For over a decade, cities have faced several shocks, including the 2008/09 global financial and economic crisis, water shortages due to droughts brought about by climate change, the health and socioeconomic devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic, and (to a lesser degree) social unrest that was often accompanied by looting and the destruction of businesses and property. These are not the last crises that cities will face.

Municipalities directly affect people’s lives by delivering constitutionally mandated essential services and influencing local economic development. However, municipalities continue to struggle with systemic problems and are in a precarious and vulnerable state. This means that most municipalities (with a few notable exceptions) are highly unlikely to manage unforeseen shocks. For example, the pandemic worsened a bad situation and shone a light on the vulnerability of municipalities.

These shocks and disruptive events underscore the urgent need to build city and municipal resilience by tackling local government’s underlying systemic and structural problems. Moreover, the government alone cannot solve these complex and entrenched problems; an all-of-society approach is needed to find long-term and sustainable solutions. Today, more people than ever live in cities, including two-thirds of South Africans. Cities are spaces where people come together to share experiences and ideas and to shape new systems; they are places of social, economic and political opportunities and intense social interactions; and they are central to development and at the forefront of the country’s economic, social, environmental and cultural life.

The Urban Festival took place virtually on 31 October 2023. It was convened by the South African Cities Network (SACN) in partnership with the Department of Cooperative Governance (COGTA), the Department of Human Settlements (DHS), the South Africa Local Government Association (SALGA) and eThekwini Municipality.

This Urban Festival 2023 was hosted under the theme of “The Working City: Actions for growth and recovery (data as an enabler for resilience)”, which was aligned with the 2023 World Habitat Day’s theme of “Resilient urban economies: Cities as drivers of growth and recovery”. The Festival’s aim was to highlight efforts made to get cities to work, i.e., to make cities functional, efficient and effective, with an emphasis on actions that demonstrate cities are working actively towards growth and recovery, not just conceptualising and strategising. The theme incorporated the enabling role of data, encouraging cities and citizens to demonstrate that their actions towards resilience, growth and recovery are underpinned by evidence-based decision-making and that they are working to increase and improve data use.