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5 September 2025
ICLEI Africa turns 30: Decades of partnerships, progress and purpose
For thirty years, ICLEI Africa, as part of ICLEI’s strong global network, has worked alongside local and subnational governments, partners and communities to co-create solutions for thriving, resilient cities. This milestone year celebrates our progress and the bold vision driving the next chapter of ICLEI’s role in Africa’s urban transformation.
From a single desk to a continental impact
In 1995, the ICLEI Africa Secretariat opened its doors in Harare, Zimbabwe, as the regional seat of our global network, to support African cities and regions with practical solutions to complex urban challenges. The Secretariat moved to Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2001, and has been headquartered in Cape Town since 2008, where it continues to coordinate and deliver on-the-ground impact across Africa. As we mark 30 years in 2025, that early commitment has matured into a robust continental presence that works side by side with local and subnational governments, both large and small, as well as a diverse range of partners and funders, to turn ambition into implementation.
Our growth reflects the scale and urgency of the task. Today our dynamic team of 75 passionate, multi-skilled professionals speaks 27 languages, collectively holds 159 degrees, and brings a combined 745 years of experience to city-scale delivery. Over the past five years, we have implemented more than 80 projects in 148 cities across 46 countries in Africa; we have trained over 8,000 stakeholders and produced over 600 knowledge products. We offer more than 40 technical and capacity building services. And we are continuing to grow and expand our impact and reach, working with cities and regions across the various development agendas, aligning with African and global policies, and contextualising our work within the realities of our continent.
Offices and presence where cities need us
To serve cities better, we have grown our physical footprint too. In addition to our Cape Town headquarters, we established the ICLEI Africa Foundation in Mauritius in October 2021 to further enable our expanding services and partnerships across the continent. We also maintain seven country focal points, as well as various project offices, in cities throughout Africa. This distributed presence means our colleagues are embedded where decisions are made, projects are implemented and partnerships are forged.
Adapting to changing realities, while building on solid foundations
As ICLEI Africa celebrates 30 years, our focus is not only on what we have achieved, but also on how we are preparing African cities for the decades ahead. Our work, underpinned by a multilevel governance foundation that we are globally committed to across all ICLEI offices, and a gender equity and social inclusion approach, is shaped by the urgent realities of today – climate change, rapid urbanisation and widening inequalities – while firmly seizing the opportunities of tomorrow.
Over three decades, we have partnered with cities to reduce disaster risk, make water, sanitation, mobility and energy systems more resilient and inclusive, and more recently to strengthen food and nutrition systems. We have supported nature-positive planning, waste reduction and circular development, and helped cities adapt to climate impacts while managing growth, informality and coastal risks. Playing an intermediary, or impact broker, role to support cities in unlocking finance for local action is a major priority. We are also already placing a strong focus on youth leadership and participation, not only because young people are tomorrow’s leaders, but because they are today’s drivers of change. Alongside this, we are using creative approaches, as well as futuring and visioning methodologies, to help leaders look beyond immediate crises, anticipate risks and imagine resilient, desirable futures.
While these areas of work all remain key, we are shifting the narrative to address the changing realities on the ground. We are pivoting, where needed, to harness the opportunities and innovations that are rapidly arising in order to address the new challenges that are emerging, in an innovative and context-appropriate way.
Centres of excellence that accelerate implementation
Recently, ICLEI Africa has established three pan-African centres of excellence designed to further unlock opportunities and accelerate city-scale implementation.
Clean Cooking Centre
Our Clean Cooking Centre enables safe and affordable clean cooking access for people living in Africa’s hard-to-reach urban markets, where health risks, gender inequality and climate vulnerability are prevalent. It brings together expertise, partnerships, tools and resources to co-create practical solutions that are grounded in lived realities and driven by local leadership. For example, our ENACTUS programme is enabling access to clean cooking for more than 30,000 people in Uganda, while building scalable models for future investment.
Sustainable Finance Centre
Our Sustainable Finance Centre enables African cities to move projects from concept to bankability by de-risking investment and strengthening financial readiness at the local level. We work closely with municipalities, financiers, national stakeholders and technical experts to build a shared pathway for project delivery. For example, through our City Climate Finance Gap Fund Step-Up project, we are helping cities prepare waste management initiatives by building municipal capabilities, fostering regional collaboration and aligning projects with investor expectations.
African City Food Centre
Through our African City Food Centre, as a regional chapter of our global City Food program, we elevate the role of local governments in solving Africa’s food systems challenges, leading to healthier, more prosperous cities – focusing primarily on resilient food markets and infrastructure, centring children in policy and practice, mainstreaming urban food governance and planning, and celebrating Africa’s rich food heritage. Working with strong partners, we co-create city-led solutions. For example, through our ReMark project, we are supporting municipal markets across Africa to build urban infrastructure resilience, reduce food waste, improve food security, safeguard vulnerable livelihoods and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Guiding ICLEI’s nature, health and water work globally
Globally, ICLEI has put ‘urban’ firmly on the sustainability agenda, working with and effectively advocating for local and subnational governments for the last 35 years. Contributing to this remarkable effort, ICLEI Africa proudly hosts ICLEI’s global Cities Biodiversity Center (CBC). The CBC carries ICLEI’s global mandate to advocate on behalf of cities in international fora, and over the past two decades, has collaborated closely with the UN Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Biodiversity COP host countries and cities, and its key partners, to elevate the voice of local and subnational governments. This collaboration has not only resulted in eight global summits for the local and subnational government constituency, as official parallel events at the COPs, but also a seat and voice in the negotiations – leading to the adoption of more than 20 decisions recognising the contributions of cities and regions to the CBD and global biodiversity targets.
In addition to its advocacy role, the ICLEI CBC team works closely with all ICLEI offices across the globe, to ensure coordination and promotion of biodiversity-related programmes and projects, and to provide capacity building and technical support related to nature-positive development, ecosystem restoration and biodiversity mainstreaming to cities. ICLEI CBC also leads the flagship global partnership initiatives, CitiesWithNature and RegionsWithNature, that are recognised by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. Health is equally integral to our approach, and we have recently established a Cities Health Hub, advancing health thinking that connects human wellbeing, nature and climate.
ICLEI Africa also hosts ICLEI’s Global Water Coordinator, an important role established recently to unify, elevate and strengthen water-related work across our global network. This ensures the integration of water into global policy dialogues, supports the development of impactful proposals, curates shared learning spaces, and champions a unified vison and narrative for urban water resilience.
Learning, communications and data that power delivery
At ICLEI Africa, we invest in learning and communications because scaling solutions in African cities is as much a knowledge and communication challenge as it is a technical one. Our multiskilled communications team co-designs strategies, campaigns and resources with our technical teams, city partners and stakeholders to share insights, profile the achievements of our members, and inspire positive change.
We have hosted many successful webinars and events over the past decades, notably Local Climate Solutions for Africa (LoCS4Africa), a key climate-focused conference, established as an in-person event in 2008 and hosted bi-annually until its virtual debut in 2020. In 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, we also hosted a much-needed webinar series to support Africa’s city leaders and officials facing the crisis in real time on the ground by facilitating critical conversations. This series kept momentum going during the pandemic by connecting cities with one another, top scientists and global bodies, helping them to navigate their early and immediate responses and learn from each other.
Additionally, RISE Africa, a movement of urban thinkers, doers and enablers committed to inspiring action for sustainable cities, was launched in the same year. The RISE Africa platform regularly engages a growing community through creative discourse – including at in-person events, virtual roundtables and via photography competitions – on complex, interwoven and pertinent issues related to equity and sustainability in African cities.
The LearnWithICLEIAfrica platform, launched in 2021, as a partnership with Changing Cities, provides city leaders, officials, researchers and practitioners with tools, courses and learning experiences that turn evidence into action. It is designed for flexible, self-paced learning based on the latest innovation and tried-and-tested local solutions – with interactive courses on critical issues such as climate finance and nature-based solutions.
We also place strong emphasis on monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) so that city action is visible, comparable and responsive. Our teams gather and analyse data from which we produce practical dashboards, infographics and case studies with and for cities, that support learning and evidence-based decision making.
As cities embrace the digital transition, smart cities, artificial intelligence and data-driven governance are opening new possibilities for service delivery, citizen engagement and evidence-based decision making. These tools can accelerate transformation, but only if applied with care, inclusivity and local context. We have plans to build our training and data analysis offerings to benefit cities as we move forward into this new era.
People and partnerships that unlock transformative change
For three decades, ICLEI Africa’s strength has been boosted by our global network of members and offices and the many and diverse partnerships and networks we are part of. Working alongside the ICLEI World Secretariat, our regional and country offices across the globe, and more than 2,500 cities and regions in the ICLEI network, we benefit from collective expertise, shared learning and ongoing exchange that enrich and amplify our impact.
Guided by the dedicated members of our ICLEI Africa Regional Executive Committee, which offers high-level strategic leadership and direction to our activities on the continent, our model depends on close collaboration with local and subnational government leaders and officials, communities, national counterparts, the African Union, development partners and the private sector.
We host several secretariats, networks and platforms, supported by key partners and donors, including the Covenant of Mayors in Sub-Saharan Africa Secretariat, with its close to 400 signatories committed to local climate action, and the African Cities Water Adaptation Platform Secretariat. And we work through partnerships to bring finance, technical services and know-how to where they will have maximum impact. Just one of our projects alone, AfriFOODlinks, is successfully being delivered by 26 partners to drive change in 65+ cities in Africa and Europe. Another people-focused project dedicated to harnessing and enhancing cultural benefits and local knowledge for climate action, the Race to Resilience Culture Initiative, connects 75 cities in Africa and the USA to build climate resilience by embedding culture, heritage and the arts into community adaptation strategies.
Looking ahead
As ICLEI Africa turns 30, a mere five years younger than our global ICLEI network itself, our purpose remains clear: work with and support African cities and regions to deliver a just, climate-resilient, nature-positive urban future that leaves no one behind. Guided by our core values – respect, agility, appreciation, unity, integrity and commitment – we will do everything that is needed to tackle the immense sustainability challenges we face with tenacity and boldness, in a collaborative, inclusive way that delivers real impact to people on the ground, while enabling our growing cities to fully harness Africa’s incredible, yet largely untapped, opportunities.
Underscoring ICLEI Africa’s critical role, Africa Regional Director and ICLEI Deputy Secretary General, Kobie Brand proudly embraces our 30-year slogan of Implementing for impact, and she affirms:
Cities in Africa are leading the world’s most consequential transitions. Our role is to stand with them, connect partners, unlock finance access for impact, and convert commitment into bold action at the local level. When city leaders have the resources to act with confidence, residents feel the benefits in cleaner air, safer water, reliable energy, dignified sanitation, better nutrition and healthier natural systems we all depend on. That is the future we are building, together.
