Case Cities

The RP project works in close cooperation with three case cities - Assiut (Egypt), DaNang (Vietnam) and Kigali (Rwanda). Frankfurt am Main (Germany) serves as reference city.

Kigali is the capital city of Rwanda. It is the country‘s biggest city and it is also its commercial capital. With more than one million people today (1,135,428 in 2012 - representing 10.8 per cent of the country’s total population), Kigali has been expanding by leaps and bounds over the hilly terrain surrounding its core and is one of Africa’s fastest-growing cities. Located in the heart of Rwanda, Kigali is built on hills, ridges and valleys.

Rwanda gives high priority to urbanization to support economic transformation and growth. The country’s urbanization target is 35 per cent by 2020. As Kigali is expected to house more than 50 per cent of the country’s urban dwellers, the remainder should be accommodated in other cities, especially secondary ones. As a rapidly growing city, Kigali is experiencing severe problems of air and water pollution, liquid and solid waste management, inadequate water and energy infrastructures and unsustainable production and consumption lifestyles.

Da Nang is the largest city in central Vietnam and one of the country‘s most important ports. It is also the most dynamic city in the country from the viewpoint of economic development and change. The city’s population is predicted to reach about 1.6 million by 2020, and to rise further to 2.5 million by 2030.

Changes in land use, environmental degradation and the depletion of natural resources have accompanied Da Nang City’s rapid, urban development. Concerns about the environmental repercussions of economic growth resulted in the city government taking the lead to develop the plan Developing DaNang – an Environmental City.

Assiut is the largest town in Upper Egypt and lies about 375 km south of Cairo. It was settled during Pharaonic times on a broad fertile plain bordering the west bank of the Nile. Surrounded by rich agricultural land and situated at the end of one of Africa’s great caravan routes, from sub-Sahara Africa and Sudan to Assiut via Al-Kharga Oasis, it has always been important commercially, if not politically. Assiut City is the capital of the Governorate of Assiut, and is bordered to the east by the river Nile and to the west by Mount Assiut West.

Assiut faces high population growth. The city has limited expansion potential and limited resources within its current boundaries, resulting in high densities and restrictions of the available public space. At the same time, it is facing immense pressure in the provision of basic services and the large encroachment on valuable agricultural land is difficult to control.

An additional German partner of the project-related exchange of experiences and know-how between the case cities and with the observer cities will be the city of Frankfurt am Main. It is the largest city in the German Federal State of Hesse and the fifth largest in the country, with a population of about 700,000 in 2014. Frankfurt’s regional catchment area has an estimated population of 2.2 million, and the city itself forms the hub of the larger Frankfurt/ Rhine-MainMetropolitan Region, home of about 5.5 million people.