Overview & Vision

Africa is the fastest urbanising continent in the world — its urban population of 700 million is set to double by 2050. Cities will absorb 80% of the continent’s population growth and two-thirds of Africans will live in cities by 2050. Economic aspects of Africa’s urbanisation are often overshadowed by social, political and environmental considerations, including climate change and forced displacement. Yet, without meaningful economic progress in cities, the continent risks perilous hardship, vulnerability and violent unrest. Despite their pivotal role in shaping Africa’s development trajectory, its cities remain under-researched, and knowledge about urban economies is particularly sparse.

Cities worldwide offer immense promise to accelerate growth and development because they make people and firms more productive. Concentrating human, private and public capital generates positive value and fosters learning, creativity and innovation. More efficient public infrastructure and service delivery are also possible, indeed vital for durable development. Yet urbanisation doesn’t automatically translate into more jobs and higher incomes, especially if it leads to more congestion, conflict, disease and speculation over scarce land. Responsive planning, capable governance and determined financing of urban infrastructure informed by coherent city development strategies are crucial for Africa’s burgeoning cities to thrive. Improved evidence and understanding of urban economic patterns and dynamics will bolster efforts to harness the youthful energy of African cities.

The vision behind the Chair in City-Region Economies (CCRE) is to generate the knowledge, capabilities and strategic intelligence required by governments, civil society, business and communities to make African cities more prosperous, integrated and resilient. The CCRE has been established with core funding from the National Research Foundation and the University of the Free State to apply an economic lens to urbanisation. It publishes scholarly research, undertakes applied work, provides policy analysis and evaluation, creates robust evidence with new spatial data tools, provides technical support, offers postgraduate training and delivers short courses for professionals.

The CCRE helps to infuse economic thinking, evidence and interpretation into national and local policies and practices to transform the development and management of African cities. It contributes to public understanding and discourse, and actively engages in policy advocacy and dialogue with all kinds of public and private institutions and networks. The CCRE works closely with diverse government entities, universities, research councils, multilateral organisations and NGOs to help turn their shared aspiration for vibrant African cities into a practical reality. It pursues a pluralist approach that spans different perspectives and disciplines, recognising that urban economies do not function in isolation of wider forces, institutions and systems prevailing in the real world. Exploring different paradigms enables cross-fertilisation of insights across diverse bodies of knowledge and expertise. Ongoing engagements with civil society stakeholders and policymakers help to ensure that the research is grounded in everyday needs and contexts, yet open to learning from the experiences of urbanisation and economic transformation elsewhere in the world.