Posts tagged with 'Africa'
Between the Road and the Built Environment: Exploring New Opportunities for Africa’s Cities
Between the Road and the Built Environment: Exploring New Opportunities for Africa’s Cities
WRI Ross Center’s engagement with sub-Saharan African cities is emerging with new projects, research and training programs. In this series, we explore – and ask partners – how to pursue and maintain equal and sustainable cities, highlighting people, spaces, challenges ...
3 Reasons Renewable Energy Is Poised to Take Off in Developing Nations
3 Reasons Renewable Energy Is Poised to Take Off in Developing Nations
You often hear about renewable energy success stories in cities in the developed world – places like Vancouver, which has committed to get 100 percent of its energy from renewable sources before 2050, or San Diego, which has promised to ...
How Can Africa Deliver on Its Ambitious Vision for Habitat III?
How Can Africa Deliver on Its Ambitious Vision for Habitat III?
From February 24 – 26, 2016 African ministers and stakeholder representatives from numerous civil society organizations gathered in Abuja, Nigeria to discuss African priorities for Habitat III, the U. N.’s 20-year urbanization conference that takes place in October. At the end ...
Friday Fun: Balancing Urbanization and Elephants in Southern Africa
Friday Fun: Balancing Urbanization and Elephants in Southern Africa
When two elephants fight, grass gets trampled. No kidding. Though this widely-used African proverb alludes to the extensive damage caused when two great mammals clash, what it’s really communicating is that these great animals need space. However, this proverb is ...
St. Lucia, South Africa Food Market
Why Africa Needs to Look to Its Cities to End Hunger
Last year, the African Union—an assembly of 54 African nations—formally committed to ending hunger in Africa by 2025. This is incredibly ambitious, considering one out of every four people in sub-Saharan Africa is undernourished. The majority of the 800 million ...
Downtown in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Friday Fun: Addis Ababa on the frontier of sustainable transport for African cities
East Africa doesn’t make a lot of headlines for its sustainable transport achievements. That’s changing, as its cities are starting to pioneer innovative new projects to bring urban Africa into the spotlight for sustainable development. The challenges in the region ...
Well-designed bus rapid transit is one way for cities to improve traffic safety. This was one of many strategies described by panelists at Transforming Transportation for how cities can accelerate efforts to improve road safety in the face of rising motorization. Photo by Jamie Manely/Flickr.
Live from Transforming Transportation: "Speeding up" global action on road safety
Transforming Transportation (#TTDC15) is the annual conference co-organized by EMBARQ, the sustainable urban transport arm of the World Resources Institute’s (WRI) WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities, and the World Bank. This year’s conference focuses on Smart Cities for Shared Prosperity, and takes place on ...
Wi-Fi is becoming increasingly prevalent on transport systems, and could help shift users away from private vehicle use and towards mass transport. Photo by Jens Schott Knudsen/Flickr.
How providing Wi-Fi can increase mass transit ridership
The global rise of smartphone usage has a number of implications for mass transit. It enables ridesharing – a service quickly emerging in cities worldwide. It can improve predictability of transport services through real-time tracking and crowdsourcing apps. It can ...
Traffic congestion presents a number of urgent problems in Nairobi, but smartphones and other technologies have the potential to greatly improve transport services and provide a range of benefits for city residents. Photo by Olli Pitkänen/Flickr.
Using smartphones to improve Nairobi’s informal transport sector
Many cities in sub-Saharan Africa are choking on their traffic, both literally in terms of air pollution and figuratively in terms of congestion. Nairobi, Kenya is no exception. However, new technologies, in particular new uses of smartphones, are helping to ...
Lagos struggles with congestion and insufficient mass transit, but a recent focus on sustainable transport can improve mobility and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Photo by G@tto Giallo/Flickr.
What does the future of sustainable transport look like in Lagos?
Lagos – the largest city and commercial capital of Nigeria – has traditionally struggled with a lack of reliable mass transit systems and severe traffic congestion. The average Lagos commuter spends over three hours in traffic every day. More recently, ...
New maps give "matatus" bus drivers new knowledge that will allow them to better harness the transport market in the city of Nairobi, Kenya. Photo by Olli Pitkanen/Flickr.
Friday Fun: Maps modernize informal transport in Nairobi
On the heels of Google recently releasing its new version of Google Maps – complete with contextual information based on past Google searches, different transport options with real-time traffic notifications, and panoramic photo tours – it’s hard to remember what ...
Cape Town, South Africa calls for increased transport demand management (TDM). Photo by Warren Rohner/Flickr.
Lessons from the C40 Mayors Summit: Scaling up solutions for resilient, livable cities
More than 70 percent of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050. So cities represent the single greatest opportunity for targeted, meaningful actions that create impact on the ground, improve the quality of life for billions of people, and reduce ...
Boats anchored in a harbor outside of Qingdao, China. Photo by Li-Cah/Wikimedia.
Sustainable Cities: From a Vision to Reality
The C40 Cities Mayors Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa kicks off today. It’s the fifth biennial meeting of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, a collection of mayors from cities around the world committed to advancing urban solutions to climate ...
Urban community garden in Montréal, Canada. Photo by Bruno VITASSE/Flickr.
Friday Fun: 100 in 1 day highlights the power of active citizenship
From Bogotá, Colombia to Cape Town, South Africa and Kaluga, Russia, the 100 en 1 día (100 in 1 day) movement is making an impact on urban streetscapes worldwide. A “global social movement for citizen-driven change,” the movement is a ...
Cycling water vendors Nairobi, Kenya. Photo by Victoria Hickman/Engineering at Cambridge.
A strategy for cities: Pedro Ortiz on the age of the metropolis
“We are made of hopes and we are made of dreams. That’s why people go to cities.” There are 600 cities worldwide with over one million inhabitants. Many are growing at a very fast rate, by anywhere between four to ...
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