Think pieces

These articles present personal or project-based opinions. They are not based on data but rather on discussions.

Exploring perspectives that underpin decisions for southern African urban development | April 2019

This think piece was developed as part of FRACTAL’s Innovation Fund programme. FRACTAL research has found decision spaces in rapidly growing urban centres of southern Africa to be very complex. Hence this project looked at real case studies in three FRACTAL cities (Blantyre, Harare and Lusaka), and aimed to surface contextual characteristics that shape urban development in the region.

Africa Story Telling Challenge – Trust me I’m an engineer | 2018

Rebecca Ilunga, a civil engineer at Aurecon, was a runner up in the inaugral Johnson and Johnson Champions of Science Africa Story Telling Challenge. Her think piece highlights her experience of transdisciplinary learning and working in co-discovery spaces through the FRACTAL project. Her full essay is available for download here.

Building city-region resilience in Africa: lessons from practice | May 2017

This think piece was produced as an output from a mini-workshop held at the Resilience for Development: Assessment Methods and Transformation Practices Colloquium (May 2017) and collates the ideas that were shared during the session, with a view of contributing to guidance on resilience for practitioners working in African cities.

Building Resilience in African Cities: a think piece | March 2017

The motivation behind writing this think piece was driven by engagement with city stakeholders from southern African cities during the FRACTAL project and others. During these engagements, FRACTAL team members have often been asked: but what does this term resilience really mean, what does it mean within the context of cities, and more specifically, what does it mean for African cities? The think piece is based on reflections from a group of FRACTAL project members.