The African Centre for Cities offers Continuing Professional Development (CPD) courses as part of it’s teaching agenda. Four modules of the Masters in Sustainable Urban Practice programme are offered to CPD students as separate certificate courses from which a participant can obtain CPD credits. Courses consist of an intensive week at the University of Cape Town, comprising formal lectures, class assignments and seminars/tutorials.
The Masters in Sustainable Urban Practice programme
The complex, multi-dimensional demands of our rapidly urbanising world require holistic, inter-disciplinary thinking and practice. However traditional professional paradigms and often-siloed institutions seem doomed to replicate the entrenched patterns and practices of path-dependent urban infrastructure provision and management. To overcome the often-fragmented ways in which urban questions are framed, institutionalised, and engaged by varied levels of government, citizens, civil society organisations, and private sector actors, we need a new kind of urban practitioner, who can work across practices, professional norms, hierarchies, sectors and urban problems. The Masters in Sustainable Urban Practice (MSUP) cultivates urban integrators who are able to discern opportunities for integration, and can build the necessary coalitions for change; who are confident in varied cultures of communication and can build bridges between sectors, fields, and scales of urban practice.
Who should attend?
- This programme is aimed at mid-career urban professionals in either government, civil society, or in the private sector.
- Note that a prerequisite for attendance is a NQF level 7 qualification. Applicants should provide a CV when applying. This CV can be emailed to ebe-cpd@uct.ac.za
- CPD students will be awarded a digital Certificate of Attendance. For information about digital certification please visit: Digital certificates | University of Cape Town.
- University credits will not be awarded for these courses.
Format
- Each course is structured in the following way: a week of intensive contact time at UCT, comprising formal lectures, class assignments and seminars/tutorials.
CPD Courses
Climate Change and the City | APG5107Z | 17 – 21 April 2025
The Sustainable Development Goals and recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports recognise that cities have the potential to drive decarbonisation, climate resilience and economic growth. This course aims to familiarise students with climate change and development challenges at the city scale, and to equip them to provide advice and establish workable priorities on development decisions at this scale. To this aim, the course systematically works through how climate impacts, adaptation and mitigation, as well as broader agendas of systemic change intersect with the key dimensions of urban development.Students will engage critically with the two dominant theoretical framings of climate impacts and actions: risk and resilience. Students will develop an understanding of the risks and opportunities posed by climate change to African urbanisation, and by African urbanisation to climate change, as well as the international climate change science-policy-advocacy context influencing the development trajectories of (African) cities.
5 CPD points, ECSA course code: UCTSUPCCC25
Urban Food/Health Systems | APG5111Z | 12 – 16 May 2025
Traditionally food insecurity has been seen as a rural challenge, yet thinking of food systems at an urban scale is essential to nourished, healthy Southern cities of the future. The course works from the premise that high levels of urban food insecurity observed across cities of the South are the result of poorly framed and mandated policies, that food insecurity is driven by changes in the food system, and that spatial and structural issues drive urban food insecurity. These challenges are all reinforced in cities where people experiencing food insecurity rely on the market as a means to ensure food availability. The course interrogates the urban food system challenges in cities of the global South, why these challenges exist and persist and the importance of such a focus in rapidly urbanising countries, regions and cities. We explore how the food system intersects with the urban system, why food systems governance is important and engage the multiple governance approaches applied.
5 CPD points, ECSA course code: UCTSUPUFUHS25
Social Power and Spatial Justice | APG5110Z | 28 July – 02 August 2025
In the context of fast-paced urbanisation in Africa and other parts of the Global South, cities have become sites of contestation over space, access to infrastructure, services and other livelihoods opportunities. This raises important questions about belonging, inclusion/exclusion, social and spatial justice, rights – who can claim rights and the strategies used to contest rights and advance social and spatial justice. Many cities are still battling to overcome the remnants of historical processes which have created deep rooted spatial and socio-economic inequalities and patterns of exclusion which have had devastating impacts on the lives of the most marginalised. South African cities are struggling to reverse the legacy of Apartheid spatial planning and to bring about social and spatial justice. Within this context, this course aims to help students think through the factors, historic moments ( the cracks) which enable social change and can bring about more inclusive cities. The course aims, in particular, to answer the following questions: What is the historic moment we are currently in? What are the possibilities and opportunities? How can we take advantage of these to realise spatial justice?
5 CPD points, ECSA course code: UCTSUPSPSJ25
Adaptive Smart Systems | APG5114Z | 29 September – 03 October 2025
There is widespread media coverage of so-called ‘smart cities’ and the transformational possibilities of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT, to develop, deploy, and promote sustainable development practices to address urbanisation challenges. The purpose of this course is to explore the intersection of technology and cities, concentrating on a series of case studies from African cities. Students will develop insight into smart cities and platform urbanism theory and practice, and how technology can be used for e-governance; civic action and citizenship; innovation; and the delivery of services.The course takes a socio-technical lens to understand the relationship between technology and society, demystifying tech utopias and dystopias. It unpacks phenomena like blockchain and what digital data means for cities. It explores how platformed paratransit (motorcycle) mobility is shifting urban accessibility, and how tech infrastructure is shaping how governments and urban residents are connecting to opportunities in unprecedented ways. Ultimately, the course explores how digitisation can foster more accessible, sustainable and just cities.
5 CPD points, ECSA course code: UCTSUPASC25