Habitat Unit

Summer School
Tuesday, 14th - Wednesday, 15th December 2021

2021 Wits-TUB-UNILAG Urban Lab Summer School on Urban Management across continents

View Astrid R.N. Haas Keynote speech here!

Astrid R.N. Haas is an urban economist supporting cities across Africa in strengthening their financial systems, with a focus on unleashing new opportunities for sub-national financing. Astrid has worked extensively with city governments across African and Asia in her diverse roles, including as an urban economist with the African Development Bank and Policy Director at the International Growth Centre. In 2016, she was nominated by the University of Cape Town as one of Africa’s Young Leaders and in 2020 she received Johns Hopkins University’s 'Outstanding Recent Graduate Award‘ for her work on urbanization.

Download the Summer School program here! 

Under the title ‘Urban Management across continents”, the Wits-TUB-UNILAG Urban Lab held its first joint online summer school on the 14th and 15th of December 2021. A total of 33 master students from the Urban Management courses at TU Berlin (Germany), Wits University (South Africa) and the University of Lagos (Nigeria) and twelve lecturers from all three institutions came together for the occasion. To open the event Astrid R.N. Haas of the African Development Bank held a keynote speech on ‚Achieving the promise of cities that work’, which was followed by a lively discussion on her input.

Main element of the summer school were the nine thematic panels with the Master student’s presentation and discussion of their thesis work. On day 1, the panel’s themes included ‘Transport & Mobility’, ‘Land Governance’, ‘Human Settlements & Service Delivery’ as well as ‘Private Sector Development & Building’. The first day was concluded by plenum discussions on the presented topics and feedback from experienced researchers. On day 2, students got to share their research experience in panels ranging from ‘Spatial Inclusion & Community’ and ‘Environmental Management’ to ‘Policy & Governance’. The second day was concluded by a networking session that enabled students to build connections among peers with similar research interests. 

The WITS-TUB-UNILAG Urban Lab is one of the DAAD Bilateral SDG Graduate Schools that provide infrastructure for cooperative efforts among German higher education institutions and their international counterparts. The project aims at developing critical perspectives on urban education in African contexts. It supports master and PhD students at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and the University of Lagos, Nigeria. For more information on the WITS-TUB-UNILAG Urban Lab, click here.

Download the Wits-TUB-UNILAG Summerschool documentation here.