KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER, A USEFUL TOOL TO SUSTAIN AFRICA'S URBAN GREEN SPACES

Abstract

Globalization and its associated knowledge-based economies driving many developments in the world today makes knowledge transfer an alternative tool to rely on to address many challenges confronting urban green spaces but this remains a grey area on green spaces in Africa. This study sought to assess how knowledge transfer can be used as a tool to sustain Africa's urban green spaces. The focus was on Africa due to its declining urban green spaces. The study utilised the systematic review approach and from the initial search of 287 publications, a total of 148 publications were utilized. The inclusion criteria focused on publications that centred on one or more of the following aspects on green spaces; planning, design, finance, maintenance, monitoring and evaluation. Based on the challenges affecting green spaces in Africa, it was found out that effective knowledge transfer can take place through a well-designed process. This process among other things should focus on avenues to identify and collect knowledge, capture and store knowledge, transfer and share knowledge, apply and measure the knowledge acquired, and lastly create new knowledge. For this process to operate well in Africa, it is recommended that there should be knowledge-based infrastructure in place to facilitate easy transfer, knowledge transfer plan, enabled environment to encourage exchange of ideas, and efforts to control cultural and socio-economic differences that may act as impediments for smooth knowledge transfer to take place.