Ian Palmer will present an ongoing project by Good Governance Africa (GGA), that profiles Sub-Saharan African cities with the two-year objective of setting up a database of 30 cities. CGA commenced the project by profiling 10 cities in the SADC region. In the next phase the data will be captured into an interactive database with data focused on multiple sectors reflecting the development status of each city. This will allow for comparisons between cities and, ultimately, trends over time for each city.
The data includes demographics, spatial, social, economic, environmental, institutional, services and finance. While country-level data is relatively easy to access, the sources of data on African cities in structured databases is limited and generally oriented towards spatial, environmental, and socio-economic information.
The intention of the GGA work is to focus on the role of metropolitan government with the emphasis on urban services and local government finances, where there is a major gap. It is also intended that the database be set up as a tool to be used by city governments, public entities serving them, development agencies and researchers. The database will allow for information to be uploaded and reports to be drawn by registered users.
About the speaker:
lan Palmer has 45 years’ experience in the fields of infrastructure and urban development. He founded PDG, a leading development consultancy in South Africa, in 1990, remaining part of PDG over the subsequent 34 years, 19 of which he was the managing director. He remains with PDG part-time as an associate and is an Adjunct Professor at the African Centre for Cities.
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