African countries are disproportionally affected by climate change, which jeopardises water and food security, health and biodiversity on the continent. Besides climate-related hazards such as droughts, floods and epidemics, conflicts and corruption further threaten economic and social development in many African regions and exacerbate existing inequalities.

Cities are particularly vulnerable to these hazards and risks since people, goods and infrastructure are concentrated in these urban areas. The United Nations expects the continent’s urban population to increase by nearly a billion people over the next three decades. However, urbanisation often takes place in an unplanned manner without consideration of current and future risks to cities.

In many development efforts, risks are neither systematically addressed at the regional, national or local levels, nor sufficiently integrated into state-led planning and implementation processes. This limits resilience in urban areas and constrains risk-informed urban development. Consequently, extreme events often have devastating effects that disproportionately affect vulnerable population groups, such as inhabitants of informal settlements.

In many African cities, around 60% of the population lives in informal settlements. Besides inadequate infrastructure and a lack of risk-awareness and -prevention measures, inequality and marginalisation also significantly increase their vulnerability to climate and disaster risks and affect their coping and adaptive capacities. Women, people with disabilities and members of social minorities and some ethnic groups are particularly affected.

Given the significant investments needed in urban social and infrastructure development to match the urbanisation trend, it is critical to strengthen cities’ resilience.