In African cities, young people struggle with limited opportunities and systemic failures. How can cities overcome these barriers to secure their future? By Elizabeth Dessie
In Sub-Saharan Africa, the urban informal sector accounts for the majority of businesses and employment, yet workers face minimal access to formal social protection. Sharon Onyango explores the link between urban informality and social protection, proposing innovative approaches for inclusive economies in African cities.
Achieving a just energy transition in the urban housing sectors of the Global South demands recognition and engagement with their heterogeneous energy networks and rapidly evolving spatialities. Marie Urfels explores the challenges of achieving a just energy transition in the housing sector of the Global South while emphasising the importance of embracing these complexities to create targeted, context-specific solutions.
Public transportation systems are about so much more than bringing you from A to B. Engineer and transport planner Otunola Abiodun Adebayo sheds light on emerging urban transport systems in Lagos, Nigeria, Africa’s most populous city, from the perspective of urban health and safety.
Youths in Lagos face significant challenges regarding access to quality sexual and reproductive health education and services. Since 2011, Youth Development and Empowerment Initiative (YEDI), an adolescent health organisation, has been working to improve the health and wellbeing of adolescents and their communities in Nigeria.
Inclusive research design has the potential to turn “beneficiaries” into experts and agents of change. Rebecca Enobong Roberts makes a strong case for why urban land rights researchers need to proactively consult the groups they study, not just observe them.
How are rapid urbanisation, urban poverty, and slums' emergence interconnected in Nigeria? And what areas of urban governance should local governments focus on if they are to successfully tackle urban poverty? Bassey Bassey shares some reflections.
Lagos' Waterfront Infrastructure Development Law facilitates the sacrifice of the rights of coastal residents to commercial real estate development. Omotayo Odukola on the constitution and unjust implementation of a land use law.
Makoko, one of Lagos' largest slums, used to be a blank spot on the map for most of its history. This has been changing with a community-based digital mapping project that enables the residents to articulate their rights.
Local governments in Nigeria have financial autonomy – technically. Idayat Hassan, Director of the Centre for Democracy and Development in Abuja, reveals why they are still severely disempowered and what needs to be done to revive them.
A photo competition called for urban residents in African countries to portray how they use media to change the narrative on their environment. Slum Dwellers International presents some beautiful results of the #ChangeOurPicture competition.
Start-ups and Micro-businesses drive innovation and quality control and provide employment. The intervention of local governments can create conditions where such small businesses can thrive, says Ayodotun Stephen Ibidunni.
While Nigeria has made a leap in access to information communication technology (ICT) and the Internet in the past two decades, many of its residents still depend on imported used electrical and electronic equipment (UEEE). Since many of them turn out to be waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), they worsen the challenge of electronic waste management. Prof. Oladele Osibanjo and Dr. Innocent Nnorom discuss this trade along with its environmental and human health implications.
In Lagos, youth are believed to constitute about 50 per cent of the population, equalling over 10 million people. Facing high rates unemployment and an ever-growing population, decision-makers need to understand both the challenges and the opportunities that characterise youth employment in Lagos, argues Oje Ivagba
With many young Nigerians relocating from rural to urban areas, unemployment is on the rise. Charles Ogheneruonah Eghweree and Festus Imuetinyan sketch out possible policy responses.
