It aims to assess the profession’s capacity to help deliver targets set out in the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and respond to the world’s rapidly increasing urban population.

CAA president Vincent Cassar said: ‘The findings of the survey reveal critical issues in some of the countries of the Commonwealth which are rapidly urbanising and are among the most vulnerable; issues which will be of concern to policymakers and professionals alike.’

Looking at developed Commonwealth countries, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, the report concluded that between 0.26 and 0.58 architects per 1,000 of the population are needed.

However, it found evidence of a lack of capacity in some parts of the Commonwealth, with ratios of just 0.02 in Ghana and Bangladesh, 0.03 in Pakistan, 0.04 in Botswana, 0.05 in Sri Lanka, 0.06 in Malaysia and 0.07 in South Africa.

Uganda only has 178 registered architects in a country of more than 43 million (0.004 architects per 1,000 of the population), with the country urbanising at a rate of more than 5.3 per cent each year.

Rapid rates of annual urban growth are taking place in some of the Commonwealth’s more fragile states, according to the survey, including Rwanda (5.59 per cent), Tanzania (5.00 per cent), Zambia (4.35 per cent), Nigeria (4.3 per cent), Kenya (4.15 per cent), Malawi (4.02 per cent), Solomon Islands (3.79 per cent), Namibia (3.63 per cent), Cameroon (3.40 per cent), Mozambique (3.36 per cent), Vanuatu (3.23 per cent), Bangladesh (3.19 per cent), and Ghana (3.07 per cent).

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