Philipp Heinrigs, OECD, will present the report Africa’s Urbanisation Dynamics 2020: Africapolis, Mapping a New Urban Geography.

Africa is projected to have the fastest urban growth rate in the world: by 2050, Africa’s cities will be home to an additional 950 million people. Much of this growth is taking place in small an medium-sized towns. Africa’s urban transition offers great opportunities but it also poses significant challenges. Urban agglomerations are developing most often without the benefit of policies or investments able to meet these challenges. Urban planning and management are therefore key development issues. Understanding urbanisation, its drivers, dynamics and impacts is essential for designing targeted, inclusive and forward-looking policies at local, national and continental levels. This report of the Sahel and West Africa Club, based on the Africapolis geo-spatial database (www.africapolis.org) covering 7.600 urban agglomerations in 50 African countries, provides detailed analyses of major African urbanisation dynamics placed within historical, environmental and political contexts. Covering the entire distribution of the urban network — from small towns and secondary cities to large metropolitan regions — it develops more inclusive and targeted policy options that integrate local, national and regional scales of urban development in line with African realities.

Introduced by Enrico Lippo, Research Fellow at Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei

The webinar will be held in English and is part of the “Research and Policy Webinars on African Development: Urbanisation and Sustainability” series.