African states urged to embrace new sustainable city designs to avert global calamities

NAIROBI, Kenya - African governments have urged to embrace new sustainable city planning to help avert future calamities. This decision was reached in a forum that saw more than 100 participants from 25 African countries attend to deliberate on the future of African cities.

Under the theme ‘New Approaches to Sustainable Development Planning’ which was launched in 2021, in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.

The six-week bilingual course is in its third edition covering the period from 3rd April to 3rd June 2023, this time in the context of the challenges facing the continent - the climate crisis, post-Covid-19 recovery, conflicts, declining official development aid, and debt -.

It centered around a new planning approach called "Goal and Deliverable Based Planning (GDBP)", the course aims to equip participants with the knowledge and techniques required to design, implement, monitor, and evaluate development plans that are easy to implement and that allow for the integration of both the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the African Union's Agenda 2063, not to mention resilience to shocks and inclusion.

At the end of the course, participants are expected to understand GFP/L and its relevance to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the African Union's Agenda 2063. They will also learn more about the Integrated Planning and Reporting Toolkit (IPRT) developed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and its usefulness in monitoring the 2030 Agenda and Agenda 2063.

This asynchronous course is in line with the discussions and recommendations of the eighth session of the African Regional Forum on Sustainable Development, held in Kigali from 3 to 5 March 2022nd, on the theme: "Building a better future: A green, inclusive and resilient Africa, ready to deliver on Agenda 2030 and Agenda 2063".

As in previous years, the 2023 edition of this course is placed under the direction of Dr. Corneille Agossou, an International consultant in strategic planning and international economics, with the support of the tutor Paul Abete.

In order to increase the efficiency of the course, direct exchanges are organized between the participants as well as with the pedagogical team, through dedicated discussion forums for each module of the course. This provides an additional opportunity for in-depth exchanges on the topics studied. Similarly, webinars, or live sessions, are organized with the participation of renowned external speakers and experts.

The first webinar, moderated by the Course Director, was held on Wednesday 12 April 2023, and focused on "Introduction to development planning: Basic concepts, issues, challenges, and main approaches".

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