Enhancing Green Urban Development in Sub-Saharan Africa

Project Summary:

Rapid urbanization is a welcomed continent-wide trend in Africa. This program aims to assist cities anticipating using green growth principles and innovations. New rapidly growing cities can avoid the severe consequences stemming from inefficiencies, pollution, and other related factors, and could benefit from early interventions to enhance economic and spatial growth. Assisting national and local governments of cities in Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Senegal and Tanzania, the program is helping to identify and diagnose key bottlenecks and constraints to sustainable, green development. It is also promoting and strengthening integration of sustainable management, environmental and green development initiatives and activities in future development strategies.

List of Activities:

• Preparation of an urban environmental profile
• Valuation of urban natural capital and interventions that alter urban ecosystems
• Development of a toolkit to mitigate the deterioration of urban natural assets and ecosystem services, and promote green urban growth
• Linking African with Korean institutions  

Outcomes:

Output 1:

• Reports on constraints to green growth and urban development, based on the 5 country city study 

Output 2:

• Strategies identifying short term, medium term and long term interventions to enhance green growth and urban development in the region, with reference to the 5 case countries 

Output 3:

• 2-3 regional workshops completed on Greening the Urban development Agenda, including dissemination of diagnostic work 

Output 4:

• 1-2 study tours: South to South on best practices in green urban development 

Output 5

• 3-4 World Bank urban projects with integration of “green growth” components and activities 

Outcomes:

The expected outcomes of the project include improved information and analysis of the key urban environmental externalities arising from urbanization in SSA and the interplay between urban development, natural assets, and ecosystem services; an economically grounded assessment of the value of the natural capital base and the ecosystem services generated by these assets, and the costs and benefits associated with interventions that significantly alter aspects of this base, in three case-study cities; a portfolio of tools (instruments, strategies and approaches), which public agencies will find useful to mitigate negative environmental externalities deriving from urbanization and enhance green urban development; and a study examining the feasibility of linking one or more African academic institutions to Korean institutions to promote the dissemination of lessons and demonstration models on green urban development and design.

Collaboration with K-Partners and Others:

• Korea Research Institute for Human Resources (KRIHS)
• Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA)