Inaugural lecture Professor Shuaib Lwasa

In his lecture 'Rethinking universalism in urban development: A critical reflection and learning from the Global South', Professor Lwasa will talk about how three reinforcing processes of international finance for development, internationalized urban planning and internationalized urban management policy have influenced the African urban trajectory.

He will challenge the assumed linear process of spatial planning, infrastructure development followed by economic activities and for people to seamlessly fit into the economics of the city. There are key lesson from the granular level research in the Global South. These include;

• the ‘informal is the city’,
• the informal urban economy cannot be ignored,
• the emergence of multiple socio-technological solutions to fill the infrastructure mismatch and in shifting agency.

The ‘global city’ is no longer that significant as an exemplar for urban development.