Planning African Development

This handbook contributes with new evidence and new insights to the on-going debate on the de-colonization of knowledge on urban planning in Africa. African cities grew rapidly since the mid-20th century, in part due to rising rural migration and rapid internal demographic growth that followed the independence in most African countries. This rapid urbanization is commonly seen as a primary cause of the current urban management challenges with which African cities are confronted. This importance given to rapid urbanization prevented the due consideration of other dimensions of the current urban problems, challenges and changes in African cities. The contributions to this handbook explore these other dimensions, looking in particular to the nature and capacity of local self-government and to the role of urban governance and urban planning in the poor urban conditions found in most African cities. It deals with current and contemporary urban challenges and urban policy responses, but also offers an historical overview of local governance and urban policies during the colonial period in the late 19th and 20th centuries, offering ample evidence of common features, and divergent features as well, on a number of facets, from intra-urban racial segregation solutions to the relationships between the colonial power and the natives, to the assimilation policy, as practiced by the French and Portuguese and the Indirect Rule put in place by Britain in some or in part of its colonies. Using innovative approaches to the challenges confronting the governance of African cities, this handbook is an essential read for students and scholars of Urban Africa, urban planning in Africa and African Development.

This handbook presents an extensive new overview of African development - past, present and future. It addresses key core themes and topics that are pertinent to the continent's development - including sections on history, health and food, politics, economics, rural and urban development, and development policy and practice. The volume draws on the expertise of over 60 of the world's leading scholars to provide a detailed and up-to-date analysis of the key opportunities and challenges that confront Africa, and how such issues are being addressed. Arranged by key themes, the handbook provides not only a historical understanding of the past, but also political perspectives on the future. The chapters provide critically informed analyses of their topics by drawing upon the latest conceptual viewpoints and applied experiences in Africa in the form of case studies to offer a comprehensive examination of the opportunities, challenges, key debates and future prospects. This handbook is an invaluable state-of-the-art overview and reference concerning many different aspects of Africa's development, which will be of interest to academics in all fields of African studies, and also academics and students working in cognate disciplines such as development studies, geography, history, politics and economics.

Philosophy and African Development: Theory and Practice appraises development in a holistic manner. It goes beyond the usual measurement in terms of economic achievement and widens the scope to include the impact that history of ideas, political theory, sociology, social and political philosophy, and political economy have had on development in Africa. It is a departure from the traditional treatment of development by economists who point towards the so-called time-tested assertions and recommendations for 'sustainable development', but which are yet bring about significant change in the economies of the so-called 'developing' societies. It is on account of the failures of the economic development theory, with its tepid prescriptions for 'sustainable development' and 'poverty reduction' that theories of development have now been expanded from mere economic analysis to include considerations of history, sociology, political economy and anthropology, as could be discovered in this book. Most of the contributions in this book have been prepared by philosophers across Africa and the United States who implicitly practise their discipline as one whose most effective modern function would be to appraise the human experience in all its dimensions from the standpoints of modern social and natural sciences, all disciplinary offspring of philosophy itself. With chapters ranging from issues of modernity and religious interpretations, the human right to development, the idea of 'African time', the primacy of mental decolonisation, and the type of education we are offering in Africa today and as a tool for development, to development planning, science, technology and globalisation, as well as issues of post coloniality among others, the tenor of the contributions is not only proportional, but also engaged in the meta-analysis of the theories on which the concept of development is founded and practised. This book is strongly recommended as a useful text in the hands of scholars, researchers and students of development studies. It approaches the important issue of African development from the broad perspective of the social sciences in general, and buttresses this with the keen analytical approach of its contributors.

This 10th thematic volume of International Development Policy presents a collection of articles exploring some of the complex development challenges associated with Africa’s recent but extremely rapid pace of urbanisation that challenges still predominant but misleading images of Africa as a rural continent. Analysing urban settings through the diverse experiences and perspectives of inhabitants and stakeholders in cities across the continent, the authors consider the evolution of international development policy responses amidst the unique historical, social, economic and political contexts of Africa’s urban development. Contributors include: Carole Ammann, Claudia Baez Camargo, Claire Bénit-Gbaffou, Karen Büscher, Aba Obrumah Crentsil, Sascha Delz, Ton Dietz, Till Förster, Lucy Koechlin, Lalli Metsola, Garth Myers, George Owusu, Edgar Pieterse, Sebastian Prothmann, Warren Smit, and Florian Stoll.