Africa Region Working Paper Series No. 97

Abstract

This desk review asks how the ongoing processes of urban and local government development in Sub-Saharan Africa can and should benefit the countries, and what conditions are needed to achieve this outcome. The Region is facing close to a doubling of the urban population in 15 years. This urban transition is an opportunity as well as a management challenge. Urban areas are an underutilized resource that concentrate much of the countries’ physical, financial, and intellectual capital. Therefore it is critical to understand how they can better serve the national growth and poverty reduction agendas.

The paper challenges several common “myths” that cloud discourse about urban development in Africa. It finds that urbanization in the region is not excessive or imbalanced relative to the experience of other regions. Internal migration, which is not the main source of urban growth, does not account for urban poverty. Migration appears favorable on balance for sending and receiving areas, and population mobility benefits rural and urban households as many retain a foothold in both areas to spread risks. At the same time, the absolute rate of urban growth creates a major management task, particularly in the secondary cities which tend to be the most under-serviced, as well as in large cities.

Although Africa has been frequently described as featuring a disconnect between urbanization and economic growth, in reality most of the economic growth that has taken place in the past decade derives from mainly urban-based sectors (industry and services), and this is especially true of the better-performing economies. But cities have clearly not lived up to their productive potential because of widespread neglect and bad management. Urban poverty is not mainly a function of urban expansion, nor is it a sign of failure of the urban economies in Africa. There is evidence that much of the deprivation in cities, and the emerging urban public health problems, relate to institutional failures that perpetuate social exclusion and inequalities between the urban poor and the urban non-poor.

Well managed cities and towns support the national development agenda by providing market demand and remittances for the rural economy (implying a virtuous circle); fostering entrepreneurship, economic modernization and diversification; reducing poverty by offering a deeper labor market, higher income earning opportunity, and better access to services; and creating the practical necessity for effective local governance and administration. But the simple concentration of firms and people does not guarantee that agglomeration economies will be realized. Many African firms are not experiencing the market efficiencies, ease of mobility and low transactions costs that better-managed cities could deliver, much to the detriment of the economy and competitiveness. Serious shortcomings in basic urban services, land, housing, and urban transport, and the severe shortage of fiscal resources for local governments mean that urban firms and workers experience prematurely the downside of urban concentration—diseconomies such as high land costs, degraded public areas, threats to public health and emerging crime. Neglect of urban management therefore reduces the benefits and raises the costs of the major private and public investment represented in cities.

Addressing both urban advocates and urban skeptics, this paper takes a hard look at what the urban transition can offer national development, and what support cities and local governments require to achieve these results. It argues that rather than devoting more attention to debating the urban contribution to development in Africa, real energy needs to be spent unblocking it.

Full text of paper (830 KB, In Adobe Acrobat format. Requires Acrobat PDF viewer.)