The Report That shifts the Conversation

At the heart of forum was the launch of the Africa Urban Resilience Program's continental flagship report, officially unveiled by H.E. President William Ruto of Kenya. A first of its kind report that signalled the highest level of political commitment to this agenda. Drawing on evidence from 50 cities and 5 in-depth case studies, the report provides a unified, data-driven picture of urban risk and resilience across the continent.

50 per cent of Africa's urban population lives in informal settlements. Donor funding for resilience remains deeply fragmented. The integration of climate risk into urban planning is still the exception, not the rule. 

The report is also equally clear about what is already working. Wetland restoration in Kigali has improved water quality, created jobs, and reduced flood exposure. Cities are integrating digital participatory mapping, community-led settlement upgrading, and nature-based approaches to flood management, significantly, as locally owned solutions.

"This report defines who we are today, who we were yesterday, and who we want to be in the future."  Africa Union Commissioner Moses Vilakati emphasized. 

The call from member states was unambiguous — no compromise on resilience, no compromise on service delivery.

Water as a Resource 

One of the forum's most striking reframes came from the sessions on water-responsive urbanism. African cities are not failing because they have too much water or too little. They are failing because they have consistently built against water rather than with it. 

The consequences play out the same way across the continent: flood damage, rising health costs, infrastructure failure, economic loss and then the rebuilding of what has already been lost. It is expensive and more so, preventable, but it does not have to continue. 

Water-responsive urbanism offers a different logic. Rather than draining floodwater away as quickly as possible, the approach asks cities to slow it down, capture it, and put it to work through retention basins, wetland restoration, urban greening, and nature-based infrastructure that reduces flood risk, improves water quality, and generates green jobs simultaneously. The approach rests on 3 fundamental commitments to: 

1. Invest in water for urban resilience. 

2. Support nature-based solutions.

3. Strengthen community resilience from the ground up. 

The Aqinile Partnership on Urban Resilience which brings together UNDP, the AU Commission, UN-Habitat, and UNEP as the primary implementing mechanism of the AURP, in close collaboration with GIZ's Resilience Initiative Africa, is anchoring this approach at continental scale. 

What it looks like in practice is illustrated by UNDP's work in Hawassa, Ethiopia. The city faced a dual water challenge, stormwater runoff combined with overflow from Lake Hawassa, compounded by overlapping institutional mandates and urban expansion that had long outpaced infrastructure. Through the UNDP's support, Hawassa now has a 10-year water master plan, a heatwave resilience strategy, and governance reform that resolved the institutional bottlenecks stalling progress. Representatives from Lamu and Garissa counties, in Kenya, brought the same challenge into sharp local focus. Highlighting major progress despite serious constraints. 

The private sector dialogue that closed the water track made one thing explicit: water must stop being treated as a utility and start being recognised as a development imperative. Flooding represents a massive volume of water that can be captured and repurposed. That shift in thinking, from risk to resource, is what unlocks the private capital, blended finance models, and bankable project pipelines the continent needs.

Three Strategic Shifts 

Dr. Ummer's address crystallised the strategic direction UNDP is driving across the continent into three clear redirections that require deliberate action.

1. From response to anticipation. Early warning systems exist and the science is improving. What happens after a warning is issued? Meteorological agencies, urban planners, and disaster managers still work in silos. Warnings reach national agencies and stop. The last mile; the most vulnerable, remain disconnected. What is needed is connective tissue between institutions, investment in early warning infrastructure, and the involvement of communities in co-designing the messages themselves. A warning written without the people it is meant to reach will not be trusted, understood, or acted on. 

2. From projects to systems. Short-term, isolated interventions cannot deliver the resilience Africa's cities require. The Nairobi Declaration makes this explicit and calls for systemic investment aligned with national development priorities, Agenda 2063, and for cross-ministerial coordination to replace siloed decision-making. What is needed is the integrated, pre-emptive planning that transforms a city from a collection of disconnected interventions into a coherent, investable system. 

3. From cost to investment. Resilient infrastructure is not a financial burden but a catalyst for economic opportunity. When cities invest in climate adaptation and risk reduction, they are not only avoiding losses; they are creating jobs, unlocking growth, and building the long-term stability that attracts private capital. The Nairobi Declaration anchors this shift financially, calling for property tax reform, predictable fiscal transfers to local governments, green climate finance access, and municipal bond markets. 

Partnership Is the Architecture 

The Africa Urban Resilience Program is not one agency's initiative. It is a coalition — and the distinction matters. 

At its core, the Aqinile Partnership brings together the African Union Commission, UNDP, UN-Habitat, and UNEP as the implementing backbone of the AURP, working alongside GIZ's Resilience Initiative Africa to build the capacity of city governments across ECOWAS, SADC, and beyond to plan, govern, and invest in resilience. This is the coalition that produced the continental report and is now translating it into action. 

This work has also been made possible by the sustained support of development partners. Sweden's contribution through the Sahel Resilience Project has been instrumental, providing financing and technical backing that helped develop the AURP framework and strengthen its implementation across the continent. 

What distinguishes this partnership is the shared commitment to ensuring that Africa's growing cities build from the past, and that communities in informal settlements are treated as partners in designing solutions. 

As Germany's Deputy Ambassador to Kenya reminded delegates: "Resilience is not only about infrastructure. It is about people; the communities, and the young people who want to build a future in their cities." 

The Work Ahead 

For the UNDP Resilience Hub for Africa, the forum reinforced what its mandate demands: to work at the intersection of policy, finance, and people, bridging the gap between knowledge and implementation, between a warning issued and a life protected, between a report launched and a city transformed. 

Africa's urban future is not yet written. The decisions being made right now will determine whether rapidly growing cities become engines of prosperity or centres of accumulated risk.