May 22, 2014
South Africa: Solving the Poor's 'Poo' Problem
Access to toilets for Cape Town's growing urban poor is a regular flash-point, featuring angry demonstrations and hurled allegations by competing political factions. Read more »
May 15, 2014
South Africa: Cities Generate Jobs, Says South African Study
Effectively-managed cities can help provide jobs for South Africa's millions of unemployed young people, suggests a new report from one of the country's development think tanks. Read more »
May 14, 2014
Africa: Most New Jobs Will Be Urban
Excerpts from "Cities of Hope", published by the Centre for Development and Enterprise in Johannesburg: Read more »
May 08, 2014
Africa: Mayors Seek Bigger Role In Climate Change
Some of Africa's biggest cities are joining an international drive by city governments to respond to global climate change. Read more »
May 07, 2014
Africa: Urban Planners Skeptical of 'Smart Cities'
Urban planning experts are anxious that what they call “fantasy designs” for new African “smart cities” will serve the interests of African elites and… Read more »
May 06, 2014
South Africa: City Women Generate Food & Income on Tiny Urban Plots
"It's a lot of work", says Mama Lulama Jim as she takes respite from the wind in a makeshift container kitchen. She pauses to study her notes made during an early morning… Read more »
Africa: Africa Focuses on Building Resilient Cities
Developing viable, livable and resilient cities is increasingly seen as being of critical importance to giving opportunities to Africans to improve their lives. Read more »
December 22, 2013
Kenya: Train Derails, Crashes in Kibera
A cargo train has derailed and crashed into homes in Kibera, where about one million people live. Read more »
September 12, 2013
Africa: Rockefeller Foundation Challenges Cities to Prosper
Half of the world's people live in cities. By 2050 – only 35 years from now – that number is expected to grow to 75 per cent. Read more »
August 12, 2013
Nigeria: Thousands Face Eviction in Lagos - NGOs
Tens of thousands of people living in the Badia East area of Lagos face forced eviction from their homes by the Lagos State government, and possible destitution as a result, warn… Read more »
March 15, 2013
South Africa: Two Killed, Thousands Homeless After Stellenbosch Fire
Two people were killed and thousands left homeless when a fire razed homes at the Khayamandi informal settlement in Stellenbosch, a town in the winelands of the Western Cape. Read more »
November 19, 2012
Liberia: Tapping Official and Grassroots Efforts On Water
In July 1990, as then-rebel leader Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia advanced on Monrovia, Taylor's guerrilla fighters attacked the White Plains water treatment… Read more »
Liberia: Pipe Dreams - Waiting for Water in Monrovia
"The hanging latrines" of West Point are not one of Liberia's most celebrated beauty spots. But this modest collection of elevated toilets, erected on the banks of the Mesurado… Read more »
South Africa: Dreams of Better Sanitation Go Down the Toilet
Gogo Sikhosana Ngcobo is 76 years old. Growing up, she says she had dreams of what her life would be like. They featured a brick house with a flushing toilet. Those dreams, like… Read more »
October 23, 2012
Kenya: Cattle in the Capital - Urban Agriculture Comes to Town
Leonard Gichuru Gitau is a city dweller, but it doesn't take a detective to see that he is also a livestock farmer. The lowing of cattle greets visitors to his neatly… Read more »
September 07, 2011
Africa: Surfing the Radio Waves for Sustainable Agriculture
While the use of mobile phones is rapidly surging across Africa, access gaps persist between urban and rural users. But a new generation of social entrepreneurs is remedying this… Read more »
July 15, 2011
Africa: AfricaSan3 - Less About Goals Than Getting There
The 3rd African Conference on Sanitation Hygiene is set for 19-21 July in Kigali, Rwanda. AllAfrica's Julie Frederikse looks at what to expect from this important event. Read more »
February 18, 2010
Kenya: Urban Women Grow Food in Sacks
Driving through the crowded streets of the sprawling Kibera slum in Nairobi, it’s nearly impossible to describe how many people live in this area of about 400 hectares, the… Read more »
November 03, 2009
Zimbabwe: Cultivating Food Security in the City
In recent years Zimbabweans have faced severe food shortages and staggering hyperinflation. As a result, residents in the capital, Harare, have increasingly turned to urban… Read more »
December 03, 2007
Nigeria: Local Official Brings Power to the People
Kevin Aniebonem's voice is difficult to hear over the generator roaring in the background. The 24-year-old buys four liters of petrol every day to keep a light bulb running in… Read more »
August 22, 2007
Africa: Flooding Affecting Millions
Flooding has affected millions of Africans throughout the continent in recent days. Read more »
May 24, 2007
Africa: Hundreds of Thousands Evicted Across Continent
Hundreds of thousands of Africans in many different countries were deliberately rendered homeless last year, Amnesty International has reported. Read more »
March 26, 2007
Senegal: The Doors of Senegal: Les Portes Du Senegal
This book reminded me two people I used to see at my literature class at the University of Paris VIII. Read more »
March 14, 2007
Nigeria: 'Mr Demolition' Talks of Changing a City and a Country
Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai, minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) of Abuja and a senior member of Nigeria’s ruling People’s Democratic Party, last week visited… Read more »
January 08, 2007
Congo-Kinshasa: Review of Mobutu's Totalitarian Political System - An Afrocentric Analysis
In this short book, Peta Ikambana attempts to offer an Afro-centric analysis of the Mobutu regime, which ruled over Zaire (today's DRC) from 1965 to 1997. The book's premise holds… Read more »
