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Greening Africa's cities: enhancing the relationship between urbanization, environmental assets, and ecosystem services

Greening Africa's cities:  enhancing the relationship between urbanization, environmental assets, and ecosystem services Africa is urbanizing late but fast. This brings many benefits but, as this report shows: thus far, urbanization in Africa, unique in a number of respects, is having deleterious and largely unchecked impacts on the natural environment; the degradation of natural assets and ecosystems within African cities carries tangible economic, fiscal and social costs; there are important opportunities to change the current environmental trajectory of African cities so that they move towards a more harmonious relationship between their natural and built environments. For this to happen, focused action is necessary.