African Urban Built Environment: Inequalities and Resilience

This seminar showcases the rich diversity of research on the African urban built environment. The first presentation looks at how planning for climate change is critical for advancing the developmental agenda of cities in Africa, given the opportunities for ensuring transformative and resilient development. The second talk discusses the heterogeneity in configuring the infrastructure provision bringing out the socioeconomic, and environmental externalities while reflecting on the nature of inequalities. The third talk presents the comparative characteristics of mortgage markets in relation to their organization, structure, and performance. The final talk discusses the housing developers’ housebuilding innovation initiatives and how transaction costs influence the same technologies to have different adoption outcomes.

This event is convened by the MSD-Colour Diversity Group.

About the presenters

Presentation 1

• Integrating climate change mitigation and adaptation: an evaluation of plans from six African cities

Eric Gaisie is a Lecturer in Community Planning and Development at La Trobe University, Australia. He is also affiliated with the University of Melbourne, where he recently completed his PhD in Land Use and Environmental Planning. Eric’s research broadly focuses on urban sustainability and resilience with particular interests in climate change mitigation, adaptation, and resilience, sustainable mobility, and informal settlements.

Presentation 2

• Heterogeneous infrastructure configuration: filling a gap or a reflection of inequalities in African cities

Abubakari Ahmed is a lecturer at Dombo University in Ghana. His research lies at the intersection of water, food and energy geographies, climate adaptation, urban inequality and sustainability science.

Presentation 3

• What Makes Mortgage Finance Markets Work? An Inquiry into Residential Mortgage Finance Development in Developing Economies

Kenneth Appiah Donkor-Hyiaman is a Real Estate Economist and a lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). Ken is also a business co-founder with about 10 years of experience in real estate financing and investment appraisal consulting with major international clients such as the World Bank, the United Nations Capital Development Fund, Global Communities, and BlackIvy LLC.

Presentation 4

• Sustainable innovations adoption failures in residential developments

Godwin Kavaarpuo is currently a Doctor of Philosophy candidate at the Melbourne School of Design. His research is on “The Governance of Innovation Adoption in Housing Developments: Applications of Transaction Costs Theory”. He holds a BSc. degree in Development Planning from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (Ghana), and MSc. in Sustainable Urban Technologies from the University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany).

Panel Moderator

Raghu Dharmapuri Tirumala

Raghu is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne. Raghu’s research focuses on public private partnerships in infrastructure, project and property finance, and managing the transformation of cities.