ISS Seminar, Cape Town: Urban Criminal Governance as an Emerging Threat: Lessons for South Africa

Date: 2012-04-19

Venue: , ISS Cape Town Boardroom, ISS Cape Town, 2nd Floor Armoury Building, Buchanan Square, 160 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock

RSVP:
Nobuntu Mtwa at [email protected] or calling her on 021 461 7211.

The Institute for Security Studies invites you to a seminar titled Urban Criminal Governance as an emerging Threat: Lessons for South Africa to be held in the seminar room at the ISS Cape Town Offices on Thursday, 19 April 2012. The seminar was conceptualized, planned and will be presented as part of a research study of criminal governance in African cities.

Growing urbanization in the developing world has outstripped the capacity of the formal economy to provide employment. The destruction of traditional livelihoods – by force of law, arms, conquest and environmental degradation – has inspired mass migration of the rural poor to settle in urban slums and shantytowns on the margins of society, without providing corresponding economic opportunity. (Podlashuc 2011) Urban Landmark recently estimated that while London’s population in 2015 will increase by 6 people per hour and Berlin’s not at all, 2015 will see Lagos grow by 58 people per hour, Kinshasa by 39 and Nairobi by 15. By 2025, Kinshasa and Lagos will be the largest cities on the continent with 20 million and 16 million inhabitants respectively, far surpassing Cairo, the current population leader. Cities across Africa are feeling the effects of this mass migration, characterized not by economic advancement, but by the reproduction of poverty and informality on a large scale (Parnell 2007, Pieterse 2008). Against this backdrop of massive migration and poor economic opportunity, much of this population growth will occur in the interstices of formal development and see the proliferation of residential ghettos. In these marginal urban spaces, a plurality of forms of social order are likely to mature – informal and sometimes criminal economies might continue to serve as the primary survival strategies for much of the population.

Three visiting experts will speak, and lead discussions at the seminar. We would appreciate your participation at the seminar.

Programme:

14.00 Welcome Remarks and Speakers Introduced

14.15 The challenges of criminal governance in Latin American megacities

Eduardo Salcedo-Albarán

Director: Scientific Vortex Foundation

15.00 Managing urban crime in Africa: lessons from Nairobi

Peter Kagwanja

15.45 Lessons for South Africa

Steven Ellis

16.20 Discussion points

17.00 Close of seminar

Please Note: All ISS Events occur under the ISS Rules, which means no attribution without specific permission, unless indicated otherwise.