Towards resilient African cities: Shared challenges and opportunities towards the retention and maintenance of ecological infrastructure

There are significant challenges to retaining indigenous biodiversity and ecological infrastructure in African cities. These include a lack of formal protection and status for remnant ecologically functional patches rendering them open to ad hoc human settlement, which is in part linked to weak governance and management emerging from complex histories, and competing crisis-ridden demands. Persistent gaps in knowledge and practice mean that the social, economic, development and well-being benefits of ecological infrastructure are not understood or demonstrated. Addressing these challenges requires the adoption of multiple top-down government interventions and bottom-up community and neighbourhood actions. The development of detailed case studies that engage with knowledge generation and sharing at multiple scales through co-learning practices will also help create a much-needed deeper understanding of development options within this context. The retention and maintenance of ecological infrastructure is recognized as an important element of sustainable, healthy cities. We explore the shared challenges and opportunities linked to ensuring that ecological infrastructure is incorporated into the existing and emerging African cities that we work in. Identified challenges relate to emerging urban form and function where remnant ecologically functional patches that provide ecosystem services are insecure and open to transformation through ad hoc settlement. Weak governance and management emerging from complex histories and competing crisis-ridden demands mean that securing ecological infrastructure in cities tends to be overlooked. Persistent gaps in knowledge and practice result in the failure to demonstrate the social, economic, development and well-being benefits of ecological infrastructure. We believe that these can be attended to through the development of detailed case studies that engage with knowledge generation at multiple scales, the creation of substantial datasets and the mobilization of existing knowledge bases through novel information sharing and co-learning practices. Securing ecological infrastructure in African cities will require the subversion of institutions across disciplines and scales, with a high degree of local civic action. The African context provides new learning opportunities, helping to both understand the broader ‘African’ case and all cities and their future developments.