The document discusses the complexities and challenges of urbanization in Africa, emphasizing the need for a holistic urban agenda to address urban poverty, governance, and environmental sustainability. It highlights the rapid growth of urban populations and the unique demographic and economic factors at play, arguing that policy responses must improve urban planning, infrastructure, and welfare. Furthermore, it stresses the importance of recognizing the interplay between urban and rural areas, as well as the impact of global environmental changes on African cities.

1. Imperatives for a Holistic
African Urbanisation Agenda
UN Habitat, ‘Take Off’ Conference,
Nairobi, Dec 2013
Prof Susan Parnell
University of Cape Town (Geography and African Centre for Cities)

3. Competing Views on African Urbanisation
Urban bias
Circular migration
Urban growth
Analysis
Cities get too much
attention given that rural
poverty is most extreme
Analysis
Poverty causes people to
move between town and
countryside vs split
livelihoods causes poverty
Analysis
Cities are where the
majority live
Cities offer the best
possibilities for poverty
mitigation, growth &
sustainability
Policy responses:
•Facilitate movement and
split liveihood strategies
Policy responses:
•Improve urban planning
and governance
•Introduce urban welfare
regimes/tax/incentives
•End urban bias and influx
controls
•Build sustainable, resilient
and equitable urban places
Urbanisation without
industrialisation is bad
Policy responses:
• Rural/agricultural
development
•Protect the peasantry
•Equalize rural/urban
service levels
•Prevent urbanisation
•Don’t force the poor to
hold 2 bases

4. Urban growth and
urbanisation will shape the
development challenges of the
21st C
ASSUMPTION: CITIES HAVE TO
DOMINATE THE NEW
DEVELOPMENT AGENDA
•
•
•
Rural poverty will not disappear
Some (circular) migration is inevitable
Cities will grow and become even more important.
CITIES WHERE, INCREASINGLY, THE MAJORITY
OF PEOPLE LIVE, WORK and CONSUME HAVE
BEEN UNDERREPRESENTED IN THE
DEVELOPMENT AGENDA.
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Health
Infrastructure
Climate change
The economy
Social norms
Environmental risk profile
Conflict patterns
Politics
Demographics
Good governance
Post conflict reconstruction

5. Competing, overlapping and
complimentary imperatives for an
African urban agenda
• Demographic – Africa’s urban moment, a unique African
urban trajectory?
• Environment – African cities especially vulnerable?
• Economic –new middle class – the urban dividend?
• Social – urban poverty and food insecurity
• Physical– infrastructure & service needs & opportunities
• Governance – anti-urbanism, weak sub national states &
complex governance

6. Reorienting a development
agenda to accommodate the new
African realities and its urban
future is not as simple as it seems

7. 1. There is no single process of
urbanisation
• Differences
between Africa
and elsewhere
• Differences
within Africa
• Differences
within regions
of a particular
African nations

8. Africa’s population is large (965 million in
2007) and growing fast (3.3%p.a)
Urbanization is the key overall trend
Consensus – the data is poor
and extreme caution is
necessary

9. Rapid growth of small and medium cities
as well as the emergence of mega city
regions requires policy flexibility
Annual growth rate of the world's cities by region and size
(1990 - 2000 around)
5.0%
Figures shown in the graph are
developing regions average.
4.0%
3.00%
3.0%
2.40%
2.49%
2.49%
1.81%
2.0%
1.0%
0.0%
Small cities
Africa
LAC
Intermediate cities
Asia
(China)
(India)
Big cities
Developing regions
Large cities
Developed regions
Total
World total
Note: cities w ith more than 100,000 inhabitants
Source: UN Statistics Division, Demographic Yearbook, UN Population Division, World Urbanization

10. Latin America and the Caribbean
6
5
4
Growth in urban
population share
3
Natural population
growth
2
1
0
1950- 1955- 1960- 1965- 1970- 1975- 1980- 1985- 1990- 1995- 2000- 2005- 2010- 2015- 2020- 2025- 2030- 2035- 2040- 20451955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040 2045 2050
Asia
6
The assumption that urbanisation will
reduce population growth may or may not
not hold across Africa:
The nature of the demographic transition
varies across regions, with natural
population growth a much more
important variable in Africa ….does this
Africa
matter??
6
5
5
3
2
Growth in urban
population share
4
Urban growth rates (%)
4
3
2
Natural population
growth
1
1
19
50
-1
95
19
5
55
-1
96
19
0
60
-1
96
19
5
65
-1
97
19
0
70
-1
97
19
5
75
-1
98
19
0
80
-1
98
19
5
85
-1
99
19
0
90
-1
99
19
5
95
-2
00
20
0
00
-2
00
20
5
05
-2
01
20
0
10
-2
01
20
5
15
-2
02
20
0
20
-2
02
20
5
25
-2
03
20
0
30
-2
03
20
5
35
-2
04
20
0
40
-2
04
20
5
45
-2
05
0
19
50
0
-1
19 95
55 5
-1
19 96
60 0
-1
19 96
65 5
-1
19 97
70 0
-1
19 97
75 5
-1
19 98
80 0
-1
19 98
85 5
-1
19 99
90 0
-1
19 99
95 5
-2
20 00
00 0
-2
20 00
05 5
-2
20 01
10 0
-2
20 01
15 5
-2
20 02
20 0
-2
20 02
25 5
-2
20 03
30 0
-2
20 03
35 5
-2
20 04
40 0
-2
20 04
45 5
-2
05
0
0
Growth in urban
population share
Natural population
growth

11. African fertility rates are high because
…
 Lack of access to
affordable health care
 Lack of education
among women
 No urban jobs, social
safety nets or security
 Patriarchy
 The widespread
commoditization of sex

12. Urban agendas are sensitive to absolute increases in the number
of urban residents & changes in household size

13. 2. Environment: Cities are an integral
part of our FUTURE EARTH
Demography
Climate
change
Migration
Future Earth:
Cities are a hot spot of the interface between climate, demography, the economy, human
consumption of ecosystem service and the built environment - complexity of complexity

14. Every African city depends on its’
ecosystem services

15. Global Environmental Change … key
driver of the new African urban agenda
Natural growth of urban populations is a more significant
driver of vulnerability in Africa than migration
 The impacts of GEC African migration will be felt in
African not globally
 The impacts of GEC migration will be felt in cities not
just the countryside
 GEC challenges cities face are not simply migration
induced

16. Global Environmental Change raises
fundamental questions about the
African settlement system
• Rural focus of climate
adaptation work is
outmoded
• Given where growth is
focused, the national urban
system needs attenton
• Coastal City vulnerabiity
• The protective/adaptive
role of urban planning
• The importance of
upholding urban resource
integrity

17. 3. Cities drive economic growth

18. The global urban profile is shifting fast.
What is the future of urban welfare, given population and
economic growth in cities of the global south?

21. trends
Africa has growing inequality, driven by increasing
wealth and poverty:
Gini coefficient for selected African cities

22. 4. Urban Poverty Rates - SADC
Country
Urban
growth Rate
(%)
Urban
Poverty
(%)
Botswana
6.0
9.0
Lesotho
3.5
46.0
Malawi
6.0
54.0
Mozambique
6.3
62.0
Namibia
4.2
40.0
South Africa
(JHB)
4.1
40.0
Swaziland
5.5
66.0
Zambia
3.6
52.0
Zimbabwe
5.0
70.0

23. The growth of the URBAN poor shifts
the locus of food (in)security
• World Food Summits in 1996 and 2002 (and MDG No 1) made
commitment to reducing no of undernourished people (800
million) by 50% by 2015.
• 2006 Mid-Term Review of Committee on World Food Security
found “progress has been negligible.”
• 2009, following global food price hikes and world economic
crisis, FAO estimates number of food insecure exceeds 1
billion.

24. 77% chronically food insecure
Household Food Security Status for 11 Cities
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
77%
Food secure
Food insecure

25. Health implications of
an urban lifestyle
among Africa’s poor?
• Massive shift in the burden of
disease
• Urbanisation the burden of disease
become more complex
– What people eat, how they exercise
what work they do, what pollutants
they are exposed to
(water, sanitation but also air)
– Age cohorts shift
– Exposure to different risks
• Urbanisation alters what the
environmental determinants of
health are
– Crime, traffic, pollution etc
• Urbanisation shifts the nature of
the health care response and
organisation
• Urbanisation creates new
opportunities for health education

26. 5. Infrastructure & services; urban
crisis or dividend?

27. African cities need effective
public infrastructure: streets

28. Infrastructure demand US$bn in
African cities (Pieterse and Smit, 2014)

29. 5. Governance

30. African Cities have multiple actors
governing & exercising power
Key issues:
No comprehensive
urban tax base
Dual/overlapping land
tenure, zoning, land use
regulation &
enforcement
Lack of transparency and
corruption

31. CONCLUSION
Establishing an
urban agenda
For Africa
is imperative,
But competing
pressures means
it will not be easy
and will need
considerable political
commitment