Sounding the Impact of COVID-19 on Environmental Health in Lagos, Nigeria

African cities are growing rapidly into inefficient, unsustainable, resource-starved ecosystems that negatively affect the local economy and food production. Food as a critical resource needs to be produced and managed more efficiently by local communities in the urban area. Urban smart farming (USF) has emerged as an important mechanism to address these challenges to achieve sustainable, resilient, and inclusive cities. USF has the potential to be the industry 4.0 green revolution in agriculture, which embodies innovative digital technologies. However, it is unclear how local African communities and key stakeholders perceive this novel solution and if they are willing to engage in its uptake. This study examines the relationship between the perceived benefits and challenges of USF and the willingness of local African communities to actively participate in USF projects as a potential mechanism to improve local economy and food production. To assess this relationship, a causal model was developed. In this causal model, the local economy and food production were defined as dependent variables. The conceptualized model and the inherent causality between the constructs were validated through a survey administered among African cities’ residents. The results of structural equation modelling indicate a significant positive impact of perceived benefits of USF as well as the willingness of African communities to engage in this technology on local economy and food production. Only minimal adverse effects of the perceived challenges of USF on the local economy and food production have been found. The study concludes that the benefits and willingness of local communities are the key drivers for implementing urban smart farms in African metropolitans. Therefore, it is recommended to focus on the benefits and the motivation of local communities in African cities where USF shall be further developed, rather than on the barriers. The validated causal model can be used as a framework to facilitate the adoption of USF in Africa and consequently enhance the local economy and food production in African cities.

Urban Taxi Slogans: The People's Arts

Urban livestock rearing and the paradox of sustainable cities and urban governance in West Africa: Empirical evidence from Wa, Ghana

Summit Discusses Public Health Implications of Fracking

Urban populations globally are expected to increase by approximately 2.5 billion by 2050. Much of this growth is taking place in African cities, where about 40% of Africans live in urban areas with populations of less than 250,000. In many of these cities, rapid urban growth has outpaced economic and social development, resulting in high levels of urban poverty and widespread food insecurity. As one response strategy, urban households may leverage their linkages with rural areas and other towns or cities to supplement their food consumption, for example through food remittances or food purchases from remote retailers. While this strategy has been found to occur among inhabitants of large cities where existing research on urban food systems and urban food linkages with other areas has focused, the dynamics in smaller cities are likely different. In this paper, we draw on data from 837 surveys collected in 2021 to investigate household food sourcing strategies across 14 urban areas in Zambia with populations less than 100,000. We find that rural-urban food linkages are dominated by grains while urban-urban food linkages are predominantly composed of higher value foods. Our data further suggest that urban area characteristics explain more of the variability in food sourcing behaviors than household level characteristics, and that urban food purchasing preferences in secondary urban areas are sensitive to the food retail landscape available to households. These relationships highlight the disparate role that rural and urban linkages play across cities of different sizes. They suggest a need for food-related policies to consider diverse urban food systems among smaller cities.

African urban areas and cities are primarily seen as vulnerable to climate change. Apparent attempts to get required policies have led to the widespread proliferation of overlapping and duplications of policies. Using a policy coherence framework, this study aims to synthesise the coherency of climate adaptation and urban policies in Ghana. The study used content analysis of existing policy documents to understand if specific variables are explicit, implicit or not mentioned in four urban and climate change policies in Ghana. It was found that there is a minimal degree of coherence only in the adaptation measures, but there is a general lack of coherence in the motivation and implementation. This can be attributed to radically different current institutional arrangements for urban planning and climate change, inconsistent use of data and terminologies, and lack of embracement of innovations in urban planning in African cities. The findings suggest that attention must be given to integrated collaborative adaptation planning to address these impediments in urban planning context of African cities.

Advancing Knowledge on the Environment and Its Impact on Health, and Meeting the Challenges of Global Environmental Change

African cities face critical challenges in delivering essential services due to limited financial resources and vulnerabilities to climate change impacts, such as floods, and water and energy insecurity. Many cities lack adequate stormwater drainage infrastructure and capacity, hindering their ability to implement environmental sustainability projects. Reports show that two-thirds of sub-Saharan African cities are “at extreme risk” from climate change, threatening local infrastructure and development. Climate change mitigation and adaptation require integration across all sectors, as development without environmental considerations can exacerbate vulnerabilities. This study evaluated how selected African cities have incorporated environmental sustainability into their development plans, using the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) mainstreaming framework for assessment. The research employed a qualitative approach through thematic content analysis, examining both successes and challenges in mainstreaming environmental sustainability. Findings indicate varying success levels, with some cities excelling in integrating certain environmental sustainability dimensions, while others face significant barriers. The study identifies key enablers and impediments to the effective incorporation of environmental sustainability into urban development, concluding that, while some aspects of environmental sustainability mainstreaming are well addressed, others remain inadequately integrated. These findings underscore the need for a more systematic and comprehensive approach to embedding environmental sustainability within urban development policies and practices across African cities.

This perspective paper highlights the potentials, limitations, and combinations of openly available Earth observation (EO) data and big data in the context of environmental research in urban areas. The aim is to build the resilience of informal settlements to climate change impacts. In particular, it highlights the types, categories, spatial and temporal scales of publicly available big data. The benefits of publicly available big data become clear when looking at issues such as the development and quality of life in informal settlements within and around major African cities. Sub-Saharan African (SSA) cities are among the fastest growing urban areas in the world. However, they lack spatial information to guide urban planning towards climate-adapted cities and fair living conditions for disadvantaged residents who mostly reside in informal settlements. Therefore, this study collected key information on freely available data such as data on land cover, land use, and environmental hazards and pressures, demographic and socio-economic indicators for urban areas. They serve as a vital resource for success of many other related local studies, such as the transdisciplinary research project “DREAMS—Developing REsilient African cities and their urban environMent facing the provision of essential urban SDGs”. In the era of exponential growth of big data analytics, especially geospatial data, their utility in SSA is hampered by the disparate nature of these datasets due to the lack of a comprehensive overview of where and how to access them. This paper aims to provide transparency in this regard as well as a resource to access such datasets. Although the limitations of such big data are also discussed, their usefulness in assessing environmental hazards and human exposure, especially to climate change impacts, are emphasised.

Domestic wastewater treatment is a central issue in the environmental and health problems of African cities, regardless of their size. The lack of wastewater sanitation in African cities can only hinder their sustainable development. This chapter aims to clearly pose the problem of domestic wastewater treatment in African cities, which are at the crossroads of economic, social and environmental issues for the African States. It aims to show the urgency of intervening in favor of liquid sanitation in African cities, in a context where anarchic urbanization governs urban development. In the same way, and still in the logic of the practicability and impact of sustainable development in African cities, it is necessary to ask how liquid sanitation problems can lead to changing current urban planning practices. More than ever, it is urgent for African cities to adopt sustainable development and treat their domestic wastewater properly.

In many African cities, the accelerating forces of rapid urbanization and shifting climate patterns are intensifying the frequency and impact of climate shocks, including flash floods, heatwaves, droughts, and coastal surges. These hazards disproportionately affect informal settlements and critical infrastructure, challenges that are further compounded by fragmented data ecosystems, limited digital capacity, and inadequate real-time monitoring systems. This study presents a systematic review of 64 peer-reviewed articles published between 2015 and 2025, sourced from Scopus, Web of Science, and ScienceDirect, to evaluate the role of GeoAI (Geospatial Artificial Intelligence) in advancing urban climate resilience. The review focuses on five representative African cities—Lagos, Nairobi, Addis Ababa, Cape Town, and Dakar—selected for their diverse hazard profiles and varying institutional capacities. The study proposes a GeoAI-enabled framework that integrates Geographic Information Systems (GIS), remote sensing, and machine learning algorithms, including Random Forest, Support Vector Machines, Convolutional Neural Networks, and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks—to map spatial vulnerabilities, forecast climate hazards, and evaluate institutional readiness for proactive adaptation. Comparative analysis reveals persistent exposure hotspots in marginalized communities, with variations in predictive accuracy and hazard severity closely linked to data infrastructure maturity and governance capacity. Cape Town and Nairobi exhibit higher institutional readiness and successful integration of GeoAI into policy processes, while Lagos, Addis Ababa, and Dakar face obstacles related to data accessibility and inter-agency coordination. The study underscores the importance of embedding ethical principles, participatory mapping, and equity considerations into GeoAI systems to enhance both policy relevance and community resilience. The proposed framework offers a scalable, context-sensitive pathway for climate-smart urban governance in low- and middle-income settings, supporting the objectives of Sustainable Development Goals 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) and 13 (Climate Action).

In 1988, New York City’s West Harlem community had a problem. The recently opened North River Sewage Treatment Plant, which stretches eight blocks along the Hudson River, was doing a poor job of processing about 170 million gallons of raw sewage daily. Residents were concerned about the foul smells coming from the plant, and parents complained that their children were suffering from respiratory problems. The community knew it needed help, but it also needed something else: information on the exposures it was facing, on the health effects of those exposures, and on the courses of action open to the people. When the community mobilized months later to form West Harlem Environmental Action Inc. (WE ACT), it had taken the first step toward cultivating just that sort of environmental literacy.

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Sustainable Development and Environmental Justice in African Cities

South Africa is widely recognised as a middle-income, industrialised nation, but it also ranks amongst the most unequal countries in the world in terms of its income distribution and human development. Environmental health remains a considerable public health challenge in the 21st century as Environmental Health Practitioners (EHPs) try to tackle local environmental health inequalities in the face of historically disadvantaged populations suspicious of their motives and demands that far exceed any resources available. Based on an empirical research project that explores how local government Environmental Health Practitioners regulate environmental health in one of South Africa’s largest, fastest growing and most unequal cities, Urbington, this book explores the many influences on their decision-making including the limits of the law, organisational controls, the views of EHPs themselves and their relations with businesses, communities, politicians and others. Tackling Environmental Health Inequalities in a South African City? argues that if we are to meet the environmental health challenges of the 21st century, it is in our best interests to rediscover this vital local public health workforce. This book is essential reading for students, practitioners and policymakers in environmental health and public health, as well as those interested in urban development and policy, particularly in African cities.

The key urban food governance question in African and other Southern cities is understanding the role that appropriate infrastructures could play in delivering positive outcomes in the urban food system. This chapter looks at urban food governance needs in African cities and reflects on the governance actions required in order to respond to wider food system changes and challenges. It argues that food in the African city is a public good and discusses the role that a state (and city government) should play in enabling access. The chapter finds that the normalization of food poverty, the absence of agency, the limited political weight of urban areas, and resource constraints, mean that citizens are unlikely to mobilize to contest food poverty and insecurity, and this absence of civic action means that the state is unlikely to see urban food issues as political, requiring a proactive city or state level response. Shifting the focus from food projects to seeing food as a lens to understand the role that infrastructure plays in food system outcomes opens up new areas for urban governance in planning, health, retail and other areas where city governance actors have a direct mandate.