The purpose of the SUD-Net Africa workshop held in Cape Town in February 2009 was to help identify regional priorities that will set the agenda for SUD-Net Africa and define ways of promoting information exchange and interactions within both the regional and the global SUD-Net networks. The workshop was hosted by UN-Habitat in collaboration with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and the Africa Centre for Cities (ACC).

The outcomes of the workshop showed that a key role for SUD-Net in Africa would be on facilitating knowledge sharing and translating of this knowledge into policy and practice.

It also showed that SUD-Net will require clarity and speed on resolving a number of critical issues, including:

• identifying, supporting and growing effective champions for the urban agenda within governments (at all levels), knowledge institutions and civil society at large;
• channelling a highly focused and refined advocacy agenda to raise the awareness of key decision-makers but also to facilitate broad based learning about the centrality of sustainable urbanization to national and regional development efforts;
• undertaking these activities at scale will demand the creation and expansion of effective portals and entry points for various urban actors with a stake in the sustainable urban development agenda.