Seminar: Equity in Urban Nature-based Solutions in Sub-Saharan Africa

The ARUA Centre of Excellence in Climate & Development (ARUA-CD) hosted a seminar on Equity in Urban nature-based solutions in Sub-Saharan Africa, with contributions from Dr Petra Holden, Lab Lead at the People in Nature and Climate (PiNC) Lab at the African Climate and Development Initiative (ACDI).

The seminar explores issues of equity and citizen engagement in urban nature-based solutions in Sub-Saharan Africa, looking in particular at the three countries in the ARUA-CD network: South Africa, Ghana, and Kenya. The aim was to open intra-Africa dialogue on equity in urban nature-based solutions in order to help frame the international discussion going forward from the African perspective.

Professor Yaw Agyeman Boafo, from the University of Ghana, opened with a presentation of research on citizen-led responses to floods, heat and drought in the cities of Accra and Kumasi. He showed that residents are already adapting, but that their choices depend on the space, resources and knowledge available to them.

A panel followed with Holden, Dr Amber Abrams from the Future Water Institute at UCT who is also a member of the Tuwe Pamoja project team at PiNC, and Dr Michael Osei Asibey, from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). They collectively discussed how to define and measure nature-based solutions, the importance of land tenure and trust in local institutions and the risk that funding for nature flows to affluent areas rather than informal settlements.

ARUA is a pan-African partnership that focuses on interdisciplinary climate research, postgraduate education, and evidence-based policy engagement, and is a partner institution at the PiNC Lab.