Reimagining sustainable African urban futures through unlearning and innovation

As African cities experience unprecedented growth, are traditional models of academic understanding and governance fundamentally failing to grasp the innovative solutions being forged by ordinary citizens and informal actors? Does the future of urbanisation in Africa lie in embracing the ingenuity that thrives outside formal structures? These were just some of the questions emerging from the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Collective Conversations: On Science for Society.

The conversation series was launched on Tuesday, 8 April 2025. Hosted by UCT Vice-Chancellor Professor Mosa Moshabela, the inaugural event tackled the idea of African urbanisation as an “unstoppable force”.

Professor Edgar Pieterse, founding director of UCT’s African Centre for Cities, highlighted the rapid growth of African cities, the inadequacy of current approaches to manage this growth, and the need for innovative, culturally grounded solutions beyond traditional academic frameworks.

Associate Professor Geci Karuri-Sebina from the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS) School of Governance responded to the position. She considered the role of governance, the limitations of existing institutional containers and the necessity of fostering new imaginaries to address the continent’s complex urban development.

“We want to think creatively about how we can get the excellent science that we produce at this university, to be of benefit to the city, the country and the continent.”

Collective Conversations

This Collective Conversation series aims to bring together experts from across disciplines to engage with some real-world challenges, especially those pertinent to the African context. Especially, it aims to foster robust dialogue between the academic community, policymakers, industry, civil society, and the public on how scientific advancements can contribute to solving unique societal challenges. It further seeks to encourage effective collaboration across various sectors of the economy, while exploring innovative ways of working together and catalysing engagement and working in concert.

“One of the things we are hungry for is these kinds of conversations involving diverse stakeholders and sectors and different ways of thinking,” Professor Moshabela said in his opening remarks.

“We are eager to engage around issues of how research contributes to transformation in society. We want to think creatively about how we can get the excellent science that we produce at this university, to be of benefit to the city, the country and the continent,” he added.

Artists as knowledge producers in Africa’s urban transition

Professor Pieterse’s current research is focused on transforming African urban futures through the adoption of sustainable infrastructure approaches and its enablement through alternative regulation, finance and governance. “The scale and scope and complexity of the challenges posed by the phenomenon of African urbanisation render existing academic and institutional tools way too inadequate to respond,” Pieterse said, “constituting a ‘crisis of imagination’”.

To overcome this, he suggested drawing inspiration from artists, who are uniquely positioned to creatively reframe complex urban realities. He shared the example of how Ghanian mixed media creator Serge Attukwei Clottey, repurposes jerrycans – a common artifact in water-scarce environments – into art. This act, Pieterse argued, showcases the power of artistic imagination in driving practical solutions. Deprived neighbourhoods are then not only seen as sites of lack but are potential “spring beds of innovation”, he said.

Pieterse’s central argument was that a significant paradigm shift in how African cities are understood and governed is required. He provided key empirical markers to contextualise the scale of African urbanisation, indicating that most urban Africans live in smaller cities of less than 300 000 people. Yet, most scholarly attention is fixated on the large metropolises, leading to “massive data deserts”.

“[Art can] reframe complex urban realities… showcase[ing] the power of artistic imagination in driving practical solutions.”

Already more urbanised than Europe, Africa is at the epicentre of the global urban transition. The urban population is projected to more than double by 2050, potentially reaching 1.3 to 1.4 billion people. A significant implication of this growth is that “two-thirds of the built fabric that will house these populations still needs to be constructed in just the next 25 years”, Pieterse warned.

He concluded by stressing that for innovation to have a significant impact, it needs to move beyond small-scale projects and achieve “mainstreaming through institutional code and education”, requiring a “fundamentally different university and a fundamentally different knowledge project”.

Opening up to other wisdoms

As the discussant, Associate Professor Karuri-Sebina drew on her work with young people outside formal knowledge systems. She focussed on their innovations and the potential for the academy to be perceived as a gatekeeper of other forms of knowledge.

Karuri-Sebina challenged the dominant “urban explosion” narrative, arguing that it is often political and ethnocentric, focusing on scale without addressing form or function, and potentially overlooking the opportunities that urbanisation presents.

She also questioned whether framing urban issues within a narrative of development and attempting to fit understanding into existing institutional “containers” such as government and universities, might be problematic. Having expressed concern that the constant pursuit of “big external drivers and big funding” could be a hindrance, she highlighted the need to envision alternative forms of investment and support beyond traditional institutions.

Karuri-Sebina suggested shifting the focus from the “unstoppable force” of urbanisation to the “unstoppable force” of imagination, new solidarities, and emancipation from ineffective institutional forms. She advocated not only for the recognition of other forms of knowledge but potentially for the decentring of the academy’s authority on knowledge. Ultimately, seeking other wisdoms might lead to different and perhaps more effective containers to genuinely accommodate innovations without co-opting or stifling them.

Unlocking Potential in African cities

During the audience discussion, Pieterse agreed that the informal sector, often viewed as a problem to be solved, might in fact offer crucial pathways to unlocking sustainable and affordable urban development.

Ultimately, the most provocative takeaway from the conversation, was the suggestion that recognising and learning from and potentially integrating multiple bottom-up innovations – even if they challenge established norms and bureaucratic processes – necessitates a willingness to “unlearn” existing academic training and consider that effective solutions may arise by working with rather than against the various forces of urbanism.