Robert Buckley and Achilles Kallergis

Africa’s Real Statistical Tragedy: Its Unknown Cities
Robert Buckley is a former advisor and managing director at the Rockefeller Foundation and a former lead economist at the World Bank.
Achilles Kallergis is a research scholar at the New York University Marron Institute of Urban Management.

Between 2000 and 2015 sub-Saharan African countries had their fastest ever per capita income growth and many of the region’s countries were among the world’s fastest growing economies. Despite this rapid economic growth urban conditions improved marginally, if at all. We discuss the lack of operational urban data in African cities and suggest some ways to improve information particularly for informal settlements through low-cost, self-maintaining systems that supply accurate local information on a timely and on-going basis.

The Lectures in Planning Series (LiPS) is an initiative of the Urban Planning program at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

All lectures are free and open to the public. For more information or to make program suggestions, email lipscolumbiaplanning@gmail.com.