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Africa facing urbanisation and human settlements challenges

31st October 2014

By: Anine Kilian

Contributing Editor Online

  

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In the next 20 years, it was expected that, in Africa, more people would live in cities and towns than in rural areas, United Nations Habitat executive director Dr Aisa Kirabo Kacyira said at the Human Settlements Indaba that took place earlier this month in Johannesburg.

She noted that Africa’s urban population was growing 1.7 times faster than the global urban population and that the urban growth rate in sub-Saharan Africa was 4% a year, adding that two thirds of the urban growth in Africa would take place in intermediate cities that had fewer than 500 000 inhabitants.

“Nearly 40% of Africa’s population lives in urban areas. This number will double by the time the African continent reaches its urban tipping point. The transition will usher the continent into an era where African urban areas will collectively be home to one-billion people.”

Kacyira commented that growth in African cities was driven by a combination of factors, including high levels of rural–urban migration, natural population increase and growth in commercial agriculture and other sectors, as well as negative events such as conflicts.

The inevitable urban transition in Africa, she said, would place immense strain on affordable urban land and housing provisions in the coming decades and, more importantly, on government financial resources, adding that it would undoubtedly test government capacities and creativity in crafting appropriate responses to the challenges of rapid urbanisation.

“Local and central authorities must, therefore, develop sound policies and strategies if cities are to become real engines of national economic growth with the potential to reduce poverty and enhance quality of life for all,” she pointed out.

Kacyira noted that patterns of urbanisation in Africa were not uniform, adding that Southern and North Africa passed the urban tipping point in the mid-1990s and late 2000s respectively.
“Eastern Africa will not reach the urban transition until at least 2050,” she stated.
There were high levels of urban primacy in countries with a concentration of people and capital, she said. This is often detrimental to the development of other areas in these countries and turns primate cities into self-perpetuating magnates of attraction while further accentuating urban diseconomies of scale.

“In Africa, strong rural-urban ties exist, keeping many people in perpetual motion between urban and rural bases. This functions as an economic and social safety net, allowing for access to constantly shifting economic opportunities and other networks,” she pointed out.
Kacyira mentioned that urban sprawl and unplanned periurban development were also widespread, noting that fragmented, sprawling and unserviced areas were some of the fastest-growing parts of cities.

Also increasingly visible on the continent were new urban configurations with the emergence of regional urbanisation patterns, she added, which included city regions and their associated urban corridors, creating mega urban regions.
She said these regions’ spatial and functional features demanded new urban management methods to ensure consistent areawide governance.

Kacyira said that the full potential of urbanisation on the continent had not yet been fully realised, with African cities continuing to face massive challenges.

Much of the urbanisation in Africa is unplanned and takes place in a chaotic manner, directly contributing to the proliferation of slums and informal settlements.

“The high slum and informal settlement incidence in African cities is representative of an urban divide, underlined by economic, social, cultural and political fragmentation barriers,” she said.
Kacyira added that access to affordable housing was constrained because conventional housing finance in Africa was undeveloped and seldom served low-income households.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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