In Rwanda, where urban planners face a lack of resources and competences to process up-to-date land use data, the Ministry of Infrastructure plans to strengthen five cities (Musanze, Rubavu, Rwamagana, Bugesera and Muhanga) with competence development and equipment to enable more efficient data collection and analysis. These actions will be achieved through the establishment of decentralised decision rooms in the five targeted cities involving professionals as well as local authorities, members of the private sector as well as civil society and citizens, through joint working groups focused on inclusive and sustainable land use.
In Uganda, while people living in informal settlements are most affected by the health risks associated with pollution, governments and civil society lack accurate information on environmental exposure on which they can act. By funding the AirQo project of Makerere University, the Wehubit Programme supports the development of a network of locally manufactured sensors to monitor air quality. Each device transmits real-time air quality data to the digital AirQo platform, which will make it available to public authorities and the general public to improve air quality in Kampala's most affected neighbourhoods.
In Niger, in order to better understand the challenge of climate change and heat islands in particular, the u-CLIP project of VITO (Vlaamse Instelling voor Technologisch Onderzoek) and ACMAD (African Centre for Meteorological Applications for Development), in association with the City of Niamey, aims to provide projections on the impact of urban climate change in Niamey. This information, adapted to the needs of local authorities and civil society actors, will stimulate and facilitate political engagement to build resilience of Niamey in the face of climate change.
In Mozambique, at a time when major cities are facing serious waste management problems affecting the health of their residents, authorities lack data to provide an appropriate response to this waste crisis. The VIP Moz project that is supported by Wehubit is in line with Mozambique’s National Strategy for Integrated Urban Solid Waste Management. The objective is to increase solid waste collection in the cities of Nampula and Beira by 20%, particularly in disadvantaged, hard-to-reach areas. The VIP project will use the inclusive digital MOPA platform displaying on a map reports of dumps, full containers, etc. issued by neighbourhood control officers and residents and notifying by SMS in real time municipality and neighbourhood/district managers concerned and the formal and informal collection actors in order to clean up the urban and suburban environment in a participatory manner.
“These 4 new projects allow us to contribute to the work of Enabel and the Belgian Government in terms of sustainable and inclusive urbanisation and climate change. They complete a portfolio that already covers topics as varied as women's and youth empowerment, climate-smart agriculture, e-Health and digital skills. It is a pride to be associated with this programme and especially with the project-supporting organisations with which we now work in 12 of the 14 partner countries of Belgium for more digital social innovation in development.” explains Arnaud Leclercq, Manager of the Wehubit Programme.
