Africa’s cities are growing chaotically fast, but there’s still time to get things right – insights from experts

Cities are vital engines of economic growth, innovation and social progress. They shape the futures of nations and the lives of millions.

In Africa, urbanisation is accelerating at an unprecedented pace. Cities are expanding rapidly to accommodate a booming population and a surging demand for jobs, housing and infrastructure. This can make life in many African cities very challenging due to high unemployment rates, limited infrastructure, and issues like housing shortages and inadequate public services.

The good news is that most of Africa’s urbanisation is yet to come, so there is still time to get things right. There’s the opportunity to learn from the successes and challenges faced by cities in other parts of the world.

Over the years we’ve published several articles that offer lessons for Africa’s cities. With this knowledge, African urban centres can build more sustainable, inclusive and resilient spaces that truly meet the needs of their communities.

Urban economist Astrid R.N. Haas writes that Africa is undergoing the fastest urban transition the world has experienced to date. It’s projected that nearly 1 billion more people will live in Africa’s cities by 2050. Earlier, China was in the top spot: between 1978 and 2010, over 700 million people moved to China’s cities.

There are some lessons that African countries can take from China.

As urbanisation progresses, Haas explains, demand for land will rise and therefore so will prices. But the beneficiaries of higher land prices will be property owners, unless there are mechanisms in place to recoup the value. City governments need to try to capture this value, boost revenue and reinvest in public goods and services.

Hong Kong is a prime example of effective land value management. Land revenue has funded high quality public transport, as well as social infrastructure like schools and hospitals.

Hong Kong uses multiple instruments to do this. In this article, Haas unpacks one of these – the land lease system.

Read more:
Raising revenue from land: what African cities might learn from Hong Kong’s unique land-lease system

Cities have historically been the drivers of productivity and engines of economic growth. Astrid R.N. Haas argues, however, that one factor preventing this potential from being unlocked in African cities is how the cities are governed: it matters who makes the decisions and how they do it.

In this article, Haas highlights what it takes to run a city effectively.

First, cities must have institutions with clearly defined mandates. This can be done by creating a single agency responsible for a service or policy decision. In Lagos, Nigeria, for example, an agency was created which coordinates the work of all transport-related entities.

Second, municipal governments need the capacity to implement decisions. For example, in 2013 Baghdad’s deputy mayor created a steering committee to improve the city’s sewerage system. The committee brought together various senior city staff and helped improve the timeliness and overall streamlining of decision making. This contributed towards significant improvements to the city’s sewerage network.

Third, making and implementing decisions requires sufficient legitimacy. This can be done, for instance, through elections, improving public communication or participatory budgeting – a mechanism which creates an established channel for identifying priority projects for people.

Read more:
Getting the right institutions in place to run Africa’s cities efficiently

The need for effective governance is highlighted in this article by urbanisation expert Patricia Jones. She argues that, done right, urbanisation has the potential to raise productivity and living standards across Africa.

Jones writes that successful cities serve two functions: they provide liveable environments for workers and their families; and they provide productive environments for businesses.

To do this, there needs to be a focus on co-ordination and planning.

Read more:
Done right, urbanisation can boost living standards in Africa

One of the challenges to Africa’s cities that needs to be highlighted is unsustainable urbanisation. It creates a situation where infrastructure development and service delivery aren’t keeping pace with the city’s growth, creating an unsafe and unhealthy environment. One approach to dealing with this is through family planning.

Demographer Sunday Adedini explored how family planning policies and urban development programmes in Nigeria were linked between 2000 and 2020. His study found that family planning and urban development actors mostly worked in silos. This was a result of systemic barriers like the lack of a policy framework and support for sectors to work together.

This suggests that there’s a need to integrate family planning and health more effectively into urban and territorial planning. This will contribute to preventing unsustainable urbanisation and urban poverty.

Read more:
Nigeria’s cities are growing fast: family planning must be part of urban development plans

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