Prof. Diana Mitlin is the Chief Executive Officer of the African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC). She spoke with CHINEDUM UWAEGBULAM on how the organisation is tackling urban development challenges, transforming co-produced research into practical solutions capable of delivering meaningful change in African cities, and supporting coalitions of urban reformers.

Looking back over the consortium’s work across African cities, what have been the most important lessons about addressing urban challenges through research, partnerships, and policy engagement?
IF we look at the African context, it is very different from many other urban contexts, with limited community accountability, inadequate public services and socially distant local authorities. Yet, despite these limitations, African practices have built on innovations within and beyond Africa, experimenting with coalitions and alliances to explore new development options that strengthen inclusion and accountability.

In driving urban transformation in Africa, the triad of communities, government, and universities is crucial. For instance, the universities act both as hosts and/or support processes located outside academia. These include the Urban Action Lab at Makerere University in Kampala, the Sierra Leone Urban Resource Centre in Freetown (linked to Njala University as a catalyst), the Urban Informality Forum in Harare (with the University of Harare as co-founders), and the Centre for Housing and Sustainable Development at the University of Lagos.

More short-term efforts include the Mukuru Special Planning Area, which included academics from the University of Nairobi and Strathmore Law School (Kenya), as well as UC Berkeley (US). And now, institutionalised efforts include Municipal Development Forums in Ugandan towns and cities.

African cities face mounting pressures from rapid urbanisation, climate change, and inequality. Which of these challenges requires the most urgent attention, and what practical solutions should governments prioritise?
The consortium is a bold attempt to change the face of African cities, catalysing a multiplicity of new approaches to urban reform that demonstrate how cities can be inclusive, prosperous and environmentally sustainable. It is also a modest contribution designed to recognise and build on the immense efforts of diverse groups of committed urban residents who have sought to create and maintain urban reform trajectories that produce new urban policies, programmes and practices to achieve similar goals.

The design of ACRC respects the historically significant and ongoing efforts of those committed urban residents. We also recognise the need for local specificity and contextually sensitive interventions across and beyond urban Africa. The significance of local reformers lies, in part, in managing the complexities of local and national politics.

But it is also to enable local solutions to emerge that are sensitive to local specificities, embedded in local learning processes, and able to analyse, re-strategise, adjust, and continue, including nurturing new cadres of reformers.

However, cities and their residents are not isolated entities. They’re connected through complex, dynamic interactions that span economic, social and cultural domains. The political challenges can be found at the local level, but the drivers of such challenges are, in part, located well beyond city boundaries.

The point here is we are catalysing a set of discussions and actions that problematise the conditions under which urban reform takes place.

Can you provide examples from your activities across African cities where your model for catalysing discussions and actions has led to tangible government interventions in communities?
The Lagos-Nairobi exchange experience demonstrates how peer learning can foster discussions and government interventions in communities. In this project, state officials, academics, professionals and community leaders shared views and experiences on two ACRC-supported visits, one to the last-mile sanitation project with the utility and the local government in the informal neighbourhood of Mukuru, Nairobi, and the second to an emerging community-led water and sanitation project in Okerube, Lagos.

Networked sewers and water lines have changed what is possible in Mukuru, where residents (mainly tenants) now benefit from affordable water at one-tenth of the cost they previously paid and toilets within their shared plots.

Nairobi is also developing important lessons for cities in how they respond to humanitarian crises and refugees, with important lessons to draw from across and beyond Africa. Nairobi City County government passed an innovative policy to welcome refugees, with the intention of maximising their economic contribution to the city and minimising tensions with host communities. The ACRC Nairobi city team is working with officials from the city, refugee organisations, and NGOs to determine how to implement this policy.

In Accra, as in Lagos, there is an active debate on property tax: how to maximise revenue, ensure the burden of paying tax is equitable, and secure a fair delivery of services. The ACRC city team in Accra is delighted to be working in Ga West (Accra) to incorporate community valuation and citizen engagement into budget spending and revenue-raising efforts.

In Harare, our work is demonstrating the added value of cooperation between the national government, the local government and organised residents. Residents already engage in a host of activities to address the consequences of climate change and reduce the risk of flooding and extreme heat.

But they need tenure security to make more substantive investments, and the value of such security is now being demonstrated in the neighbourhood of Tafara. As significant as deepening the work, working with the city council has helped the ACRC city team in Harare to support an initiative that has gone citywide.

Climate impacts do not stop at the boundaries of a single neighbourhood; rather, residents and authorities need to work together.

Governments may make considerable efforts to reach out to low-income groups and provide them with services. But frequently their intent is not realised because of the challenge of designing in the context of considerable informality. That is the situation in Kampala’s informal neighbourhoods, where residents struggle to access subsidised access to electricity. The Kampala city team in ACRC is working with community leaders and the utility staff to analyse what needs to change for the government’s intent to be realised.

What role should city governments and other stakeholders play in ensuring that evidence-based urban policies translate into tangible improvements in people’s lives?
In answering that question, let me highlight the difference between capacity and capability: capability refers to an individual’s or agency’s ability to perform a specific task. Are they able to do it? Do they understand what is required, and do they have the skills and experience necessary to move forward successfully? Capacity refers to the scale of the ability to respond to the change.

Capability is frequently confused with capacity. For example, state agencies and individuals may have the capacity (such as time and resources) to respond but lack the capability (specific skills) to do so.

Equally, they may have the capability to act but simply lack the resources.

Now, let me elaborate on how governments and stakeholders can ensure that evidence-based urban policies have an impact on citizens’ lives. I will use the example of an action research project we supported in Maiduguri to highlight this.

The project was built on an existing effort by the Borno State Geographic Information System (BOGIS), which aims to better integrate informal settlement residents into land titling processes. Complexities around land tenure and ownership in Maiduguri have led to frequent contestation and evictions, with the lowest-income groups the most vulnerable. The project set out to identify ways to address uncertainties in customary land tenure processes and advance the interests of disadvantaged groups.

The first stage involves determining the change needed. This requires identifying groups deeply embedded in relevant processes who are innovators. We provide them with space to analyse the problems and identify possible solutions. Those solutions are then discussed with a wider group of stakeholders and once the proposed solution is crafted, as well as reviewed and deemed effective, the capability development process proceeds.

The second stage involves broader engagement with the proposed solution. Here, for community members, testing ideas and realising the success of those that emerge at this first stage helps derisk the process of adopting innovations. Users need to understand and be confident about the processes being introduced. Equally, this stage offers a further check. If people are not convinced by the idea once it is implemented, there may be a need to rethink and redesign.

In the third stage, we try to gain the support of professionals. In the intense world of urban informality (both spatial and economic), there is every likelihood that the change will involve professionals. These might well be officials (at multiple levels of the state, including street-level bureaucrats and their managers) and/or NGO workers. The change is likely to require them to do things differently. They need to understand the changes required and why they are necessary.

The fourth stage involves changing agency buy-in and rules to prevent blockages. Capability development will also be required from those who control the agencies whose behaviours we are trying to change. They need to understand the process and how it addresses existing blockages within their agency. This may involve new capabilities and new capacities if the change makes the agency much more effective in its work.

In the fifth stage, we embed the process within other communities. We cannot assume that the benefits of the new process will be immediately obvious to either the state agency or community members. Hence, there may be a need for outreach programmes that explain the benefits of the new process to others and provide succinct information to enable them to take up what is on offer. The information and examples of what has happened elsewhere may be enough to enable them to take up the new process, but training programmes may
also be required.

Those training programmes are most likely to be successful if the experience of taking up the new programme is integrated into the training. Finally, and significantly, there is a need to build the capability of more senior staff and political leaders to reflect on the underlying drivers of the intervention and the associated innovations, and on how the process has changed.

This may also include those inside and outside the state, at the neighbourhood to city scale.

As you hand over the reins, what is your vision for the future of African cities, and what advice would you offer to the next generation of urban leaders, researchers, and policymakers?
My advice is simply to invest in whatever one is passionate about. My passion for what is turning out to be an inspiring journey to grassroots actions in African communities was ignited in 1993, when I took part in a meeting of informal settlement leaders in Cape Town. It was shortly after activist Chris Hani was assassinated by a right-wing extremist.

What was immediately apparent was the depth of community involvement, with activists who, despite the prevailing gloom of grief and fear, came together for regular communal singing throughout the meeting.

Over the next months, the community leaders, already active in following up ideas about SDI savings groups (originally crafted in India) agreed to network their groups and create the South African Homeless People’s Federation.

Over the next two decades, the ideas shared in this meeting spread across Africa and to other informal settlements in Asia and Latin America. In 1996, the network Slum/Shack Dwellers International was born, linking different national federations into a transnational group. Much of the academic literature on SDI focuses on the experiences and consequences of externally funded development interventions. But relatively little captures the experiences in smaller towns or more isolated neighbourhoods, where there is relatively less professional support and fewer opportunities for externally funded interventions.

As you prepare to conclude your tenure as CEO of ACRC in August, what would you consider your most significant achievements, and what legacy do you hope to leave behind?
In my own career, I’ve seen many examples of the injustices, missed opportunities and inefficiencies of “business as usual” development practices and research. As CEO of the ACRC, I can do something about it.

I would emphasise that, in my experience, reformers are very frequently present in all urban centres. Working both within and beyond the state, these individuals often have a vision for urban development and are concerned with the public interest.

For ACRC, this meant that the presence of a momentum towards reform was not necessarily a limiting factor. All we needed were strong pre-existing relationships. Our added value lies in our ability to deliver finance in a way that is sensitive to the trust triad. It is also based on three non-financial contributions: a collective strategy for learning; a shared commitment to develop the foundations required for further iterations of that collective strategy; and, related to both, a collective engagement and commitment to advance urban reform in Africa.