Jean Pierre Elong Mbassi – Secretary General of United Cities and Local Governments – Africa. The future is already here – the scale and speed of African urbanization is striking. It is a phenomenon taking place so fast that conceptions of rural Africa are already outdated. How will Africa finance the jobs, mass public transportation, clean energy, drinking water, affordable housing, parks and public utilities for a beautiful urban future? And how will Africa do this in the face of the climate emergency? This is THE issue for African development right now – yet attention is not yet being paid to it and development finance is full of old-fashioned ideas of what Africa is all about. How can we make local government finance the channel for African development finance? Jean Pierre discusses these challenges with us.