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UCT RESEARCH REPORT 2012
Research Projects
Its 50 members are drawn from 19 countries, located
in all regions of Africa (Botswana, Egypt, Ethiopia,
Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Morocco, Mozambique,
Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan,
Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe). As a
knowledge network, AAPS aims to facilitate exchange
on curriculum development and research areas between
members, primarily through digital communication and
social networking tools. With generous funding from
the Rockefeller Foundation since 2007, and with the
enthusiastic help of researcher James Duminy and his
colleague Dr Nancy Odendaal, AAPS has held workshops
on key research themes and methods related to planning
issues in African cities, has facilitated co-publishing,
has developed educational ‘toolkits’ for new planning
courses, and has recently developed a master’s curriculum
for the University of Lusaka’s new planning programme.
Particularly significant is the memorandum of
understanding signed with Slum Dwellers International in
2010, committing planning schools to work with informal
communities to expose their students to ‘experiential’
learning processes. Six studios have now been run on
various parts of the continent, in which planning students
work collaboratively with slum-dweller organisations on
‘real-life’ urban upgrade projects. Nothing changes the
mind-set of students more profoundly than these direct
engagements, which also equip themwith the sensitivities
needed to promote inclusive urban planning practices.
The engagements have also stimulated research on
planning pedagogy and how the education of planning
professionals needs to respond to the particularities of
the African urban context.
Building a Platform for
Urban Legal Reform in
Africa
Since 2010, and working through AAPS and the ACC,
researchers have been building a policy argument
for changing and improving urban laws in Africa and
supporting a network of academics and practitioners
contributing to these debates. The initiative is being led
by Adjunct Associate Professor Stephen Berrisford, a land-
law and planning expert with experience of planning-law
reform in Africa.
Planning Education and
the Association of African
Planning Schools (AAPS)
AAPS is a peer-to-peer network of African university
programmes that educate and train urban and regional
planners.
The starting point for this research and lobby initiative
is the belief that legal frameworks that govern urban
development – especially urban planning, land and
housing and urban governance – are outdated and
inappropriate. Research has focused on identifying why it
is so difficult to change planning law in Africa, leading to
exploration of the entrenched nature of these laws, how
power is derived from them, and how particular social
groups tend to benefit from them. A journal special issue
in 2011 was a first attempt to capture the experiences
and difficulties of urban-law reform efforts in Africa.
The building of a platform to take forward urban-
law reform in Africa has so far produced a major
workshop of key political and international agency
representatives, as well as a plenary dialogue at the
2012 World Urban Forum. Now, together with Cities
Alliance, UN-Habitat, Urban LandMark and the World
Bank, UCT researchers have initiated the process of
compiling an
Urban Legal Guide,
a practical guide
to support processes of urban legal reform in Sub-
Saharan African countries.
Nothing changes the mind-set
of students more profoundly
than these direct engagements,
which also equip them with the
sensitivities needed to promote
inclusive urban planning practices.