Urban2063, a coalition of 13 main African and world establishments led by the African Centre for Cities (ACC) on the College of Cape City, has launched The Unstoppable Drive, a robust new Cityscapes Journal Particular Report that challenges Africa to rethink the way forward for its cities radically. Anchored within the African Union’s Agenda 2063, the report delivers an unflinching evaluation of the continent’s city trajectory, whereas providing a daring roadmap to harness urbanisation as a catalyst for inclusive progress, resilience, and justice.
By 2063, an extra one billion Africans can be residing in cities. But at present, over 80% of city jobs stay casual, hundreds of thousands of younger individuals develop up in slums, and fundamental companies comparable to housing, healthcare, and training stay out of attain. These structural failures are compounded by local weather change, with 70% of African cities already categorised as extraordinarily weak. Within the face of this escalating disaster, The Unstoppable Drive is each a warning and an invite: a name to recognise that Africa’s city future just isn’t but written, and may nonetheless be reworked.
The report emphasises that Africa has all of the components it must chart a brand new path. With its sources, expertise, demographic benefit, and the ingenuity of its youth, Africa can flip its cities into engines of inclusive progress and alternative. What stays lacking is management keen to embrace reform and act with urgency.
“By 2063, a billion extra Africans will dwell in cities. This report is a wake-up name and a roadmap for the way we will harness this transformation for dignity and justice,” mentioned Professor Edgar Pieterse, Founding Director of the African Centre for Cities.
“Africa has the sources, expertise, and vitality it wants. What’s lacking is management keen to behave. The Unstoppable Drive is each a warning and an invite to reimagine our cities’ futures,” added Tau Tavengwa, founder and co-editor of Cityscapes Journal.
A Name to Motion for Africa’s Future
The Unstoppable Drive is greater than an evaluation; it gives a map ahead. By means of interviews with mayors, authorities officers, enterprise leaders, and activists, alongside provocations and think-pieces from students and organisers, the report outlines daring
options to beat structural challenges. It additionally incorporates recent information, reporting, and various views from throughout the continent.
Contributors embrace former South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, former Mozambican Prime Minister Luisa Dias Diogo, Zimbabwean activist Namatai Kwekweza, Kenyan group organiser Regina Opondo, Will Senyo of Accra Affect Hub, and the mayors of Shaggar Metropolis, Lusaka, and several other different African cities. Collectively, they share the conviction that Africa’s future lies in unlocking the transformative potential of its cities.
Anchored in Agenda 2063
The Urban2063 Coalition locations sustainable urbanisation on the coronary heart of Africa’s structural transformation consistent with the African Union’s Agenda 2063. In 2025, its work is concentrated on shaping world deliberations via the G20 and the City 20, making certain that Africa’s voice is central to world conversations on urbanisation and resilience.
The coalition brings collectively main establishments together with: African Centre for Cities (ACC), African Local weather and Improvement Institute, Affiliation of African Planning Colleges, ARUP – Africa Area, Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Management (Africa chapter), Centre for Sustainability Transitions (College of Stellenbosch), Local weather KIC, Membership of Rome (Africa Part), City Futures Lab, Utrecht College, Girls in Employment Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO), World Useful resource Institute (WRI), Abroad Improvement Institute (ODI), GSMA, and CS Studio.
A Turning Level for Africa’s Cities
As protests in Nairobi, Maputo, and Dakar display, Africa’s youth are demanding extra accountability, higher companies, and alternatives to construct their futures. The report underscores that resilience, innovation, and tech fluency are usually not sufficient with out structural reforms to housing, vitality, training, and healthcare.
With local weather change threatening to make fragile city methods much more unstable, the urgency to behave is bigger than ever. The Unstoppable Drive urges policymakers, buyers, improvement practitioners, and residents alike to recognise this essential second and decide to transformative motion.
The report serves as each a provocation and a reference level for policymakers, city leaders, and practitioners in search of to have interaction with the challenges and alternatives of Africa’s city future.
For extra data or to obtain the report, click on right here.
