News

Prof. Sarah Charlton (Wits University) will hold a public lecture within Habitat Unit's Urban Talk series on Tuesday June 13, 6pm, in the context of her stay at TUB. In her talk "Making Viable Lives in a Southern Context. Low-Income Housing Dilemmas from South Africa" Sarah will provide an insight into her ongoing research. You can join us in person at the TUB's Institute of Architecture's Forum or online via zoom. You'll find more information here.

Water remains an essential utility for the survival of any community. Despite this, the World Bank reported in 2022 that approximately 70 million Nigerians were living without access to basic drinking water. The increasing population and poor governance have further weakened the government's capacity in catering for the entire populace. The majority of the residents, especially those living in the urban fringe, obtain their water supply from boreholes whose quality depends on depth, location, and other factors. This act has led to the proliferation of boreholes with its attendance challenges which include residents’ exposure to different waterborne diseases and effects on water aquifers. While most individuals can resolve the water accessibility challenge through boreholes, the residents of Isheri, on the fringe of Lagos State, are exception. Water from boreholes in the area contains high contents of iron which decolourise water within minutes of harvest. This development jeopardised nature’s ability to deliver clean water supply to the community and exposed them to different risks. Hence, the scout for different methodologies to confront the menace of water supply in the community. This lecture presents the resilience and coping strategies of the community over time and the recently employed community-based governance system in water provision.

Dr. Haruna Jimoh is a Lecturer in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the Faculty of Environmental Sciences, University of Lagos, Nigeria. He is a current Fellow of the Commonwealth Futures Climate Research Cohort of the Association of Commonwealth Universities. His research interest spans urbanisation and governance, spatial analysis and resource management, environmental planning and management. He is a cluster member of Urbanization and Population Dynamics, and Spatial Data Infrastructure at the University of Lagos’ Centre for Housing and Sustainable Development. He has published articles in local and international outlets and consulted widely for private, corporate organisations, and government at various levels.

We are currently looking for a postdoctoral fellow to join the project at Wits University. The fellowship will run from June 2023 till December 2024. The call is open till April 30. As the fellow needs to be in South Africa during the fellowship and the long the delays currently experienced with visa applications the fellowship is open to everyone with a SA citizenship, SA permanent residency, a work permit for SA, or a visitor's visa for research. The visa must be valid until December 2024. For more information, please check the website of the School of Architecture and Planning, Wits University: https://www.wits.ac.za/soap/bursaries-and-awards/

Applications and enquiries must be made to Ms Taki Sithagu at taki.sithagu@wits.ac.za.

The Wits-TUB-UniLag Urban Lab is holding its annual Summer School from the 15th to the 19th of May 2023 at the University of the Witwatersrand. The purpose of the summer school is to bring together the trilateral partners of the Urban Lab, i.e., Wits, TUB and UniLag, into a collaborative learning environment and strengthen intra-disciplinary post-graduate education. The aim is also to enable capacity building, skills, collaboration, co-production and broaden inter-disciplinary knowledge between the UniLag and Wits Urban Management masters’ students. University of the Witwatersrand hosts four urban management masters’ students from UniLag, and they will spend the week with master’s students and PhD students at Wits. The Summer School is also an opportunity for UniLag students to experience the city of Johannesburg as well as the academic life at Wits.

Basirat Oyalowo and Nadine Appelhans are organising a session on Africa’s Urban Futures and Positionalities Towards Global Urban Policies at this year's ECAS conference in Cologne starting May 31. The session aims to bring together scholars that formulate critical perspectives on global urban policy frameworks, reflecting on imaginations of African urban futures informed by collectives, transnational experience, or heterodox views, grounded in the everyday.

You can find the full abstract for the session here.

Dennis Sumbo (SD Dombo University, Wa, Ghana), George Anane (University of Energy and Natural Resources, Sunyani, Ghana) and Dan Inkoom (Department of Planning, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology / School of Architecture and Planning, Wits University) just published a new article on “‘Peri-urbanisation and loss of arable land’: Indigenes’ farmland access challenges and adaptation strategies in Kumasi and Wa, Ghana" in Land Use Policy.

The article builds on the research Dennis and George conducted on peri-urban development in Ghana as PhD fellows at Wits University in the project's first phase. Prof Dan Inkoom served as supervisor of the two PhD theses together with Prof Marie Huchzermeyer and Prof Philipp Misselwitz.

The article demonstrates that rapid urban expansion has drastically reduced available land for farming in both cities studied and recommends that land use planning in peri-urban areas should consider urban agriculture as an integral part of the urban land use process.

Please find the full article here

"Kumasi, Ghana. Overlooking the market and central area of the city." by Dave Ley is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.