Programme Conference
Chair: Dr. Caroline Wanjiku Kihato Visiting Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Johannesburg.
Tuesday 6 November 2018
8:30-9:00 Registration
9:00-9:30 Welcome and opening address
9.30-11.00 Parallel sessions
1. SDGs, the NUA and integrated governance
The aim of this panel is to discuss the importance of integrated governance for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the New Urban Agenda (NUA). We are interested in exploring how different actors (public, private and civil society sectors) locally and between different levels of government (local, regional, national, international) are collaborating around the SDGs and the NUA, the benefits as well as the drawbacks and obstacles for collaborating. In this panel, representatives from academia and the public sector of different cities will draw on their experiences working with the SDGs and the NUA.
Dan Ong’or, County Government of Kisumu, Kisumu
Sylvia Croese, African Centre for Cities, Cape Town
Kristina Diprose, University of Sheffield, Sheffield
Sandra Valencia, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg
2. Roundtable on Participatory Cities
This roundtable brings together different perspectives and experiences from Cape Town of participatory planning in order to reflect on its success, challenges, opportunities and practices. Planning involves balancing complex tensions and interests, and there are often disagreements over what is prioritised in these plans. This session asks: how are these terms set and what do they exclude? Whose knowledge matters, is valued and reproduced in planning, under conditions of scarce resources? What does the organisation, operation and structures of the making of plans demonstrate about inclusive values in practice? What processes of progressive planning are most common, and how can small pockets of inspirational practice be identified and replicated? How are different expertise valued and included in participatory planning, and what do they challenge?
Vanessa Watson, University of Cape Town, Cape Town
Adi Kumar, Development Action Group, Cape Town
Olwethu Jack, Ubuntu Growing Minds, Cape Town
Representatives from South Africa Slum Dwellers International Alliance
Hannah Wadman, Malmö City Planning Office, Malmö
3. Locating Migration and Urban Development
The panel will introduce a framework for an explorative research of the nexus of migration and urban development, along the line of four transformative themes. The panel will further investigate one of these themes, i.e. transforming territories, with examples of ongoing research from Kisumu, Malmö and Gothenburg. The presentations will briefly address locations of migration in Kisumu; housing conflicts in Malmö; the uneven geography of migration policies in the Western regions of Sweden; and the capacity of migration to contribute to local tourism and place development, with contributions from researchers and city officials jointly.
Nils Björling, Chalmers, Gothenburg
Helene Holmström, City of Gothenburg, Gothernburg,
Eva Maria Jernsand, Gothenburg University, Gothenburg
Helena Kraff, Gothenburg University, Gothenburg
Lillian Omondi, Maseno University, Kisumu
Henrietta Palmer, Chalmers, Gothenburg
Erica Righard, Malmö University, Malmö
11:00-11:30 Health break
11:30-12:40 Keynote: South Africa’s approach to collaborative multi-level governance to implement the New Urban Agenda and SDGs
“Cities are important engines of growth which can lead to the creation of a nation’s prosperity and wealth. Globally cities are struggling with infrastructure maintenance, financial constraints, increasing demands resulting from population growth and/or migration, increasing inequality in access to the city and social justice, and environmental sustainability issues arising from global warming to name but a few.
South Africa’s Integrated Urban Development Framework (IUDF) aims to achieve spatial integration, inclusion and access, inclusive growth and effective governance using its nine policy levers. These include a systematic ‘single-plan’ approach to planning and project identification across all spheres of government, rethinking our approach to public transport; improving housing and human settlement development; strengthening tools and mechanisms to assist municipalities in the delivery of integrated urban infrastructure; improving our urban land governance and management; inclusive economic development; empowered, active communities; effective urban governance and sustainable finances.
The IUDF in SA has taken on an all of society approach towards its implementation programme. The IUDF implores on government to lead the urban and rural agenda which guides investment decisions, the private sector to partner with government to implement this agenda, the research and academic institutions to provide business intelligence and skills that will enhance the efficacy and impact of the implementation of the agenda while civil society to exercise their rights and responsibilities towards the implementation of the agenda. The IUDF, in concert with the National Development Plan, the National Spatial Development Framework, provincial planning and municipal planning tools, is set to enable South Africa to forge a social compact that will be achieved through spatial integration, economic development, well governed institutions, and a militant civil society in order to achieve social cohesion”.
Andries Nel, Deputy Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, South Africa
Session chair: Prof. David Simon, Director, Mistra Urban Futures
12.30 Collect packed lunch and join site visits
13.00-17.00 Site visits
Participate in one of the following site visits;
Site Visit 1: Spatial Transformation in the Voortrekker Road Corridor Integration Zone (VRCIZ)
Site Visit 2: Philippi Horticultural Area: Contested spaces, contested perspectives
Site Visit 3: The Cape Town food system: Actors, agents and food access
Site Visit 4: Transit-Oriented Development in Cape Town: Maitland Station
Site Visit 5: Cultural Heritage and Just Cities
Site Visit 6: The politics of public space and contested residential agendas
17.30-19.00 Book launch
Wednesday 7 November 2018
8:30-9:00 Welcome tea/coffee
9:00-10:30 Parallel sessions
1. Cultural Heritage and Just Cities
The role of culture in promoting more sustainable, accessible and just cities has been recognized in a wide range of arts, culture and heritage practices and policy imperatives, from UNESCO Conventions, the AU’s Agenda 2063, UCLG’s Agenda 21, the New Urban Agenda, and the SDG’s. This panel discussion will reflect on the collaborative and comparative work across different city contexts (Cape Town, Kisumu, Sheffield, and Gothenburg). Exploring a range of creative processes and practices including cultural mapping and planning, festivals and heritage practices, and artful urbanisms, this session will explore the role of cultural heritage in realising just cities.
Fredrick Odede, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology, Kisumu
Patrick Hayombe, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology, Kisumu
Niklas Sörum, Ylve Bergland, Gothenburg
Vaughn Sadie, African Centre for Cities, Cape Town
Beth Perry, Sheffield University, Sheffield
Rike Sitas, African Centre for Cities, Cape Town
2. Comparative perspectives on food value chains
This session will take the form of a facilitated discussion between different urban thinkers; two officials, two “Southern” urban food researchers and two “Northern” urban food researchers where we provide comparative perspectives on how our different cities or regions are working at the policy/practice interface on these issues. The session will consider the following questions: 1. Is food poverty normalised in the Mistra Urban Futures' cities? 2. Are value chains more resilient when local? - here talk to the ideal and the practice and why these VCs function as they do. And what resilience means? 3. Does using food as a lens assist in urbanising the SDGs in the Mistra Urban Futures' cities? 4. In academic discourses there are several troupes - food deserts, supermarket revolution, urban food security, policy vacuums, etc. - are these useful and how do we engage these in the very different contexts in which we work?
Tristan Görgens, Western Cape Government, Cape Town
Kristina Fermskog, City of Gothenburg, Gothenburg
Stephen Agong, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology, Kisumu
Paul Opiyo, Mistra Urban Futures, Kisumu
Michael Oloko, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology, Kisumu
Vanessa Watson, University of Cape Town, Cape Town
Gunilla Olson, University of Gothemburg, Gothemburg
Nick Taylor Buck, The Urban Institute, University of Sheffield, Sheffield
Charlie Spring, The Urban Institute, University of Sheffield, Sheffield
3. What is the role of transport in Realising Just Cities?
In realising just cities one key component is transport and transport planning for sustainable urban development, related to individual’s accessibility to different services within the cities. Seeing accessibility as a goal for realising just cities, transport and different forms of transport planning become key components in achieving this goal. Combing the transit-oriented development in Cape Town with the methodology of Urban Station Communities can we rethink the way of we are planning and redeveloping urban stations and transport in cities?
Maria Lejdebro, Municipal of Härryda, Gothenburg,
George Mark Onyango, Maseno University, Kisumu
Kapil Singh, City of Cape Town, Cape Town
Elma Durakovic, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg
10:30-11:00 Health break
11:00-12:00 Keynote: The future of universities: can we re-imagine ourselves?
The role and contribution of universities to a fair and sustainable future shows a very mixed record, and an overall unsatisfactory one judging from UNESCO’s reviews over the decades. Meanwhile, the agenda and the challenges confronting future universities have expanded, placing exponential demands on knowledge in the 21st century. The UN 2030 Agenda and the SDGs re-present the age-old questions of interconnectedness of knowledge, the plurality of its nature and the diversity, equity and inclusiveness of its production. Yet, few institutions have proven so resilient to learning, about themselves, and to re-imagine their present and future, as those of higher education. The sites of learning, of innovation and progress are capable of great reflection, but less it seems, of self-reflection.
There is of course, great diversity within and across countries, and continents, and I will be sharing ideas, questions, and provocations, arising from a range of workshops focusing on European universities. These events are being organised by INTREPID COST Action members, around the Future of Universities as if interdisciplinarity and co-production actually mattered, and as if we could agree that the purpose of universities is to contribute to a fair and sustainable future. In this ongoing process we ask: what capabilities, skills, and dispositions are we in need of, if diverse, equitable and inclusive knowledge are to be promoted; what radical re-thinking of institutional setups, but also of physical space, is waiting to be initiated? The persistent obstacles and challenges confronting higher education reinforce the quest for that elusive, and yet essential, balance between local and global agendas, between plurality and unity. I conclude by relating these findings to those of UNESCO’s global analyses, pointing to common threads that can constitute an opportunity to re-imagine a higher education as an ecosystem for societal transformation.
Olivia Bina, Principal Researcher and Deputy Director at the Institute of Social Sciences (University of Lisbon) and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Department of Geography and Resource Management (Chinese University of Hong Kong).
12:00-13:00 Lunch
13:00-14:30 Parallel sessions
1. Leveraging change through university-city engagements: Learning from embedded research experiments
An important aspect to the Mistra Urban Futures work has been to explore different forms of knowledge coproduction. The Knowledge Transfer Programme in Cape Town and When municipalities set the research agenda in Malmö are two collaborative research experiments that connect the City and the Academy in novel ways. This panel will reflect on the experiences of knowledge transfer and exchange in these two contexts, discussing the challenges and opportunities of university-municipality collaborations.
Magnus Johansson, Malmö University and RISE, Malmö
Per-Arne Nilsson, City of Malmö, Malmö
Anna Taylor, Climate Systems Analysis Group, Cape Town
Rike Sitas, African Centre for Cities, Cape Town
2. Accounting for cities: understanding urban public finance in Africa
This session explores the role of public finance in shaping African cities. Urban scholarship and practice have often seen public finance as dull and opaque. The outcome is insufficient engagement with public finance and a lack of clarity on the ways it contributes to urban injustices and dysfunctions. This panel provides an accessible and interdisciplinary approach to understanding city financing. In addition to providing an overview of the key trends in African urban public finance, two in depth cases will be provided from Kisumu (Kenya) and Cape Town (South Africa).
Liza Cirolia, African Centre for Cities, Cape Town
Glenn Robbins, Urban Futures Centre, Cape Town
Ryan Fester, Development Action Group, Cape Town
Ben Bradlow, Brown University, Providence
3. Solid waste treatment, trends and impacts
Solid waste management is a critical issue posing great challenges to most local/city authorities in the world. It is key to the health and cleanliness of our environment, contributes to climate change and directly supports people’s livelihood in our society. With increased world population and urbanization, solid waste continues to be generated, accumulating and getting concentrated especially in urban areas as nature can no longer contain it due to quantities and level of toxicity. Cities are at different levels of implementing strategies of managing solid waste as a serious obligation and not an option; ranging from traditional means and methods, to advanced sophisticated technologies.
Hon Obungu, County Government of Kisumu, Kisumu
Michael Oloko, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology, Kisumu
George Kavulavu, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology, Kisumu
Barry Ness, Lund University, Lund
Dusan Raicevic, Skåne Local Interaction Platform, Skåne
Torleif Bramryd, Lund University, Lund
