African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC) research: Harare proceeds into implementation phase

 The African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC) will be soon transitioning into the implementation phase after one of the city’s proposal made it into the practical phase. Harare is among 4 other cities that succeeded to proceed into the next stage. ACRC is an action research initiative whose foundation phase comprised of 13 African Cities including Harare. The research aims to evidence and insights that will help improve conditions in cities. During the foundation phase, evidence gathering was conducted in the different cities focusing on a range of domains while deploying 2 conceptual frameworks namely political settlement analysis and city of systems. In Harare, four domains were investigated namely; Neighborhood and District Economic Development, Land and Connectivity, Structural Transformation and Informal Settlement. Besides data collection, the foundation phase also entailed engagements with different stakeholders under the “uptake pillar”. The latter sought, among other objectives, to position and connect the research with appropriate individuals and institutional entities for influencing both urban policies and practice. Multiple uptake sessions were conducted bringing together different actors especially the City of Harare authorities.

The pilot phase in Harare will see the implementation of an intervention proposed by the Neighborhood and District Economic Development (NDED) domain. Under the pilot, whose site is the Glen View 8 Furniture Complex (GV8FC), the main objectives are, among others, to identify; priorities for the GV8FC operators and the ideal conditions that would catalyse enhanced growth. In terms of the specific interventions, the pilot will undertake software investments that are set to prepare the ground for wider roll-out phase. Under the latter, the aim would be to scale the pilot.  Examples of the software interventions will include preparation and securing approval for requisite spatial designs and plans detailing the required hardware investments. Lastly, Lastly, engagements for getting political buy-in will also be an integral part of work set for the pilot phase.