On September 12-13, the Midterm Conference for the Rapid Planning project took place in Nairobi, Kenya. Location of the event was the Headquarters of UN-Habitat, the United Nations Human Settlement Programme. The Midterm conference was a stocktaking and work-show of the project’s first implementation phase (two and a half years). Over 100 participants from over 40 organisations did engage in a lively discussion on the subject of rapid urban infrastructure development and planning, while the research teams from the Rapid Planning project were sharing the findings from their research.
As a brief recap, the Rapid Planning project develops a methodology aiming at:
- Gathering and computing reliable data for infrastructure planning;
- The ability to develop the respective, synergetic technology set-up; and
- The resulting strategic infrastructure planning exercise.
The research is cutting edge and will lead to a system of enabling tools and a planning methodology that will inform strategic decision-making processes. The team anticipates, when the methodology is applied, a period of not more than 12 month of intervention would be leading to strategic scenarios, combined with technological options as well information on economic and financial considerations. In this way the risks are mitigated that planning and decision-making processes on urban infrastructure development are overtaken by the realities of rapid urbanisation.
The conference concluded with a set of recommendations towards the implementation of the second phase of the project.
In the following, we would like to share a summary of the six sessions of the conference. The presentations are available for download on this webpage below.
