Location: Africa
Website: www.futurecapetown.com/urbaniu
Our mission is to conduct high-quality, innovative and trans-disciplinary research, to foster knowledge sharing and to review policy matters in the area of urbanism, Born out of our collective curiosity for cities – and the people and places shaping them – the Urban Intelligence Unit (UIU) was formed in late 2012, as a research wing of Future Cape Town, to experience, explore and engage with this curiosity.
Embracing a trans-disciplinary approach – based on the simple yet radical idea that everybody contributes, beyond their individual expertise – our team background ranges from finance to the arts, psychology to law, urban infrastructure to graphic design – all of which contributes to forming the diverse and broad perspective we feel necessary to approach contemporary urban challenges and complexities.
Our mission includes:
- carrying out innovative, trans-disciplinary research,
- fostering knowledge sharing in the area of urbanism,
- facilitating and conducting research into and reviews of policy matters.
Our work includes:
- current research projects include Future Spaces, which explores the potential role of multimedia in exploring and understanding public spaces,
- Your City Idea, involving testing of the use of installations in public space as a study of public engagement and participation.
We are also passionate about becoming a centre for the dissemination of knowledge infographics and data visualisations, hosting knowledge share sessions for our team and the public in the form of the Urban Knowledge Network and supporting the research programmes of other organisations.
Within Future Cape Town, the team plays an important role by supporting the advocacy aim of the organisation, with reviews and research into urban policy matters, the formulation of position statements, and producing discussion papers to support the Future Cape Town summits.
If you need a nimble, dynamic, open-minded team to support your organisation, we would love to explore working with you.
Showing posts with label Africa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Africa. Show all posts
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Aga Kahn Development Network
Location: international
Website: www.akdn.org
The agencies of the AKDN are private, international, non-denominational development organisations. They work to improve the welfare and prospects of people in the developing world, particularly in Asia and Africa, without regard to faith, origin or gender. Its programmes are designed to bring a critical mass of economic, social and cultural activities to bear on a given area.
Its projects encompass many of the determinants of the quality of life, including the natural and built environments in both urban and rural areas, food security, health, education, access to financial services and economic opportunity, as well as the cultural areas of traditional music, architecture and art. Some programmes, such as specific research, education and cultural programmes, span both the developed and developing worlds.
The AKDN works in 30 countries around the world. It employs approximately 80,000 people, the majority of whom are based in developing countries.
The AKDN’s annual budget for non-profit development activities in 2010 was approximately US$ 625 million. The project companies of the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development generated revenues of US$ 2.3 billion in 2010 (all surpluses are reinvested in further development activities).
AKDN’s Approach to Development
Founded and guided by His Highness the Aga Khan, the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) brings together a number of development agencies, institutions, and programmes that work primarily in the poorest parts of Asia and Africa. While each institution pursues its own mandate, all work together within the overarching framework of the Network so that their different pursuits interact and reinforce one another.
His Highness the Aga Khan, the founder and chairman of the AKDN, is the 49th hereditary Imam (Spiritual Leader) of the Shia Ismaili Muslims. In Islam’s ethical tradition, religious leaders not only interpret the faith but also have a responsibility to help improve the quality of life in their community and in the societies amongst which they live. For His Highness the Aga Khan, this has meant a deep engagement with development for over 50 years through the agencies of the AKDN.
Website: www.akdn.org
The agencies of the AKDN are private, international, non-denominational development organisations. They work to improve the welfare and prospects of people in the developing world, particularly in Asia and Africa, without regard to faith, origin or gender. Its programmes are designed to bring a critical mass of economic, social and cultural activities to bear on a given area.
Its projects encompass many of the determinants of the quality of life, including the natural and built environments in both urban and rural areas, food security, health, education, access to financial services and economic opportunity, as well as the cultural areas of traditional music, architecture and art. Some programmes, such as specific research, education and cultural programmes, span both the developed and developing worlds.
The AKDN works in 30 countries around the world. It employs approximately 80,000 people, the majority of whom are based in developing countries.
The AKDN’s annual budget for non-profit development activities in 2010 was approximately US$ 625 million. The project companies of the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development generated revenues of US$ 2.3 billion in 2010 (all surpluses are reinvested in further development activities).
AKDN’s Approach to Development
Founded and guided by His Highness the Aga Khan, the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) brings together a number of development agencies, institutions, and programmes that work primarily in the poorest parts of Asia and Africa. While each institution pursues its own mandate, all work together within the overarching framework of the Network so that their different pursuits interact and reinforce one another.
His Highness the Aga Khan, the founder and chairman of the AKDN, is the 49th hereditary Imam (Spiritual Leader) of the Shia Ismaili Muslims. In Islam’s ethical tradition, religious leaders not only interpret the faith but also have a responsibility to help improve the quality of life in their community and in the societies amongst which they live. For His Highness the Aga Khan, this has meant a deep engagement with development for over 50 years through the agencies of the AKDN.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
African Centre for Cities
Location: Africa
Website: www.africancentreforcitiess.net
The ACC seeks to facilitate critical urban research and policy discourses for the promotion of vibrant, democratic and sustainable urban development in the global South from an African perspective.
In mid 2007, UCT Signature Theme funding was awarded to the Cities in Africa Project, which was a collaborative venture between the Faculties of Engineering and the Built Environment (EBE), Science and Humanities. The initiative is located within the EBE Faculty.
The Signature Theme builds on an interdisciplinary network of academics across these three faculties, which emerged during 2005 and 2006, and which was supported in 2006 by EBE funding.
This network in turn, had emerged as a result of an initiative by the Ove Arup Foundation, which had committed funds towards the establishment of an interdisciplinary masters programme in EBE (Urban Infrastructure Design and Management) in 2005, on the understanding that faculty staff would raise further funding for a related research initiative.
In 2007, the proposed new director of the Theme was also granted an NRF Research Chair in Urban Policy, allowing the alignment of these two initiatives.
Professor Edgar Pieterse was appointed to lead the Theme and take up the Chair, and he took up office in August 2007. Since then, there has been a process to rename the initiative as the African Centre for Cities to denote the focus on urban research in the global South but from an African perspective.
The ACC is a response to the growing recognition world-wide of the importance of cities, and particularly cities in the developing world. In South Africa this is reflected in the increasingly urban emphasis in policy documents at both national and provincial level.
The sense is one of impending crisis, with the realisation that rapid urbanisation also raises issues of adequate food supply, affordable shelter, employment opportunities, water and waste management, public transportation, crime and disease, and environmental degradation and climate change. These challenges intertwine with critical social processes such as exclusion and conflict, which require effective socio-political management institutions and processes.
Achieving well governed and sustainable cities is becoming increasingly important to the future health of the planet. And yet most policy 'solutions' continue to be generated by the large aid and development agencies of the global North, with a generally poor track-record of successful interventions in the very different context of Africa and the global South.
The central objective of the African Centre for Cities is to provide a base from which critique and alternatives in relation to urban issues can be launched. In Africa, South Africa and across UCT, urban-related research is highly fragmented.
The aims of the Centre are therefore two-fold to partner closely with policy-making centres in the public sector in South Africa (national, provincial, local) and subsequently more widely to provide an alternative perspective on dealing with critical urban issues; secondly to provide an intellectual base and home for interdisciplinary, urban-related research at UCT, from which relations can be established with selected international funders and think-tanks.
Website: www.africancentreforcitiess.net
The ACC seeks to facilitate critical urban research and policy discourses for the promotion of vibrant, democratic and sustainable urban development in the global South from an African perspective.
In mid 2007, UCT Signature Theme funding was awarded to the Cities in Africa Project, which was a collaborative venture between the Faculties of Engineering and the Built Environment (EBE), Science and Humanities. The initiative is located within the EBE Faculty.
The Signature Theme builds on an interdisciplinary network of academics across these three faculties, which emerged during 2005 and 2006, and which was supported in 2006 by EBE funding.
This network in turn, had emerged as a result of an initiative by the Ove Arup Foundation, which had committed funds towards the establishment of an interdisciplinary masters programme in EBE (Urban Infrastructure Design and Management) in 2005, on the understanding that faculty staff would raise further funding for a related research initiative.
In 2007, the proposed new director of the Theme was also granted an NRF Research Chair in Urban Policy, allowing the alignment of these two initiatives.
Professor Edgar Pieterse was appointed to lead the Theme and take up the Chair, and he took up office in August 2007. Since then, there has been a process to rename the initiative as the African Centre for Cities to denote the focus on urban research in the global South but from an African perspective.
The ACC is a response to the growing recognition world-wide of the importance of cities, and particularly cities in the developing world. In South Africa this is reflected in the increasingly urban emphasis in policy documents at both national and provincial level.
The sense is one of impending crisis, with the realisation that rapid urbanisation also raises issues of adequate food supply, affordable shelter, employment opportunities, water and waste management, public transportation, crime and disease, and environmental degradation and climate change. These challenges intertwine with critical social processes such as exclusion and conflict, which require effective socio-political management institutions and processes.
Achieving well governed and sustainable cities is becoming increasingly important to the future health of the planet. And yet most policy 'solutions' continue to be generated by the large aid and development agencies of the global North, with a generally poor track-record of successful interventions in the very different context of Africa and the global South.
The central objective of the African Centre for Cities is to provide a base from which critique and alternatives in relation to urban issues can be launched. In Africa, South Africa and across UCT, urban-related research is highly fragmented.
The aims of the Centre are therefore two-fold to partner closely with policy-making centres in the public sector in South Africa (national, provincial, local) and subsequently more widely to provide an alternative perspective on dealing with critical urban issues; secondly to provide an intellectual base and home for interdisciplinary, urban-related research at UCT, from which relations can be established with selected international funders and think-tanks.
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