I have been fortunate enough to visit Africa on two separate occasions over the past year. My first visit was for an internship with an NGO working in the Southeast portion of Madagascar. It was while hammering planks together with nails that did not stay straight and cutting wood with the bluntest saw imaginable that I was first introduced to the great paradox that is Africa. You see as I was hammering and cutting, nearby villagers would show up and help us build their school. While tending fields of rice, herding zebu, weaving and caring for children, the elderly, and the sick are beyond a full time job, they would sacrifice this for a few hours to join us. There is so much desire for change, so much willingness to take control of the future and create a new lifestyle that is African. The continent is alive and well with millions of Africans trying to change their future for the better. When I next travelled to Ghana as an international student at the University of Ghana, I was introduced to a whole new Africa. It was as I sat in class waiting for my professor to show, talking to my classmates and realizing I was the worst dressed person in the room that I realized it is impossible to stereotype Africa. Africa is composed of thousands of ethnic groups, each with their own ideals, perspectives, motivations and needs. Each group is unique. It wasn't until travelling back to Canada that I realized, perhaps there is one thing that really brings all Africans together, whether they are rich or poor, Muslim or Christian, urban or rural. It is the game that brings them together. It keeps their sense of community alive, creates national pride and is independent of whatever crises are ongoing. It might sound silly, but perhaps this reflects the African way, in a continent full of paradoxes.

From  Alex Weatherhead

I lived in Sierra Leone from 1971 to 1972. The country was peaceful and beautiful then. The people I met, though poor were kind, funny, generous, resilient and among the most forgiving, accepting people I have ever met. I was a young CUSO volunteer, and I'm sure, due to my naivete, many times over-stepped cultural boundaries. Yet the Sierra Leoneans were forgiving and understanding of a young woman from a foreign culture. That we in the west should be so understanding.

From Mara Glebovs

The emigrants from the former Portuguese colony of India, now called Goa, made Kenya their home and country, learning to sing HARAMBE, HARAMBE...and Malaika, eat Ugali, travel through the Rift Valley to Malindi while being servants to the British administrator. I wish I could go back without fear of being a foreignor!

From Tony Fernandes

For a number of years, I have been the sponsor of two children from Kenya. I have been blessed to have visited them three times and have noticed an immense difference - for the better. Read more here.

From Helen Dyksley

I have now been here in Dakar for three months. A hot, dusty place - parched Sahel awaiting imminent rainfall. I've dreamt of seeing the rains come to the Sahel since I was a kid - the blooming desert, more dramatic than spring following Canadian snowmelt, as the dormant plants are completely hidden in the desert sands. Soon enough I'll have more than fulfilled that dream. Except that I don't expect it will be quite the romantic scene I had envisioned, for I am in Dakar.

Capital of Senegal, economic and cultural hub of West Africa, containing the region's densest concentration of industrial infrastructure, population, cars, smog, and garbage, Dakar is a maelstrom. Add rain to the mix and the already overflowing sewers flood the streets. Sand clogs the works. Plugged canals burst their banks. Mosquitoes flourish in stagnant water everywhere. Cars slosh through rivers of filth. Annual temperature peaks at the same time. You sleep in sweat. Overcrowded busses become saunas, baking in the grid-lock as they slowly grind their way through the steaming city streets.

People talk about the coming of the rains and summer heat with trepidation. My feelings are mixed; I want to see it, but I believe the reports. Sewage infrastructure isn't going to work any better than it presently does, nor is the come-again-go -again electricity, neither are the roads, the busses, or the buildings; shoddy, unregulated construction sees unacceptably high numbers of these latter collapse every year. All of this speaks to a need for better urban planning. There are no shortage of improvement projects underway, but they are haphazard at best, seldom conforming to any long term plan. More often than not, these projects are undertaken at the whim of elected officials, with minimal input from their planning services.

When formal urban planning does take place, it occurs at the level of the state - The Government of Senegal, rather than the City of Dakar. States are removed from the citizens of any particular city, even capital cities - their singular cries for help are drowned in the cacophony of pleas from other cities, regions, industries and interest groups. And yet, it is the central state which controls urban planning. It's not supposed to happen this way. That's not a value judgement based on my observations; it's a constitutional fact - one which recognizes that elected municipal governments have a right to determine their city's future. Formally at least, Dakar has had, since 1996, the constitutional authority to plan for the physical development of its territory. It is capacity which holds the City back. The state retains planning authority during a time of transition while municipalities build up their capacity to undertake land-use planning.

Since 1994, The International Centre for Sustainable Cities has been partnered with the City of Dakar to support their urban planning department in increasing its long term planning capacity. Demonstration projects, knowledge sharing events and workshops have helped make tangible the process and potentials of long term sustainability planning. A fantastic example is the composting project undertaken by Sustainable Cities and Dakar's planning department in a local district here from 2008. The project produced healthy, marketable soil from the household waste of over 400 households at site central to the neighbourhood. Soil was used for market gardening and covering the costs of the program. The site was used to demonstrate the potential of composting to neighbourhood residents, other cities in Senegal, and an international delegation of Sustainable Cities PLUS Network representatives

I am heading a different kind of Sustainable Cities / City of Dakar collaboration project here, one which promises to expand the capacity of the planning department in new and exciting directions. At present, the planning department is not simply constrained by a state which holds back planning powers, but blindfolded by a lack of quality, up-to-date information. Maps on the walls date from the 1970s. Most offices don't even use maps. The present project seeks to help the City undertake the steps necessary steps to outfit the planning department with a uniquely tailored Geographical Information System (GIS). This includes a needs and capacity assessment, collection of existing data, and the creation of a GIS database of up-to-date information on the city and its inhabitants.

This effort promises to provide the city with a strong informational base from which to make decisions. It will give them the ability, for the first time, to catalogue and visualize fixed municipal infrastructure, buildings and property. It will allow them to prioritize maintenance, replacement, improvement, extension of these assets. Equally importantly, it will provide them with a tool to detect urban trends and patterns, visualise problems and opportunities, and make decisions to improve urban health and sustainability. It is hoped that the increased planning capacity conferred on the City through the development of its GIS program will allow it to more fully participate in the formation of planning policy. This would be a positive change. As the government closest to the citizens soon to be splashing through the stifling city streets, the City of Dakar feels the acute pressure to transition to a more responsive urban policy, and a more liveable city.

From Eric Gallant