The African Borderlands Research Network (ABORNE) organizes an international conference on African border towns and cities at the University of Lomé this month.
The two-day conference will consider the full spectrum of urbanism from border towns to full-blown cities, with a view to shedding light on how the border setting shapes urban forms, livelihoods and aesthetics and the manner in which urban connectivity shapes the borderlands as lived spaces.
Marie Trémolière and I will be presenting a new paper in which we show that West African border cities are smaller but grow faster than other cities in the region. Our colleagues Lawali Dambo and Moustapha Koné from the University of Niamey, Niger, will present two other papers on health, business and accessibility in border cities.
The final program can be downloaded here: ABORNE-final-program-2019.
Olivier J. Walther 