The Data Platform

The platform is part of the CAA’s contribution to the Commonwealth Sustainable Cities Initiative  which it has launched together with the Association of Commonwealth Universities , the Commonwealth Association of Planners , the Commonwealth Local Government Forum  and The Prince’s Foundation .

The collaboration recognises that the delivery of well-planned cities relies upon an increasingly more integrated and evidence-based approach and it is hoped that the platform will help contribute to increased inter-disciplinary, cross sector collaboration between different stakeholder groups.

As the world works to deliver the Decade of Action  in which to achieve the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, the CAA recognises the opportunity to leverage the unique power of the Commonwealth to engage with these issues and development of the platform is one of a number of initiatives with which it is involved.

The data platform currently provides the following information for Commonwealth countries:

• Rates of Urbanisation: Current rates of urbanisation (%).
• Urban population growth to 2050: Projected population growth to 2050 in figures (‘000) and in percentages (%).
• Rates of CO2 Emissions: Rates of CO2 emissions, in total CO2/annum (kt) and CO2/person/annum (t).
• Climate Risk Index: Climate Risk Index, assessed by Germanwatch.
• Gross National Income: Gross national income per capita in USD at purchasing power parity.
• Location of Capital Cities and Secondary Cities: Data on Secondary Cities supplied by Nicolas Galzara from  the NYU Marron Institute of Land Management, authors of the Atlas of Urban Expansion.
• Built Environment Professionals: All known professional institutes representing built environment professionals, ie architects, engineers, town planners and quantity surveyors, together with ratios of built environment professionals per 1,000 head of population where these are known.
• Universities: Commonwealth members of the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU), the UN Habitat  University Partnership (UNI), members of the Association of African Planning Schools (APPS) and the African  Urban Research Institute (AURI).
• Local Government: Members of the Commonwealth Sustainable Cities Network (CSCN), managed by the Commonwealth Local Government Forum.

For instructions on how to operate the data platform, click the ‘Launch GIS’ button at the top of the right-hand menu on this page and then navigate to the ‘i’ (Information) button in the top left-hand menu once in the GIS (beneath the label ‘Data Platform’). Note that some data may not be visible until the map is magnified sufficiently.

Unless otherwise shown, information has been sourced from the Survey of the Built Environment Professions in the Commonwealth, UN Habitat and the World Bank. Our intention is to further develop and enrich the platform over time.