UN Chronicle | Charting a Framework for Sustainable Urban Centres in Africa

Charting a Framework for Sustainable Urban Centres in Africa
By Christine Auclair

A local market in Ibadan, Nigeria. UN-HABITAT Sustainable Cities Programme photo

A century ago, slums were a normal feature in European cities. Their depiction in Charles Dickens’ London and Emile Zola’s French towns could easily be transposed to today’s African urban slums of Lagos (Nigeria) or Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo). Like in some sub-Saharan African countries, life expectancy in many European cities was less than 40 years. Cholera and typhoid were rampant, sanitary conditions were poor, and child labour, illiteracy and crime were everyday realities.

The critical difference is that African cities have been expanding without economic growth—the necessary boost in production and employment opportunities for a long and disturbing period. In some cases, African economies have even contracted. Cities in Côte d’Ivoire, the United Republic of Tanzania, Gabon and elsewhere, whose economies have decreased by 2 to 5 per cent per year, still sustain an annual population growth of 5 to 8 per cent.1 Another crucial difference is the lack of sufficient political will, decisive planning and reforms in a context of persisting poor governance hampered by conflicts.

The current rates of urbanization in Africa, exceeding 4 to 5 per cent per annum in most countries, are close to those of Western cities at the end of the nineteenth century. African cities experience similar developmental problems, such as high child mortality and low life expectancy and literacy, and are the lowest performers in virtually all the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). One out of three countries in the continent has experienced or is still experiencing armed conflicts. While poverty and inequalities are probably largely imputable to conflicts, high poverty incidence also creates the conditions for poor governance and higher probabilities for conflicts and man-made disasters. As a result of conflict-generated poverty and the commensurate destruction of physical and social infrastructure, cities in war-torn countries experience a higher rate of growth of slum dwellers and displaced persons.

Africa hosts 30 per cent of the refugees in the world, and displacement of populations, mostly women and children, either internally or across borders, is out of ordinary proportions. Following the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, an estimated 250,000 people swept into Tanzania over a 24-hour period, creating a refugee city that overnight became Tanzania’s second largest town. Such displacements present huge challenges, as large pockets of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) remain a continuing source of political friction, violence and insecurity.

Today, one of every two to three African city-dwellers lives in life-threatening conditions. In 1990, some 241 million Africans lived on less than a dollar a day.2 The number of poor is expected to reach 404 million in 2015, or 46 per cent of the population.3 Behind these overall aggregates lies another picture, as while living at the poverty line in an average village is probably bearable, it is hardly acceptable in Dakar, Abuja or Nairobi. Such African cities experience not only slow and erratic economic growth but also regressive change in income distribution, as the poor get poorer and real wages fall, pushing large numbers of urban workers below the poverty line.4

In contrast, in some capital cities, a thin class of urbanites has recently joined the global economy. These new consumers, who sometimes build a “gated community” style of living in cities like Nairobi with shopping malls and safe residential compounds, coexist with the poor living in the gigantic slums of Kibera or Mathare.

The African Scenario

Africa represents 10 per cent of the world’s total population.

There are 40 per cent more slum dwellers in African cities than in an average city worldwide.

Africa is less urbanized than the rest of the world by 13 per cent in 2000; this difference will be 11 per cent in 2015.

African poor represent about a quarter of the world’s poor.

The under-five mortality in the continent is 93 per 1,000—higher than the world average.

Africans live 18 years less than the world average.

The probability of African women surviving to age 65 is 30 per cent less than the world average.

Africans are 36 per cent below the world average in terms of access to sanitation in cities.

Africans living with HIV/AIDS represent 70 per cent of the world population living with the disease.

Africa hosts 27 per cent of the world’s refugees.

The gross domestic product per African inhabitant is less than one fourth of the average world GDP per person.

Source: UN-HABITAT, Urbanization Challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa, 2005

Sub-Saharan Africa is the least populated and urbanized region in the world, with towns and cities hosting less than 40 per cent of the continent’s population. Yet, urbanization is too fast to be handled by the present structure and in the current global economic context.

During the next two decades, around 87 per cent of population growth in the region will happen in urban areas, and an urban transition should be reached around 2030, when dwellers will begin to outnumber rural inhabitants. Nevertheless, urbanization patterns show tremendous differences between countries.

By 2030, while urbanization in the Congo, Gabon, South Africa, Botswana and Mauritania will have reached more than 70 per cent, other countries will still lag behind, with rates equal or below 30 per cent in Burundi, Malawi, Rwanda and Ethiopia.

Africa is growing by 250,000 children every week, but it is in city slums that the population is growing faster as they absorb 190,000 newborn babies and migrants each week. As such, urban slums absorb about three quarters of the cities’ population growth. In 2001, 166.2 million people or 72 per cent of African urban residents were living in slums.5

This shocking figure is accompanied by severe developmental problems illustrated by poor life expectancy, high infant and child mortality, HIV/AIDS prevalence, and illiteracy, particularly where it concerns women and girls. Future demographic prospects will add to the challenges, as in the next 25 years roughly 400 million people will be added to sub-Saharan Africa’s urban population.6 Data show that high urban growth is associated with high slum incidence and that Africa is likely to be the host to an exceptionally large slum population in the years to come. From 1990 to 2001, African urban slum populations increased by about 65 million, at an average annual rate of 4.5 per cent, about 2 per cent more than the total population growth. Based on these estimates, if no effective pro-poor policies are undertaken, urban slum populations are likely to double, on average, every 15 years, while total population doubles every 26 years.

As a result, Africa’s urban slum population should reach 332 million in 2015. This estimate is based on several demographic assumptions that do not take into account the still undetermined impact of HIV/AIDS and man-made disasters on population growth and slum formation. Uncontrolled HIV/AIDS may aggravate population loss, leading to a smaller workforce, higher poverty and further slum growth, with a parallel decreasing population growth in cities. This may mean a higher proportion of slum dwellers in the context of reduced population growth.

Behind these general prospects, the real determining factors of slum formation vary tremendously from one country to another. Also, national aggregates hide specific city-to-city realities and dramatic intra-city differentials, in terms of human development and basic services, in order to be able to truly describe the specific living conditions of different slum communities. For instance, while 11.3 per cent of children in Nairobi slums die before reaching the age of 5, only 0.78 per cent die in non-slum areas. Using this example, under-five mortality and morbidity rates in slum areas equal or exceed those of rural areas.7 HIV/AIDS incidence follows the same pattern as the situation of deprivation in slums, trapping residents into engaging in risky sexual behaviour for economic survival.8

Could African cities and towns become centres of opportunity? Rapid urbanization without economic growth, increase in slums and the lack of critical basic amenities leading to adverse living conditions and unsustainable urbanization call for decisive and effective planning, policies and large-scale investments. Without investment in a region where only 13 per cent of roads are paved and less than 3 per cent of the population have access to a telephone or mobile phone, cities may just remain mega-villages offering no comparative advantages for private investment to pioneer and for production to increase and bring the promises of economic growth and development. Assertive pro-poor policies, sustained by effective and transparent governance in central and local governments involving the communities, should also be the backbone structure for the development of sustainable urban centres.

In the immediate term, rampant poverty must be reduced as it hinders economic growth by limiting the domestic resources available for private investment and public goods. The plan should at the same time integrate the environmental dimension of development in the context of uncontrolled and rapid urban sprawl, with direct consequences for the surrounding hinterlands, bringing about irreversible changes in production and consumption of water and energy, as well as land use. In order to face the challenge of food security—a key to sustainable urbanization—effective rural-urban linkages need to be sustained, and urban agriculture promoted through effective incentives. Hunger remains a significant concern in African towns, cities and slums, particularly in cases of conflicts and natural disasters.

The MDGs are unlikely to be achieved by 2015 in most African countries. Five years after the Millennium Declaration, red flags are raised for Africa, calling for action. Globalization could bring its promises to the continent if the international community takes the urbanization challenge as an urgent global issue, maybe as forcefully as the reformist movements took on similarly challenging situations at the turn of the nineteenth century. Such a challenge in Africa requires more than ever determined slum upgrading, forward-looking pro-poor planning and MDG-focused investments on urban infrastructure and services through consensus-building and conflict resolution.

Notes
1.	Simon, D., Urbanization, globalization and economic crisis in Africa. In: Rakodi, C., ed. The Urban Challenge in Africa: Growth and Management of its Large Cities. Tokyo, United Nations University Press, 1997.
2.	World Bank, World Development Indicators 2003, Population below US$1 per day in 1993 purchasing power parity terms.
3.	Estimates from NEPAD, ECA Conference of Ministries, 1 June 2003.
4.	UNCTAD, Economic Development in Africa. From Adjustment to Poverty Reduction: What's New?, 2002 (UNCTAD/GDS/AFRICA/2)
5.	UN-HABITAT, Global Urban Observatory’s Slum Estimates, 2003.
6.	UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, World Urbanization Prospects: The 2003 Revision, New York.
7.	African Population and Health Research Center, 2002, Population and Health Dynamics in Nairobi's Informal Settlements, Nairobi, Kenya, April 2002.
8.	Eliya Msiyaphazi Zulu, F. Nii-Amoo Dodoo and Alex Chika-Ezeh, Sexual Risk-Taking in the Slums of Nairobi, Kenya, Population Studies, 56 (2002).

Biography

Christine Auclair is an urban policy analyst at the Global Urban Observatory of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) in Nairobi and is Task Manager for the State of the World's Cities Report. The Observatory addresses the urgent need to improve urban knowledge worldwide by helping Governments, local authorities and civil society organizations to develop and apply policy-oriented urban indicators, statistics and other urban information (www.unhabitat.org).

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