The Challenges Of Global Environmental Change For Urban Africa

Cities - especially those with substantial poor populations - will face increasingly severe challenges in tackling the impacts of Global Environmental Change (GEC). As economic dynamos and increasingly important population concentrations, cities both contribute substantially, and often are very vulnerable, to the impacts of GEC. This applies strongly in Africa, one of the world's poorest regions. The inability of even a relatively wealthy and well protected city such as New Orleans in the USA to withstand Hurricane Katrina has helped focus attention on the vulnerability of cities that are less protected.