Urbanisation is seen as a potential engine for productivity growth in Rwanda (Government of Rwanda, 2019). With this respect, the Country has set its urbanisation target to reach 35% by 2024, from 18.4% (2016/17). More urbanisation aims at increasing the socio-economic fabric through accrued vertical linkages and competition in the private sector, access to market, specialisation and diversification. It is also meant to boost structural transformation through movements of workers from less to more productive sectors, and especially from farm to off-farm activities (The World Bank, 2018). Urbanisation is hence expected to accelerate private-sector-led economic growth and increased productivity (Government of Rwanda, 2019).It may also densify centres of excellence in various domains, including education, IT etc. and hence boost knowledge transfer among development actors of the country. However, international experience has shown data urbanisation may not always be associated to welfare improvements.

The overall aim of IPAR’s annual Research conference 2019, entitled “Urbanisation, Urban planning & Urban governance “, is to provide policy makers with the latest evidence on policies and programmes which can assist in achieving positive urbanisation outcomes, both from Rwanda as well as countries to which Rwanda looks or could look for inspiration. With this respect, findings on latest research produced by IPAR-Rwanda on Urbanisation and Urban governance in Rwanda will be presented. This call for papers aims at enlarging this set of evidence on Urbanisation, Urban planning and Urban governance.

The key issues to be discussed will revolve around fostering economic growth rates through urbanisation, designing policies, social protection in urban centre, human development including access to water, affordable housing etc., transformational social, economic and environmental change through appropriate urban planning, urban governance and institutions.

Suitable papers should be policy oriented. Topics of interest include urbanisation, urban planning and urban governance. Geographical coverage of the analysis includes Rwanda and other countries.

Submission process : Send abstract and full paper to conference2019@ipar-rwanda.org by June 10, 2019. Author of selected papers will be contacted immediately.