Policies that encourage sustainable growth and entrepreneurship have the potential to ignite a green industrial revolution in Africa. Transformative economic and ‘green growth’ policies, combined with entrepreneurship, could enable Africa to ‘leap frog’ to a clean, resource-efficient modern economy.

Cities that are designed and managed well – where people have plentiful options to move around without cars or do not have to go far to get work done – are powerful drivers of growth, creating good jobs and making them attractive places to live, says Lord Nicholas Stern.

Most developed countries now pursue policies that implicitly or explicitly aim at promoting compact urban form. This report analyses more than 300 academic papers that study the effects of compact urban form, and finds that 69% of the papers reviewed find positive effects associated with compact urban form. Over 70% of studies find positive effects of economic density (the number of people living or working in an area). A smaller majority of studies attribute positive effects to mixed land use (58%) and the density of the built environment (56%).