Boosting Urban Resilience in African Cities

With proper planning, good land reserve and stable infrastructure, Singapore was able to mitigate the effect of COVID-19. In the live webinar initiated by Singapore Cooperation Enterprise (SCE), a panel of experts shared their thoughts, experiences and exchanged ideas on innovative ways to turn the challenges of the pandemic into opportunities towards increasing the resilience in African cities. In addition to learning points from Singapore’s response to the virus, Mr Djoko Prihanto, director of DP Urban, the firm’s infrastructure planning and urban design specialist arm, shared on the importance of urban remodeling driven by digitalisation to strengthen economies in the continued challenges of COVID-19 and anticipation of similar health crisis in future.

He further proposed that conscious effort should be placed in balancing development through regional planning and growing secondary cities to reduce the concentration of urbanization in capital cities. He also put forward that strategic long-term planning by increasing land reserves and strengthening infrastructure will give governments good options in responding to any disaster.

The webinar was held on 22nd July and drew participants from different countries in Africa and Asia.