Partners:

• Dr Gudina Terefe Tucho, Jimma University, Ethiopia
• Marcela Guerrero Casas

Abstract:

While socially cohesive and environmentally low-impact modes of transport, such as walking, cycling and public transit have historically received limited government support in sub-Saharan Africa, the tide appears to be changing. Increasingly, there are visible niche experiments being conducted across the continent and steered by urban mobility policymakers. According to the extant findings in the sustainability transitions literature, such transformations are perplexing, in that they should be unlikely if not impossible in the absence of a coherent group who shares expectations, beliefs, norms and practices about an innovation (as is presumed to be the case in the global South).

The purpose of this study is to explore the nature of, rationales for, and processes in institutional transformation for sustainable urban mobilities in the global South. It does so through a case study analysis of dynamics in Addis Ababa and Kampala where policies, infrastructures and programmes for walking, cycling and public transport have recently been introduced. The study will generate new conceptual insights that will enrich the sustainability transitions’ literature. In doing so, the study will nurture and propel a new generation of early career scholars working at the intersection between urban governance and urban mobilities in sub-Saharan Africa. It will also generate policy-relevant knowledge that can help accelerate sustainable urban transport in sub-Saharan Africa.

Njogu Morgan is currently a post-doctoral researcher based at the University of the Witwatersrand. His overall research interest pertains to theoretical, conceptual and empirical aspects of sustainability transitions from a spatial comparative perspective.

His PhD research explores changes in societal acceptance of everyday bicycle use from a historical comparative perspective. This research project seeks to add to our understanding of the cultural dimensions of urban sustainability by focusing specifically on bicycle usage and attitudes to cycling in a Amsterdam, Beijing, Chicago and Johannesburg.

In november 2020, Dr. Morgan is one of the main organisers of the Inaugural Workshop about African Urban Mobility: Past, Present and Future. Pdf, 309.5 kB. (Pdf, 309.5 kB)
At this occasion, he had an article published in New Frame: Could Covid-19 change how cities view their streets?