and national levels – for example, providing rents, controlling electorates and/or providing legitimacy to governing elites in ways that in turn shape how authority is contested within domains, and whose interests and ideas predominate. The objectives of urban development domains are part of what is contested. Returning to the example of housing, should housing developments represent the modernisation ideal or should they favour lower cost, incremental style development?

Figure 1: How domains (in green), sit alongside systems and political settlements analysis

Collective knowledge and action

A particular feature of urban development domains, and policy domains more broadly, concerns the role of epistemic communities, defined by Peter M. Haas as: “… a network of professionals with recognised expertise and competence in a particular domain and an authoritative claim to policy relevant knowledge within that domain or issue-area”.

Domain-level actors draw on and further strengthen epistemic communities to expound particular ideas, build strategic alliances or coalitions to achieve strategic objectives, and undertake direct activism, policy reform, new programming approaches and reformulated practices to solve problems and advance opportunities. They provide platforms for contestation, as ideas are tested and refined. Such epistemic communities reach beyond national borders, linking those aspiring to change local outcomes with evolving professional approaches, new academic insights and wider ideologies with which to engage.

Domains are highly political because they involve validating specific forms of intervention and their direction of travel. Expertise is central to this process, and what is legitimated by the expertise within domains potentially affects elite interests in multiple ways, such as, the ability to secure electorate support. Domain platforms enable ideologies to compete for dominance, and personal and political interests to be challenged and/or advanced.

Collective action on the part of those excluded from and/or adversely affected by domain-related processes may challenge the way in which domains function, especially if well-placed members within the epistemic communities take up these causes and represent these voices, and this may lead to reforms. For example, resistance to the demolition of informal settlements has encouraged the growth of informal settlement upgrading in at least some locations and organisations of informal workers have challenged both market-based processes of exploitation and state policies and programmes. Hence, domains are sites of contestation between actors with different interests and ideas, and different levels of holding power within the broader political settlement.

ACRC’s urban development domains

ACRC’s task is to understand how to intervene through policy, programmes and practices to improve inclusive development outcomes in cities.

The extent and ways in which domains perform political roles for powerful interests within the settlement will influence what is possible within them. The way in which the domain is configured (in terms of the balance of power between different actors, and the kinds of knowledge and ideas that are therefore privileged) will suit certain interests and problems, whilst also preventing other problems from being resolved in ways that secure more equitable and sustainable forms of development. ACRC is working with eight domains, which fall into three sets:

Built environment domains that also play important economic and social roles;
- Housing
- Informal settlements
- Land and connectivity
Economic domains that focus primarily on income and asset generation;
- Structural transformation
- Neighbourhood and district economic development
Societal domains that affect all citizens and their efforts to secure health, wellbeing and opportunity.
- Youth and capability development
- Health, wellbeing and nutrition
- Safety and security

Figure 2: Domain categories

We have identified a set of domains that reflect both the needs of low-income and disadvantaged groups, and the priorities of city governments. They also reflect the interests of a range of national and international development agencies that have invested in programmes to address urban development priorities.

We’ll be studying three to five domains in each of our 13 focus cities. In addition to providing vital insights into the complex problems they are facing, this will also enable us to explore cross-city comparisons of domain processes, and outcomes.

As we move from our initial research on urban challenges, towards action research to address those problems in the next phase of ACRC’s work, knowledge of domains – and established relations with domain actors – will help to ensure a high quality of design for solutions to the priority complex problems, and the uptake activities around those solutions.

Learn more about ACRC’s research approach in our working paper: ‘Politics, systems and domains: A conceptual framework for the African Cities Research Consortium’.

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Header photo credit: Eisenlohr / Getty Images. Kibera informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya.

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