Malawi – Urban Growth vs. Planning

The presentation was held at the fourth ISU Talks ‘Urban Africa’ of the Institute for Sustainable Urbanism, Technical University Braunschweig (GER).

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How can urban planning function in one of the poorest but fastest-growing countries in the world? How can its growth be counteracted in a city, which population grew from 60,000 to est. 1.4 M in five decades while lacking an updated urban structure plan since 30 years? The presentation ‘Malawi – Urban Growth vs. Planning’ is about the search in a trial and error manner for opportunities, methods, and tools to intervene in this challenging planning environment. It includes experiences of the urban patterns, administrative structures, and projects, which aim to work within and question this system and add value to Malawi’s planning future. These projects concentrate mainly on the urban development and planning history, indicator-based sustainability assessment as a way to tackle urban challenges, an urban design in an informal settlement as an alternative concept for growth in unplanned areas, as well as other small scale interventions.