Knowledge Co-production in Sub-Saharan African Cities: Building Capacity for the Urban Age

Abstract

Current research suggests that knowledge co-production processes offer an alternate and enduring approach to addressing urban sustainability challenges. This chapter explores the potential of such alternative approaches to knowledge production for informing urban management and tackling the different sustainability challenges that cities in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) face. The aim of this chapter is to extract the main lessons learned from how knowledge co-production approaches were established to engage with urban sustainability challenges in SSA cities and eventually unfolded. We draw on three applied and transdisciplinary urban research projects conducted at the African Centre for Cities (ACC) at the University of Cape Town, spanning the neighbourhood, city and national urban policy scales. We identify some of the key aspects of these urban knowledge partnerships related to the quality of the knowledge collaborations and their influence on outcomes. We adopt an analytical framework based on the criteria of legitimacy, credibility and salience to explore these relationships between collaboration and outcomes. The findings show that context and history are key variables in shaping each knowledge co-production partnership. Whilst urban policy change is often slow, the data and outputs generated through these knowledge collaboration and co-production processes can serve to increase the confidence and commitment of urban stakeholders in addressing urban sustainability challenges in SSA.