One of the key objectives of the event was to launch the Placemaking Africa Network aimed to connect community organisations, persons or groups working on public space transformation, neighbourhood upgrading, people-centred infrastructure and services in cities across the continent.
At the World Urban Forum, the Centre on African Public Space (CAPS) gathered public space enthusiasts and placemakers across the continent under the theme “Connecting African community networks for participatory governance of public space”.
Participants included representatives from academia, government, international agencies, civic society organisations and the private sector.
Established by the City of Johannesburg, CAPS is an initiative formed in collaboration with the UN-Habitat Global Public Space Programme and the GIZ Inclusive Violence and Crime Prevention Programme.
CAPS is a home and resource hub for urban practitioners, community groups, and scholars dedicated to connecting, exchanging experiences, sharing and advancing knowledge, and growing expertise related to African public space.
In keeping with the mission of CAPS as a regional knowledge exchange hub, the event sought to elaborate an African perspective on public space and placemaking, and on how public spaces are conceived, developed, and sustained collaboratively with communities.
In his welcoming remarks, Member of the Mayoral Committee (MMC) for Community Development the City of Johannesburg Cllr Ronald Harris said: “Africa is rich in knowledge but we tend to share little across the continent, we tend to live apart. Let us break down the barriers, we need to consider each other, learn from each other as African cities.”
CAPS collaborated with its partners to highlight home-grown and people-led solutions to the transformation of urban spaces that are tailored to local needs, sustain local dynamics and are designed for community benefit.
The event allowed for peer-to-peer learning and experience-sharing across East, West, North and Southern African contexts (Kenya, South Africa, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe).
It allowed for a shared understanding of placemaking and co-production approaches of public space, while identifying potentials and bottlenecks. The event also provided an overview of the CAPS and UN-Habitat collaboration with the Journal of Public Spaces where the journal editor provided a summary of the key themes emerging from the articles included in the special issue on African public spaces.
The session closed off with an open platform that allowed participants to share their dreams of CAPS and how they could contribute to its sustenance in promoting participatory urban development in Africa.