projects_puma

The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 focuses on making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable (1). In the context of rapid urbanisation, African countries are grappling with how to manage emerging issues. Cities with unplanned transport systems experience accessibility challenges, traffic congestion and crashes, making it crucial to plan mobility in cities (2). Achieving SDG 11 is influenced by governance, politics and interests that shape how decisions are made and implemented and how this impacts wider goals for health (i.e., SDG 3.6 to halve global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents by 2030) (3). However, these wider health and complex governance aspects have not received adequate attention in mobility and road safety scholarship from the region. This project will holistically approach research on mobility challenges and contribute to SDGs in Africa by examining the underlying political and governance issues. Specifically, the project aims to:

1. Map and characterise the mobility-related policies across relevant sectors and organisations in selected cities in African countries.
2. Conduct a scoping review of scholarship on how contextual factors, actor relationships, and power dynamics shape the development and implementation of mobility-related policies in different urban contexts in the majority world.
3. Engage decision-makers to identify and understand their context-specific evidence needs for policy changes and implementation challenges to advance mobility.
4. Strengthen capacity for interdisciplinary social science research on mobility and broader public health policy in select African university settings.
5. Widen partnerships and produce a proposal for a longer-term grant that develops a consortium approach to enhance expertise, knowledge and resources for political analyses, policy advice and influence at partner institutions to support mobility in African cities.

The study draws on the mobility experiences of three urban areas – Kampala (Uganda), Kigali (Rwanda) and Lilongwe (Malawi) -to gain insight into the political and governance dynamics involved and to develop contextually adapted strategies. Core activities include:

• Knowledge generation (through mobility policy mapping and analysis in partner sites and a scoping review on the political economy of mobility in African cities),
• Stakeholder engagement and evidence needs analysis through participatory and deliberative techniques (nominal group techniques) and
• Capacity strengthening for interdisciplinary policy research through collaborative partnership engagements and perspectives from disciplines such as political science and development studies.

The project is being implemented by three academic institutions in Eastern and Southern Africa. Makerere University School of Public Health (MakSPH) serves as the lead partner and secretariat, with Dr. Aloysius Ssennyonjo (Senior Lecturer at MakSPH) as the Principal Investigator (PI). The team includes Co-PIs from Makerere (Dr. Esther Bayiga Zziwa, Dr. Jimmy Osuret), the University of Rwanda (Dr. David Tumusiime, PhD, Co-PI Rwanda), and Kamuzu University of Health Sciences – Health Economics and Policy Unit (KUHeS-HEPU) (Dr. Dominic Nkhoma, Co-PI Malawi). Additional co-investigators include Seleman Ntawuyirushintege (Rwanda) and Juliete Gassana (Rwanda), Pemphero Norah Mphamba (Malawi) and Precious Chibwe (Malawi). The project is being supported by an advisory team comprised of Prof. Dr Kristof Titeca, a renowned political scientist and development researcher at the Institute of Development Policy, University of Antwerp, and Dr. Catherine M. Jones, an academic with public health policy research and expertise in intersectoral policy processes at Canterbury Christ Church University (CCCU).

This project is proudly funded by National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).