This is the recordning from the second Research Forum in VREF:s mini series – Celebrating 5 years of research results on mobility and access in SSA through the MAC program. The series takes plage in September – November 2024 and the purpose is to highlight new knowledge production and results from research projects which have been carried out by scholars in the MAC community and which have strong relevance for understanding core dimensions of transport, mobility and access in African cities. What are some of the overriding thematic issues that have been explored in the program so far – and with what conceptual and empirical results?
Research Forum #2 in the series was held 23 October and focused on:
Practices and challenges in informal and shared mobility in SSA – lessons for capacity building and planning
Background
Issues related to the planning and operation of informal and shared mobility (also known as paratransit) have been a central focus of many research projects within VREF’s program “Mobility & Access in African Cities” (MAC) in the past five years. Multiple modes of travel by informal and shared mobility play an important role in public transportation in Sub-Saharan Africa by filling the deficit of formal public transport systems. Notwithstanding, these modes are inadequately planned, exposing them to many challenges related to operation, management and capacity building.
This Research Forum interrogates these issues using recent work on current and changing practices within informal and shared mobility in various contexts in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Forum focuses on presentations by leading scholars within the MAC program, followed by comments from researchers within VREF’s “Program on Informal and Shared Mobility” (PRISM), as well as an interactive discussion.
Program
Welcome and framing the Forum: Henrik Nolmark, VREF Director
Keynote: “Mainstreaming informal mobility: reflections on recent advances and future challenges”
Roger Behrens, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Short Q&A
Presentation PRISM:
Jackie Klopp, Columbia University, USA “The Partnership for Research on Informal and Shared Mobility (PRISM): engagement, exchange, “ecosystems” and equity”
Short Q&A
Presentations:
Ayobami Popoola, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
“Workplace relationships of harassment and intimidation between informal public transport operators and city officials in Durban, South Africa”
Alicia Fortuin, African Center for Cities
“Platform Politics and Silicon Savannas in Cape Town, Nairobi and Kigali.”
Herrie Schalekamp, Codatu, France
“Building capacity on informal urban public transport in Africa: experiences and challenges”
Commentators:
Ernest Agyemang, University of Ghana (also PRISM program)
John Mark Mwanika, Amalgamated Transport and General Workers Union, Uganda
Farida Moawad, Transport for Cairo
Plenary discussion
Moderator: Winnie Mitullah, University of Nairobi
Rapporteur: Mary Mwangi, University of Nairobi
