Conclusions

We have now reached the end of our course ‘Development and Planning in African Cities’. We really hope you have enjoyed its content, and the diversity of its resources, and experts. We hope you learned from the interaction with fellow participants from all over the world. Over the last four weeks we have heard from a wide range of professionals discussing the processes shaping urban development in Africa, the different roles of each urban actor, and the challenges and opportunities for African cities. We have done this by exploring the concrete manifestations of key issues in the city of Freetown. Together, we have discovered that development and planning are very political processes.

We have explored them from the perspective of recognising the diversity of needs and aspirations of urban residents. We have taught through spatial justice, so that urban development can contribute to the well-being of all women and men– particularly the poorest ones. I would like to thank you all for joining our course, and for participating so eagerly in all the discussions. In addition, I would like to thank all the people who contributed to this course, and helped to make it a success. Our hope is that we can learn from each other to collectively face urban challenges in such a way to produce just cities for all their residents.

We hope you took the time to get to know our beautiful city of Freetown, navigating our online map, and listening to their residents. And if you are not from Freetown, we look forward to welcoming you here in the future.