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Conference: African Cities – Climate Change and the Search for Resilience (Maputo)

The frequency and intensity of weather-related hazards have increased in recent decades, threatening African cities. Global warming is having a severe impact on the continent’s cities, and the process of urbanisation is intensifying. Extreme weather events such as droughts are forcing rural farmers to migrate to urban centres, while perennial floods are displacing poorly planned neighbourhoods and poor urban dwellers. Against this backdrop, MIASA’s second thematic outreach conference was held at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo, Mozambique, from 24 to 26 October 2022. The venue was well chosen as Mozambique is one of the countries already severely affected by climate change. The conference was convened by Prof Charlotte Wrigley-Asante, the Ghana Director of MIASA, Prof Alex Barimah Owusu of the University of Ghana and Prof Ines Macamo Raimundo of the Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo, in collaboration with the Frankfurt Conference Coordinator for MIASA.

Photo by Rogers Hansine

189 applications from all over Africa and Europe demonstrated the importance of this issue. The 44 participants came from Angola, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda, Zimbabwe, as well as Germany, the Netherlands, Slovenia and the USA. In addition to academics, the conference was attended by urban planners and representatives of the Maputo City Council. Interested academics and civil society representatives were able to participate via livestream. The main theme of the interdisciplinary conference was to analyse the extent to which cities in Africa are already affected by climate change and to what extent they are succeeding in developing strategies to cope with the consequences and build resilience. The programme also included a poster session where early career researchers from Mozambique presented their research on climate change.

Photo by Rogers Hansine

The presentations highlighted the links between processes of rapid urbanisation and climate change, and the need to understand the impacts of climate change in urban areas in the context of their interactions with the degradation of family farming in rural areas. Presenters showed how African cities are attempting to address climate change by integrating measures such as urban gardening or community participation, but also the shortcomings and mismanagement that increase the vulnerability of cities to natural hazards. Some experts painted a bleak picture of the future of African cities, especially in coastal areas, if climate change, particularly that caused by the global North, is not mitigated. However, most contributions highlighted the many initiatives, particularly by civil society actors, to raise public awareness of environmental issues through literature and music, to integrate indigenous knowledge into the management of natural hazards affecting African cities, and to develop future strategies for adapting to climate change. Likewise, architects and urban planners working for various NGOs, as well as municipal representatives from Maputo, reported on their challenges and efforts to deal with vulnerable urban settlements exposed to increasing flooding.

Photo by Marko Scholze

OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Marko Scholze (December 9, 2022). Conference: African Cities – Climate Change and the Search for Resilience (Maputo). Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa - Blog. Retrieved March 26, 2025 from https://miasa.hypotheses.org/2565


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