towards an africa urban agenda

8/20/2019 Towards an Africa Urban Agenda

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TOWARDS AN AFRICA URBAN AGENDA


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TOWARDS AN AFRICA URBAN AGENDA


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TO WA R D S A N A F R I C A U R B A N A G E N D A 03

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSTis publication was undertaken as a complement to the Africa Regional review report of the TirdUnited Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development- Habitat III in supportof the development of an inclusive and sustainable African Urban Agenda.

Tis publication was undertaken as part of the Africa Urban Agenda Programme, an initiative of UN-Habitat. Te report was conceptualized by UN-Habitat and drafted by the African Center for Cities atthe University of Cape own and jointly published by United Nations Human Settlements Programme(UN- Habitat) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).

AUTHORS

Lead Author: Prof. Edgar PieterseContributors: Susan Parnell and Gareth Haysom

UN-HABITAT TECHNICAL TEAM

Mariam Yunusa - Overall CoordinationThomas MelinLucia KiwalaOmoayena Odunbaku

UNECA TECHNICAL TEAM

Takyiwaa ManuhEdlam Abera Yemeru

Semia Solange Guermas de TapiaSandra Zawedde

UN-HABITAT ADMINSTRATIVE SUPPORT TEAM

Wycliffe TongwaFlorence BuneiElizabeth KahwaeEmmanuel Bugoye

ECA ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT TEAM:

Tigist EshetuMeaza Molla

Deborah AbebeAbraham Kassa

PEER REVIEW

Oyebanji Oyeyinka UN-HabitatAlemakef Tassew KebedeAddis Ababa UniversityAloysious Mosha University of BotswanaFirdaous Oussidhoum Africa Institute of Architects (AIA)Jean Pierre Elong Mbasi United Cities and Local

Governments of Africa (UCLG-A)

Rasna Warah Freelance writerShuaib Lwasa Makerere UniversityTaibat Lawanson University of Lagos

DESIGN AND LAYOUT

Andrew Ondoo

FINACIAL SUPPORT

The Federal Government of NigeriaUnited Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA)


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TO WA R D S A N A F R I C A U R B A N A G E N D A04

We aspire that, by 2063, Africa shall be a prosperous continent withthe means and resources to drive its own development, and whereAfrican people have a high standard of living and quality of life, soundhealth and well-being; Well educated citizens and skills revolutionunderpinned by science, technology and innovation for a knowledgesociety; Cities and other settlements are hubs of cultural and economicactivities, with modernized infrastructure, and people have access to allthe basic necessities of life including shelter, water, sanitation, energy,public transport and ICT; Economies are structurally transformed tocreate shared growth, decent jobs and economic opportunities for all… (Agenda 2063 - The Africa We Want)

Lagos, Nigeria. © Shutterstock


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................3

UN-HABITAT FOREWORD.......................................................................................................... 6

UNECA FOREWORD ..................................................................................................................8

01. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................. 10

02. HABITAT AGENDA: TAKING STOCK AND CONSIDERING POTENTIAL ................................... 14

03. AFRICAN URBANISATION: TRENDS AND PROSPECTS ......................................................... 16

Differential Urbanisation Trends in Africa .........................................................................................16Youthful Labour Force intersects with Urbanisation ..........................................................................19Income Poverty and Inequality ......................................................................................................... 21Infrastructural Decits and Demands ............................................................................................... 22Urban Ecosystems and Climate Change ........................................................................................... 24Social Dynamics of Urbanisation ..................................................................................................... 25

04. WHAT DOES SUSTAINABLE URBAN DEVELOPMENT MEAN FOR AFRICA? ........................... 28

05. CONCEPTUAL FRAME: SUSTAINABLE URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA ........................... 30

Macro Development Frame (Global, Continental & National) ............................................................30From Macro to Urban ...................................................................................................................... 33Urban Service Delivery Strategies and Investment Portfolios ...........................................................35

06. INSTITUTIONAL ARCHITECTURE TO OPTIMISE AFRICA’S URBAN FUTURE ..........................38

National Urban Policy ..................................................................................................................... 39Legislative Reform Agenda .............................................................................................................. 41Decentralisation Support Programme ..............................................................................................41Research and Development System to Underpin Urban Innovation ...................................................44Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning system ....................................................................................44

07. NEXT STEPS ........................................................................................................................47

08. CONCLUSION .....................................................................................................................48

REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................49

TABLE OF CONTENTS


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Africa is now at an impressivestage of transformation witnessing rapid wealthgeneration. Tis is manifestedin the high growth of GDPin many countries and linkedto the signicant growth inurbanization that goes hand inhand. While Africa is still the

least urbanized continent, its urbanization rates are higherthan anywhere else in the world. Tese parallel evolutions– the growth of GDP and growth of urbanization – presenta unique opportunity to review the African urban growthpattern so that over the next three to ve decades, urbanizationcan be properly guided as a driver of sustainable development.Te alternative to planned urbanization is a chaotic evolutionof towns and cities that will be a hindrance to prosperity andsocial integration. In the last two decades, there has been agrowing professional consensus on the role of sustainableurbanization as a tool for development. Studies and ndingsfrom Economic Geography from the 1990s provide consistentscientic evidence of this correlation (World Bank, 2009).

Te nature of Africa ’ s economic growth till date has beenmostly based on the primary sector of the economy (extractiveindustries and agriculture). Te expected next step ofsubstantive development will be a progressive shift towardsmore productive sectors of the economy, mainly industrialmanufacturing (secondary sector) and services (tertiary sector).Te main vehicle for this sectoral transition is urbanization

which changes the structural compositions of all sizes of cities,

from the large cities to the rural villages. When this transitionis properly managed it tends to yield the expected development

outcomes such as productivity increases, rising employmentand income resulting from skilled activities in industry andservices, yielding increased prosperity and higher quality oflife. Te capacity of urbanization to generate wealth is greatlydetermined by the quality of its design, stemming from thefact that urbanization is a social and community endeavor.

Although Africa currently faces urban challenges, it has, moreimportantly, an immense opportunity of directing urbanizationtowards a model inducive to prosperity, employment and social well-being. Tere have been examples of huge urbanizationprocesses, as illustrated with the case of China, where the roleof urbanization in fostering development has been clearlydemonstrated. However, the Chinese model has not beenable to effectively address the environmental dimensions of

urbanization.Te objective of the United Nations, stated inthe Sustainable Development Goals, especially Goal 11– tomake cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilientand sustainable – advocates for a balance between the threepillars of sustainable development; economic, social andenvironmental, towards a prosperous society.

In today ’ s African reality where there is a still much

development needed, the role of efficient urbanization asa tool for development holds unprecedented potential. Inmost of the analysis of African development there is a lackof in-depth attention to the role of urbanization as a tool foreconomic growth. Most of the analysis focus on the ailmentsof urbanization but not on transforming urbanization intoa tool for a successful development strategy. Tis one-sidedapproach has promoted ad hoc and partial interventions in

detriment of a strategic vision that will increase the advantagesof urbanization.

UN-HABITAT FOREWORD


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o foster a more sustainable urbanization model in Africa,

some changes of approach are required. At nationalgovernment level, there is a need to clearly state the rules of thegame country-wide in order to mobilize society, stakeholders,the private sector and foreign investment in the process. ANational Urban Policy can be a good tool for framing thedebate, and build consensus and strategies that can delivera level playing eld to unleash the opportunities presentedby urbanization. At the local level, there is a need to focus

the strategic interventions in a pragmatic manner in orderto address the local specicities on rules and regulations,urban design and nancial design conducive to planned cityextensions and other tools that can yield the expected wealthderived from planned urbanization.

Te urban transformation that UN-Habitat foresees for Africademands in depth consideration of its legal framework, itsurban design and its nancial plan. In some countries, theremay be no need for more legislation but for existing legislationto be consistently applied. Special attention is required inurban planning because the current analysis of urbanizationshows an insufficient allocation of land for common spacesand services, severely undermining the economic value ofbuildable plots and contributing to the continent-wide issue ofurban congestion. Equally important is the need to focus onthe nancial design as in general, the value that urbanizationgenerates is not currently shared sufficiently to offset its cost.

Tese fundamental pillars of urbanization, known asthe three-pronged approach, are usually determinedat the national level. Tat is why a renewed role ofcentral government in this process, together with theconsistent empowerment of local authorities, is proposed.In this process, Africa owes debts of gratitude to the excellent

efforts of African Ministers in charge of Housing and Urban

Development over the past decades. Tey have articulateda shared view towards Habitat III, through the sessions ofthe African Ministerial Conference of Housing and UrbanDevelopment and in other fora, integrating productiveurbanization within the core pillars of Agenda 2063, for

Africa’s structural transformation.

In this context, UN-Habitat is actively supporting the Africa

Urban Agenda Programme in close cooperation with MemberStates. Tis cooperation has sought to coordinate urban actorsin Africa and support systematic urban policy formulation,advocacy, and implementation and monitoring leading upto Habitat III in 2016. I commend the process of citizens’participation that many African countries are engagingin, through National Urban Forums, National HabitatCommittees and preparation of National Habitat III Reports,

which, in both bottom-up and top-down processes, seeksto deepen the ownership of the transformative and people-centered Africa Urban Agenda.

UN-Habitat’s partnership with UNECA to link theseprocesses with the macro-economic planning and feed theminto regional integration is much commended and give all ofus much hope and energy for Africa’s urban transformation.

Joan Clos Under-Secretary-General and Executive DirectorUnited Nations Human Settlements Programme(UN-Habitat)


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As Africa’s urbanpopulation almost doublesin the next two decades,the imperative of steeringand guiding the growthprocess – through nationalplanning - becomes apriority. Africa’s rapidurbanization presentsan unprecedentedopportunity to accelerate

the region’s transformation to respond to developmentchallenges. Africa needs a transformative agenda thatentails substantial changes in the sectoral compositionof its GDP including a shift of productive activitiesfrom primary to secondary sectors, particularly industryand manufacturing, as well as a change in the spatialdistribution of economic activities from rural to urbanareas. Tis is essential given concerns about the qualityand sustainability of the region’s impressive economicgrowth rate in recent years despite the optimism aboutfuture prospects.

Urbanization is a decisive determinant of Africa’s abilityto realize its vision of transformation. Te dynamism

which African cities are exhibiting today with respect tohigher value creation, increasing productivity, fostering

innovation, and optimizing infrastructure investment,provides an important lever for change. ECA has thusreinvigorated its work on urbanization to help seize thisunique combination of opportunities.

As decision-makers recognize urbanization as inevitableand appreciate its implications, they will cushionits impact and harness its benets. Te narrative onurbanization in Africa must move away from a negativeto a more positive tone. It is urgent to improve thelivability and increase productivity of cities. While

Africa’s urban population growth is a powerful asset fordevelopment, this can only be realized when cities areproperly planned and adequately serviced.

Unfortunately, few African countries have adequatelyfactored the challenges and opportunities of sustainableurbanization in their national development planning.

Although urbanization has the potential to makeeconomies and people more prosperous, most Africancountries have found themselves grossly unprepared inthe face of the spatial, demographic, social, cultural,economic and environmental challenges associated with

urbanization. If the potential to harness urbanizationis not “captured” by forward-looking policymakers within the next several years, the continent may witnessintractable obstacles to its vision.

UNECA FOREWORD


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Setting the agenda right is just the obvious rst step.Much more is needed if implementation of goodideas are to take center stage. I am convinced theyouthfulness, creativity and innovation associated withcities are essential assets for the industrialization drivemost African countries envision. As latecomers, Africancountries have one unique factor over others: they canlearn from previous mistakes. And, in so doing, lead the

way for the urban landscape.

Carlos LopesUnder-Secretary-General and Executive SecretaryUnited Nations Economic Commission for Africa(UNECA)


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INTRODUCTIONTe next two years provide an unprecedentedopportunity for member states of the United Nationsand their populations to shape the urban future ofthe 21st Century. Every country, every member ofcivil society and the private sector, along with theirgovernments, is expected to engage vigorously on thestate of urbanisation in their country, determining whatneeds to be done to achieve transformative outcomesover the next 20 years.

Tis report is a resource for African citizens andgovernments as they utilise the opportunity that theHabitat III process opens up. More specically, the

report aims to strengthen Habitat Agenda Partners andother non-state actors in Sub-Saharan Africa in theirpolicy dialogues and capacity-building processes. Tereport is designed to inform and enrich national levelengagements across sub-Saharan Africa on advancingthe urban agenda.

Te report puts the agenda of Habitat III in the contextof the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) due tobe nalised in September 2015; the Conference of theParties, signatory to the UN Framework Conventionon Climate Change (COP) 1 scheduled for Paris inDecember 2015 and the AfriCities Summit 7, plannedfor 29 November- 3 December 2015. Te contemporarypolitical moment is further contextualised in terms ofthe lineage of ideas and policies that stem from HabitatI in 1976 and Habitat II in 1996.

Shaping all of these debates is the broader African-driven process of the African Union to formulate anendogenous growth trajectory towards 2063. Tespirit of pan-Africanism, cultural pride and politicaldetermination called upon by the African Union servesas a touchstone for this report.

Te Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) frameworkis striving to extend the work of the MillenniumDevelopment Goals to eliminate extreme poverty andcreate a development framework that can see moreinclusive and sustainable patterns of growth.2

Te SDG discussion is novel in that it explicitlyconfronts the fact that the current model ofextractive growth violates the limits of the naturalresource base of the Earth and therefore requires ‘aradical shift towards more sustainable patterns ofconsumption and production and resource use.3 It also recognises that poverty cannot be disconnectedfrom inequality, which speaks to inequitable accessto power and resources globally, regionally, withincountries, within settlements and within households if

we consider patriarchal gender relations.

Te post-2015 focus on natural resource limits is alsoconfronted through the debate on climate change, whichreaches an important milestone at the Paris COP (21).Since the Kyoto Protocol has expired, a binding deal oncarbon emission cuts to stay within a range of 2 degrees

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warming has yet to be completed. Optimists are lookingto the dissuasions in Paris to deliver a universally-applicable agreement that will be legally binding. Withthe growing awareness that cities are central to the overallglobal effort to address climate variability through the

work of the C40 and ICLEI, among many others, theParis conference is expected to reaffirm the importanceof urban management in this agenda.4

Te implications of these multilateral processesare profound, especially for Africans. For the rsttime since the heyday of industrial modernisationafter the Second World War, there is near-universalacknowledgement that the current model of economicgrowth is untenable. A new pathway has to be foundthat is more environmentally sustainable, socially just

and economically inclusive.Since Africa has undoubtedly been the worst victim ofunjust global economic rules and dynamics, rooted in thecolonial project of exploitation and political subjugation

with profound cumulative effects of maldevelopment, itis impossible to overstate just how signicant the currentmoment of development rethinking is. We are on theedge of a paradigm change in mainstream developmentthinking and practice, which is potentially goodnews for Africa in general and its cities in particular.5 Te movement towards a shared African perspective on

these global debates is vital and this was reected in theelaboration of the Common African Position (CAP) onthe post-2015 Development Agenda in January 2014.6

o illustrate the potential for paradigm change,Te Report of the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons onthe Post-2015 Development Agenda frames the currentconjuncture boldly:

Nairobi, Kenya. © UN-Habitat


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It is anticipated that this will be addressed throughthe Sustainable Development Goals. It is also for this

reason that there has been a massive global campaign9

for an urban Goal over the past two years becauseeffective urban management is seen as the linchpin foran agenda that brings the environment and developmenttogether.10

Equally signicant is that the philosophical basisof development advocated by the Goals is socially,economically and environmentally integrated – a

perspective that is imperative to action at the city scale where the complex challenges of development meet andare concentrated. Tere is thus in the Goals and post-2015 processes not only a commitment to addressingthe sub-national scale, but to doing so holistically.

It is with this global opportunity in mind that the African Union’s Africa 2063 vision and campaign isgaining traction. Te 2063 vision is focussed on:

• A prosperous Africa based on inclusive growth andsustainable development

• An integrated continent, politically united and basedon the ideals of Pan-Africanism and the vision of

Africa’s Renaissance

• An Africa of good governance, democracy, respect forhuman rights, justice and the rule of law

• A peaceful and secure Africa

• An Africa with a strong cultural identity, commonheritage, values and ethics

• An Africa where development is people-driven,unleashing the potential of its women Youth Africaas a strong, united and inuential global player andpartner11

Te task now is to position this African thinking inglobal debates and forums, such as Habitat III, wherebinding commitments will be made by all nations. In thisregard, African countries must prioritise the importance

A new development agenda should carry forward the spirit ofthe Millennium Declaration and the best of the MDGs, with apractical focus on things like poverty, hunger, water, sanitation,education and healthcare. But to full our vision of promotingsustainable development, we must go beyond the MDGs. They

did not focus enough on reaching the very poorest and mostexcluded people. They were silent on the devastating effects ofconict and violence on development. The importance to devel-opment of good governance and institutions that guarantee therule of law, free speech and open and accountable governmentwas not included, nor the need for inclusive growth to provide

jobs.7

Most seriously, the MDGs fell short by not integrating theeconomic, social, and environmental aspects of sustainable

development as envisaged in the Millennium Declaration, andby not addressing the need to promote sustainable patterns ofconsumption and production. The result was that environmentand development were never properly brought together.8


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of creating the enabling conditions for a structuraleconomic shift from an agricultural or resource-based economy towards signicant improvement inmanufacturing and processing of agricultural products,and gradual movement to a more knowledge-intensive,services and manufacturing structure.12

Africa’s preparations for Habitat III, the rst of thenew cycle of UN post-2015 agreements, provides anexcellent opportunity to project ideas on how vibrant,inclusive and sustainable cities and towns can unlockthe continent’s potential. First, it is important toconsider what the Habitat Agenda involves and whatthe specicities of the African urban condition are. Byconsidering material conditions on the ground, future

trends and normative imperatives for sustainable urbandevelopment, the specic priorities of an African Urban

Agenda will be claried for analysis, debate and commonaction.

Praia City, Cabo Verde. © UN-Habitat


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Te September 2014 General Assembly of the UnitedNations in New York affirmed that cities shouldbe proled more explicitly in global developmentpriorities, endorsing a dedicated urban SustainableDevelopment Goal that commits the world to ‘makecities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilientand sustainable’ for ratication in September 2015.13 For the organisers of Habitat III, the likelihood of a

stand alone urban Goal (henceforth Goal 11) createsboth opportunities and constraints as there is an obvious

imperative to align the emphasis of the high-levelagreements not only in a single urban goal, but also incommon targets and indicators.

Some hope that Habitat III, being billed as a ‘NewUrban Agenda’, will build on Goal 11 and provide therst truly global urban paradigm and not just dene themeans of implementation of a few specied targets andindicators.14

HABITAT AGENDA: TAKING STOCK ANDCONSIDERING POTENTIAL02

Lagos, Nigeria. © UN-Habitat


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If we are to achieve the African Union’s 2063 vision, it would be a mistake to think that securing the stand aloneurban Goal is enough and that Habitat III will havedone its job if it simply affirms a general commitmentto cities as sites of sustainable development. Rather,the challenge for 2016 is to set out an appropriateresponse to the African urban vortex, acknowledgingthe centrality of cities as urban pathways of national andglobal development. Tere is ample opportunity in theframing of the Habitat III agenda for African delegatesto play a leading role in doing that.

UN-Habitat has laid out the following objectives forHabitat III:

• Undertake a critical review of the implementation ofthe Habitat Agenda

• Identify constraints to the implementation of thegoals and objectives

• Develop a shared perspective on human settlementsand sustainable urban development

• ackle new challenges and opportunities that haveemerged since Habitat II

• Outline a new development agenda to achieveinclusive, people-centred and sustainable urbandevelopment

• Engender a collective agreement on the role thatsustainable urbanization can play to supportsustainable development15

Habitat III’s core task then is to deal with the issueof global leadership on cities, setting out a normativebase, highlighting priority interventions that will shiftthe urban trajectory, provide a reporting structure thatincentivizes good collective urban practices for currentand future generations and addresses the imperativeof securing adequate nancing and support for poorcountries who face the biggest urban challenges. It isup to individual stakeholder organizations, nationstates and regional deliberations to provide the detailedevidence and experience on which the New Urban

Agenda will rest.16

For African members, Habitat III offers the scope torene further the commitments to participation that

was agreed at Habitat I, and to slum eradication that wasthe consensus emerging from Habitat II. Habitat III hasthree new areas of focus for debate: substantive politicaland scal decentralization; holistic land-use policies(both inter-urban and intra-urban) linked to effectiveplanning systems and integrated human settlementsstrategies that involve working with the poor to achievethe realization of housing and service rights. African

imperatives on these issues to be taken up in the NewUrban Agenda have a particular history and prole.Positioning the continent in the global deliberationseffectively rests on deep knowledge about urban changeand wisdom that bring to the foreground the politicalimportance of urban-rural linkages, the deep poverty ofmany in African cities and the aspirations of the youthon the continent.


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No development policy cycle will impact Africa moredirectly than this one. Te clock is ticking and the nexttwo to three decades will dene the urban transitionon the continent, not least because of the massive

expansion in the number of people living in these cities. Africa and Asia are the two most populous world regionsand the least urbanised. Te latest World UrbanizationProspects reports that: ‘the most urbanized regionsinclude Northern America (82 per cent living in urbanareas in 2014), Latin America and the Caribbean (80per cent), and Europe (73 per cent). In contrast, Africaand Asia remain mostly rural, with 40 and 48 per cent

of their respective populations living in urban areas. Allregions are expected to urbanize further over the comingdecades but Africa and Asia are urbanizing fasterthan the other regions and are projected to become56 and 64 per cent urban, respectively, by 2050.17 Asia is expected to be predominantly urban by the mid-2020s and Africa by circa 2035.

Differential UrbanisationTrends in Africa

While it is important for Africa to speak coherently toposition its view in the global debate on the new urbanagenda, we should be weary of overgeneralisation.Te number of Africa’s urban dwellers is projected toincrease from 471 million (40 per cent) in 2015 to

1.33 billion in 2050 and Africa is projected to passthe 50 per cent urban tipping point around 2035. 18

Tere is of course tremendous variation across Africa.Figure 2 segments Africa by region and depicts the levelof urbanisation by country. Northern and Southern

Africa are both relatively urbanised, with West andEast Africa on the other end of the spectrum. Tis isimportant because the bulk of population growth in

Africa will be concentrated in these two regions, whichare also the poorest in terms of GDP/capita.19

AFRICAN URBANISATION: TRENDS AND PROSPECTS03

Accra, Ghana. © Shutterstock


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FIGURE 1 : ACTUAL AND PROJECTED DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGES IN AFRICA, 1950-2050 20

T O T A L P O P .

1

P O P

U L A T I

O N

( I N B I L L I

O N

S )

2

3

1 9 5 0 1 9 60 1 97 0 1 9 80 1 9 90 2 0 00 2 0 1 0

R U R A L

U R B A N

2 02 0 2 03 0 2 0 40 2 0 5 0

50P E R C E N T

56P E R C E N T

U R B A N

U R B A N

Figure 1 puts the current level of urbanisation in ahundred year context, ranging from 1950 and projectedto 2050. Tese trend lines obscure the importance ofregional and country variance and should thereforebe considered in relation to the disaggregated data inFigure 2 below.

In addition to appreciating the enormous variety inlevels and rates of urbanisation across the continent, it isalso important to appreciate the phenomenon of urban

primacy coupled with small-scale urbanisation. Mostsub-Saharan African countries are characterised by alop-sided urban system. Te traditional colonial capitalcity tends to be large and dominant in the nationalpolitical economy, followed by much smaller citiesand a large array of town-like urban areas (sometimescalled peri-urban settlements). For example, the UnitedNations data suggest that in 2015, 9.2 per cent of theurban population reside in mega cities with populationsexceeding 10 million, compared to 5.3 per cent in cities

20 United Nations (2014) World Urbanization Prospects. The 2014 Revision. New York: The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

Source: United Nations, 2014


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FIGURE 2 : PERCENTAGE URBAN POPULATION PER COUNTRY ACROSS AFRICAN REGIONS 21

between 5-10 million; 22.5 per cent in 1-5 millioncities; 8.4 per cent in 0.5-1 million; 7.3 per cent in 300000 – 500 000 cities and, most signicantly, 47.3 percent in cities smaller than 300 000 inhabitants.

In light of this, it is may be prudent to prioritise researchand policy that gives a better handle on how best tounderstand the overall urban system, namely the linksbetween town and country, between small and large

cities and the insertion of African cities into globaleconomic and resource networks. Tere is also a needfor much greater clarity on how to manage cities with1-5 million people and, even more crucially, how toaddress the majority urban condition of Africa, whichis towns with fewer that 300,000 inhabitants. Figure3 provides a graphic illustration of the distribution ofsettlements by size.

21 This gure is primarily based on: African Economic Outlook, Demographic Statistics, 2014 - http://www.africaneconomicoutlook.org/statistics/; andUN-Habitat (2014). State of African Cities Report. Nairobi: UN-Habitat, p. 266.

Source: African Economic Outlook, Demographic Statistics, 2014 and UN-Habitat, 2014


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Youthful Labour Force intersectswith Urbanisation

Africa’s population will continue to grow until theend of this century whereas Asia will peak in about50 years and most other continents have alreadyplateaued. Tis demographic picture points to thefact that Africa, even now, has a youthful populationand it is forecast that the continent will experience

a demographic dividend over the next 40 years.23

According to the African Development Bank, 50 percent of Africa’s population are presently younger than19 years of age.24

One of the distinctive features of Africa is that thevast majority of the labour force (population between15-64) is trapped in vulnerable employment.25 Only 28 per cent of the labour force is in stable wage

earning jobs contrasted with 63 per cent in vulnerable

occupation. Furthermore, McKinsey Global Institute

FIGURE 3: AFRICAN URBAN DISTRIBUTION IN PERCENTAGE BY SETTLEMENT SIZE 22

2015 2020 2025 2030

0.0

12.5

25.0

37.5

50.0

10 million

1-50 million

1-5 million > 300 thousand

300 - 500 thousand

22 United Nations (2014) World U rbanization Prospects. The 2014 Revision. New York: The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

Source: United Nations, 2014


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points out that between 2000-2010, when Africaexperienced exceptionally robust GDP growth rates,the proportion of the labour force in vulnerableemployment dropped by only 2 per cent, suggestinga worrying disconnect between economic growth andformal employment creation.26

Tis is a profound problem in light of the fact that Africa’s labour force will treble between 2000-2050:

rising from 400m to 1.2bn, according to the African

Development Bank (2011). Put directly, how will all ofthe new entrants into the labour market be absorbedinto stable jobs if the current economic growth path isnot radically altered? Put differently, how can the Agenda2063 goal of inclusive growth, where the potential ofyoung people are unleashed, be realized if vulnerableemployment continues to be the norm in the Africancity?

FIGURE 4: INCOME DISTRIBUTION ACROSS CLASS LINES IN AFRICA 27

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

Poor Floating Lower-Middle Upper-Middle Rich

Population

Income

27 The middle of the py ramid: Dynamics of the middle class in Afric a. Market Brief, April 2011. Chief Economic Complex, A frican Development Bank

Source: African Development Bank (AfDB), 2011.


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Income Poverty and Inequality A closely-related trend to large-scale vulnerableemployment is the scale of income poverty in Africa.Figure 4 reects that 81.7 per cent of Africans live onless than USD4 per day, with 60.8 per cent falling belowthe USD2 per day mark. For residents of cities, whereeven the most basic needs like water and shelter mustbe paid for in cash, income poverty is a major concern.

High costs of informal service provision and the absenceof social safety nets expose low income urban householdsto particular risk.

If one does not have a stable or decent income, it isnear impossible to have a decent quality of life andenjoy formal housing because the routine reproductivecosts associated with (sub)urban living and consumer

28 Data is derived from a 2012 UN-Habitat Powerpoint presentation in possession of the authors.

Source: UN-Habitat, 2012

FIGURE 5: SLUM INCIDENCE BY REGION IN DEVELOPING WORLD 28


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good markets are unaffordable. In light of the scale ofvulnerable employment and income poverty, it is notthat surprising that, according to UN-Habitat, 61.7 percent of urban Africans live in slums. Tis is much higherthan the second-highest incidence of slum prevalence,

which is South Asia at 45 per cent. Figure 5 puts thesub-Sahara Africa slum prevalence in global context.

Tere is a vicious cycle between poor living conditions,limited access to education and lack of decent health,obtaining decent work and surviving in the margins ofsociety. Tis seems to be the dominant prospect for thehundreds of millions of young people who will enterthe labour force over the next few decades, apart fromthe 61 per cent (273 million) already trapped in slumliving. Unless the proposed paradigm shift argued for inthe African Union’sCommon African Position on the post-

2015 Development Agenda is substantially advanced, it islikely that the visionary goals Agenda 2063 will not beachieved.

Infrastructural Decits andDemandsEconomic growth in Africa has been showing promising

signs over the past decade even when the global economy went into recession after the 2008 nancial crisis.29 However, most economists point out that the extremelylimited infrastructural footprint presents a bindingconstraint to continued and high growth. Most acute isthe energy decit, but this is reinforced by shortfalls inmobility infrastructures, water systems, IC cabling andso on. Again, comparative data demonstrates that the

degree of infrastructure decits is exceptional in Africa.In the Figure 6 there is a useful distinction between lessindustrial versus middle-income countries, which allowsone to account for countries like Zambia and South

Africa and compare like with like.

Abidjan, Ivory Coast. © Shutterstock

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30 In 2011, the World Bank classied countries by income groups as follows: low income, USD1,025 or less; lower middle income, USD1,026 - USD4,035; upper middle income,USD4,036 - USD12,475; and high income, USD12,476 or more.

31

AfDB [African Development Bank] (2013) An Integrated Approach to Infrastructure Provision in Africa. Tunis: AfDB.Source: AfDB, 2013

Note: Road density is measured in kilometres per 100 square kilometres of arable land; telephone density in lines per thousand population; generation capacity in megawatts per million population and electricity, water, and sanitation coverage in percentage of population.

FIGURE 6: INFRASTRUCTURE ENDOWMENTS FOR AFRICAN LICS/MICS 30

COMPARED TO OTHER GLOBAL REGIONS 31

700

600

500

400

300

200

100

0

Paved-road density

Africa Others Africa Others

LICs MICs

Mobile density

Electricity coverage

Total road density

Internet density

Improved water

Fixed-line density

Power generation capacity

Improved sanitation



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What sets Africa apart is that the relatively small size of

national economies, restricted middle class and limitedtax base - this thin economic base and weak associatedscal and land regulatory regimes make its cities agenerally less attractive proposition for internationalinfrastructure investors. Tis is compounded by the factthat the infrastructure nancing opportunities in other

world regions are much larger than Africa’s needs.32 In other words, infrastructure capital has options for

where to invest, especially since mature OECD marketsare now in need of massive infrastructure replacementsand retrots to meet more stringent environmentalstandards.

Te general decit in infrastructure capacity, combined with acute nancing challenges create a situation in which there is tremendous pressure on the existinginfrastructure investment budgets in terms of whoand what it will prioritise and service. Private sectorplayers are increasingly international actors who canpromise major economic investments such as ports,airports, trunk roads and office blocks and they gainaccess to political decision makers and tend to get tothe front of the development approval queue. Tesead hoc, often physically and institutionally ringfencedforms of development, impact negatively on resourcesto address large-scale slum living conditions and as theurban population grows, the needs and nancing gapsget ever larger. It is against these trends that the soberingconclusion of the World Bank research should beconsidered: ‘…affordability may be a barrier to furtherexpansion of access. Most African households live onvery modest budgets and spend more than half of theirresources on food. Te average African household has

a budget of no more than USD180 per month; urban

households are only about USD100 per month betteroff than rural households,33 but urbanites typically haveto pay cash for all their basic needs, including food.

Tis nding reminds us that, not only is thereinsufficient investment in infrastructure to sustaineconomic productive capacity and growth, but even ifthe available pot was equitably shared between middle-class imperatives and ensuring access to basic services forthe poor, there is little prospect of the latter happeningdue to such low rates of return on investment in narroweconomic terms. As long as we will see GDP/capita levelsbelow the USD2000 mark, coupled with high incomeinequality, we can be sure that the vast majority of urban

African people cannot be serviced through conventionalinfrastructure investment approaches. Most Africancountries will have to gure out a different approachto ensure that the basic needs of their citizens are met

whilst creating the infrastructural platforms for growth. An important part of this equation is the unforeseeableimpacts of climate variability and numerous otherenvironmental threats.

Urban Ecosystems and

Climate ChangeIn many African cities, inequality is not simply drivenby income or employment. Inequality is exacerbatedby factors such as unequal access to robust or safeinfrastructure and natural resources. For many residentsof small towns who depend on the integrity of untreated

water, urban expansion without signicant improvementin ecosystem management poses a threat to life and



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well-being. Across Africa, cities with weak land use andtraffic regulation and under-capacitated natural resourcemanagement put poor urban populations at risk, not justto major events associated with climate change but alsoeveryday exposures to air, water and soil pollutants.34

Due in part to Africa’s resource curse35 access to,and the benets derived from, its resources oftenperpetuate inequality. For Africa, the nexus betweenthe environmental crisis, the global economy and thesecond urbanisation wave36 exacerbate the exposure of all

Africans to environmental risks associated with resourceextraction and depletion as raw materials are exportedfor urban consumption elsewhere. African cities are notsimply the recipients of global environmental change andrisk but depending on how they are mismanaged theycan also generate ecosystem instability and degradation.

A key threat to urban resilience is sprawl and uncheckedland use cover change that ignores known and predictedhazards and/or encroaches on sensitive areas. Figure7 shows that, although there are signicant protectedareas, there are urban hot spots especially in sensitivelakeside, riverine and coastal areas that will have theirecological integrity decimated by the growth of largecities over the next two decades.

Social Dynamics of UrbanisationIntensifying informalisation, slum living and dividedcities constitute a recipe for social conict, especiallyas the increasingly youthful population increase theirexpectations through globalised consumer cultures andsocial media.38 Most African urban areas are lacking

in effective and democratic urban governance andmanagement. One of the drivers of this is the limitedimplementation of national decentralisation programmesand ambiguity over the urban responsibilities of centraland local governments. Te gap in accountability insettlement management is further complicated byhybrid and overlapping governance systems, reectedmost acutely in land-use and tenure arrangements.39

Put differently, in the absence of cadastres that canrender land-use transparent and predictable, a pluralityof informal power dynamics have emerged in Africancities that determine how land is used, serviced (ornot), rented out, proted from and made availablefor coherent and systematic planning and regulation.Informal land and service-based power dynamics knittogether elected politicians in loose coalitions with localstrong men who rely on force, traditional authoritystatus or dominance of political parties to exert control.In the absence of strong local democratic associations itis almost impossible to break the power of these de factoproperty and commodity maas.

It is difficult to unravel and reform these practicessince land use in particular has been subjected to

such dynamics of elite control over decades. Tere areoften vested interests that operate beyond democraticrequirements for accountability and transparency.Governance reform is lagging far behind the ideals ofdemocratic decentralisation as codied in the Habitat

Agenda of 1996, the African Charter on the Valuesand Principles of Decentralisation, Local Governanceand Local Development, or the aspirations of Agenda



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FIGURE 7: PROJECTED LAND USE COVER CHANGE RELATIVE TO PROTECTED AREAS 37

37 Derived from: Pieterse, E. (2011) Recasting urban sustainability in the South, Development, 54(3): 309-316.

Source: Seto, Gunerap, Parnell and Luasa, in press



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2063 as noted above. Linkages between corrupted andunregulated land regulation and formal tax collectioncapacity also erode opportunities for public interestvalue capture and can preclude the generation of localcapital to address the urban problems already identied.

A number of recent studies underscore that there istremendous potential to use well-crafted regulationsto connect land value appreciation and infrastructureinvestment to generate new revenue sources to nanceurban investments.40

Te ipside of weak governance is often disempoweredcivil society interests. Most African cities are endowed withdense social systems, especially since most householdsneed to insert themselves into multiple networks andsocial settings to gain strategic information to stay in the

‘game’ of survival and expansion of livelihood options.41 However, these institutions tend to stand apartfrom formal political institutions or overt politicalmobilisation because of the potential costs involved.Practically, this means that the incredibly rich seamof social capital does not get mobilised for effectivedemocratic urban governance and management.

In summary, extraordinarily high levels of poverty andsystemic neglect mark African urban areas. Into thisbreach, urban households invest an inordinate amountof time, energy and resources to activate informal systemsof service provision to meet their daily needs.42 Due tothe predominance of informal economic life, combined

with thin local institutional systems, the tax base forurban investment is wholly inadequate to meet the vast

needs of these territories. National governments perceivethese conditions as justication for continued nationalcontrol and management of urban areas, especiallystrategic nodes such as capital cities or strategically-located secondary cities. Te net effect is that there is nocoherent strategy or investment programme to addressurban management imperatives across the diverse needsof the national settlement/urban system.

Rabat, Morocco. © Philip Lange/Shutterstock


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Tis governance failure, is not as yet, seen as a majorpolitical concern or risk. o date, little has happened topolitical elites if urban areas continue to underperformor fail their citizens. Disease outbreaks such as Ebola,

social unrest, and or rising terror threats may shift thecurrent middle-class disregard for the public good in African cities.

Te menu of urban policy reforms adopted by allgovernments present in Istanbul at Habitat II in 1996 toachieve sustainable urban development was summarisedin the Habitat Agenda Declaration:

We, the Heads of State or Government […] takethis opportunity to endorse the universal goals ofensuring adequate shelter for all and making humansettlements safer, healthier and more liveable,equitable, sustainable and productive. […] Weshall intensify our efforts to eradicate poverty anddiscrimination, to promote and protect all humanrights and fundamental freedoms for all, and to

provide for basic needs, such as education, nutritionand life-span health care services, and, especially,adequate shelter for all. o this end, we commitourselves to improving the living conditions inhuman settlements in ways that are consonant withlocal needs and realities, and we acknowledge theneed to address the global, economic, social andenvironmental trends to ensure the creation of better

living environments for all people.

In this carefully-worded formulation, attention is beingpaid to the importance of local solutions for localproblems but the reality is that many of the driversthat shape unsustainable patterns of urbanisation

go well beyond the local and national content andinto the international systems of governance, tradeand regulation. Tis agenda, organised around themeta themes of shelter for all and sustainable humansettlements, become codied in the reporting which allgovernments are expected to do in the preparations forHabitat III. Te country reports that were submittedin 2014 had to cover seven themes (listed below) and

provide evidence that was retrospective and, ideally, thisanalysis can also feed into the expectations of the NewUrban Agenda that is to be formulated.

Seven themes for country reports for Habitat III

• Urban demographic issues and challenges

• Land and urban planning

• Environment and urbanization• Urban governance and legislation

• Urban economy

• Housing and basic services

• Indicators

WHAT DOES SUSTAINABLE URBANDEVELOPMENT MEAN FOR AFRICA?04


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It is impossible to argue with the normative framing ofsustainable urban development as set out in the Habitat

Agenda. However, the real challenge is to gure outhow to implement this amidst the series of interlocking

dynamics of distorted urbanisation across Africa.Tis section provides a potential way of thinking andimagining to implement sustainable urban developmentin Africa.43

Macro Development Frame(Global, Continental & National)Te starting point is the macro development imperativethat must be realised at multiple scales because cities areshaped by global, regional and national as well as localforces. Te New Urban Agenda outlines the global policyambitions for cities, the 2063 Agenda covers a regionalperspective but it is the national scale that is often pivotalin determining the future of cities and regions as wellas their integration with their rural hinterlands. Tis isgenerally true but there are also important exceptions.Certain cities and regions, especially ones central toextractive economies, are inserted into globalised valuechains that give the urban government a particularlystrategic positioning. Figure 8 provides a diagrammaticillustration that national development strategies needto pursue simultaneously inclusive growth, resilientgrowth, human development and generalised well-beingas manifest in liveable communities and settlements.

At the moment, most African countries are arguablyxated on GDP growth in any form or shape, even ifit does not necessarily generate large numbers of new

jobs or is environmentally damaging. Te high rates

of poverty and the small revenue coffers of Africangovernments drive this pattern. Te problem of limitedrevenue is of course part of a much larger and complexset of issues pertaining to the legacy effects of short-and wrong-sighted structural adjustment policies thatdominated public policy preferences for more than twodecades since the 1980s. However, a narrow xation onGDP growth is not good enough and will in the long

run undermine Africa’s larger ambitions as encapsulatedin the Agenda 2063 vision.

Inclusive growth points to the imperative of establishingeconomic growth trajectories that are highly labourabsorptive and afford access to decent work. Tis is aparticularly difficult objective in a context of slow growththat is often decoupled from intensive job creation,except of course for the fast-growing Asian economies.However, for most African countries the difficulties aregreater because national economies tend to be smalland are adversely inserted into globalised value chains

where the terms of exchange are not favourable, whichdenotes their limited bargaining power. Furthermore,these economies are often overly reliant on a singlecommodity, such as oil or diamonds, which places thenational scus at continual risk. It is, therefore, vital

CONCEPTUAL FRAME: SUSTAINABLEURBAN DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA05



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that African governments and citizens debate how these

structural obstacles can be overcome in a context of acommitment to greater regionalism, intra-regional tradeand endogenous industrialisation to supply the goodsand services of the domestic populations. Cities can kickstart these debates and efforts need to be given pride ofplace in these debates.

Resilient growth refers to the growing debate on the

green economy as the necessary gateway to a low-carbonand resource-efficient future.45 Tis imperative refersto the need to change the nature of both productionand consumption so to radically reduce the harmfulemissions associated with economic churn and, moreimportant, delink each unit of economic output fromnon-renewable resource inputs.46

FIGURE 8: AFRICA’S MACRO DEVELOPMENT FRAME (CONTINENTAL AND NATIONAL) 44

GDP GROWTH

CO2 REDUCTION

& RESOURCE

EFFICIENCY

I n c l u s i v e

g r o w

t h

Resilient growth

L i v e a b i l i t y & W

e l l b e i n g

HUMAN

DEVELOPMENT

IMPROVEMENT

Source: Recasting Urban Sustainability in the South, 2011



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Tese are tough requirements for African economiesthat are predominantly reliant on extractives fortrade and foreign exchange. Yet, as the world inchestowards a global carbon trading and taxation regimeand more stringent environmental standards linkedto trade agreements, future economic competitiveness

will depend on getting this right. Te potentialadvantage for African countries of the new post-2015focus on resilience is that the relatively low levelsof economic development means that these systems

are not yet locked into unsustainable pathways.47

Since so many economic systems need to still beconstructed, there is an unprecedented opportunityto use the massive infrastructure-build imperative in

African cities and regions as a catalyst for embedding thegreen economy.48 However, this opportunity will only beoptimised if there is a profound shift in the imaginationof African elites so that they stop regarding theestablished Northern model of urbanism as what needsto be transplanted into Africa as a badge of modernity.

Neither inclusive nor resilient growth is possible if Africa’s human potential remains untapped and under-invested. Education and health are the two mostimportant drivers of human capital formation, along

with social safety nets as the economy of a countryexpands.49 Te skills and knowledge of the urban

workforce are a central determinant of the dynamismand long-term durability of growth.

However, optimally functioning schools and healthsystems are highly dependent on the quality of thesocial and public fabric where they are embedded. Ifa neighbourhood is unsafe, wracked by social conictsand unhealthy public environments, it is highly unlikelythat public institutions will function effectively. It

is, therefore, imperative to understand that nationalhuman development goals must be connected to aholistic approach of strengthening education, healthand welfare institutions within the community contexts

where they are nested.

People walk and cycle along promenade on “Golden Mile”beach front in Durban, South Africa.© lcswart / Shutterstock



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Tere is a lot to discuss and clarify about how theseimperatives can be pursued at community level. We needa proliferation of models and experiments to conductarea-based planning and management that can optimisehuman capital investments and foster better socialprotection. Many Africans, exposed to the uncertaintiesof the urban economy, still have had to depend on ruralconnections as a safety net in times of hardship and fortheir old age.

It is not easy or obvious how a country or city decideson the most optimum policy mix to achieve inclusiveand resilient growth along with greater liveabilitysimultaneously. However, unless policy options andinvestment choices are evaluated in terms of theinevitable tensions between these imperatives, it isimpossible to achieve transformative development.

From Macro to Urban An explicit and intelligent place-based lens on publicinvestment can greatly improve the chances of Africancountries nding the most appropriate balance orcoordination between the imperatives of inclusivegrowth, resilient growth and human wellbeing.

Tere are three over-arching considerations that mustinform and anchor democratic debates about how bestto develop and manage African cities and towns:

• Optimise urban form to become appropriatelydense,50 green and just

• Calibrate urban infrastructure networks and systemsto ensure a sustainable metabolic ow of money,

resources, goods, services, people and data

• Accelerate economic development through strategic

infrastructure investments (especially energyand mobility), appropriate planning regulations,institutional coordination and the provision of usefulinformation

Given the complexity of the variables at play in each ofthese elds of governance, and the plurality of actorsimplicated, every urban government must be giventhe right and support to formulate long-term strategicaction plans that explain how these imperatives willbe addressed. Tese long-term frameworks shouldbecome the linchpin for negotiations about the role ofurban governments in the national development effortand associated questions about sensible devolution ofpowers, functions and the concomitant scal powers.

Tey can also be the basis for rolling engagements with

organised civil society, the private sector and citizens.Most important, locating urban development in a wider frame will compel urban leaders (and nationalgovernments where they are the dominant public sectorplayers) to be more explicit about the rationale behindtheir investment strategies.

Figure 9 provides an illustration of a hierarchy of nestedinvestments that would make sense in a typical Africansetting marked by high levels of residential and economicinformality combined with low levels of income percapita. Te logic behind this hierarchy is that the basicneeds of all urban residents must be the number onepriority over everything else and this goes to the heart offundamental well-being and dignity.51



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BASIC SERVICES

(ENERGY, WATER, SANITATION AND WASTE)

EDUCATION AND HEALTH

PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE

AND TRANSPORT

ECONOMIC

INFRASTRUCTURE

ECOSYSTEM

SERVICES

SHELTER

Tis is followed by key investments to optimise the

capabilities of all residents. In a knowledge-drivenglobalised economy, this imperative is becomingmore important if people are to access employment,

which in turn is the fundamental driver of household wellbeing and social mobility. Since the majorityof African urban dwellers live in slums which areextremely dense, and marked by over-crowding, it is

essential that the public realm (the street and key social

and mobility nodes) is optimised as a social space,economic arteries and primary cultural domain.52

If this is combined with a concerted public transport andmobility strategy, it can unlock the profound potentialof all cities and towns. In this sense the predominantlyinformal economic practices in large swathes of Africancities can be used as a resource and optimised.

FIGURE 9: CONCEPTUAL HIERARCHY OF INVESTMENT PRIORITIES

Source: Authors own tabulation



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Building on top of an activated public realm is acommitment to optimise logistical infrastructuresthat can enhance and diversify urban economic life.It is vital to underscore that a holistic understandingof the economy is critical. Informal economies andeveryday livelihood practices are the dominant modes ofeconomic life in most sub-Saharan African cities.

Furthermore, the formal and informal systems are

inter-dependent and will have to grow in tandem forsome time to come given Africa’s structural legacy ofeconomic underdevelopment and limited educationopportunities. Resolving the formal informal dichotomyis less important than preventing scal leakage andcorruption and fostering overall urban system legibilityand transparency.

After the economy, ecosystem services must beaddressed. As intimated in the Agenda 2063 discussiondocument, blue and green economic sectors can becomethe fundamental underpinning of the African economyover the next few decades. Tis potential will only beharnessed if local authorities and citizen realise that therestoration and protection of natural ecosystem servicesis vital to their well-being, a sense of community andthe overall quality of life of the urban system as a whole.Most importantly, large numbers of public worksopportunities can be shaped around ecosystem servicesrestoration, which is the missing conveyor belt that

African urban economies need to move the youth intothe labour market and entrepreneurship.

In this schema, shelter investments come last. Tis isobviously contrary to the way in which the urbandevelopment agenda was framed in 1996 at Habitat I oraffirmed with the focus on slums at Habitat II. However,this approach does not to diminish the importance ofconsolidating the right to housing, but rather conrmsthat urban majorities need support with the enablingarmatures of urban life whilst they take care of theshelter needs, even if in a makeshift manner.

Te Latin American and Asian contexts havedemonstrated that improvements in the public realmprove much more important to the wellbeing andlivelihoods of poor households than starting off withpublic housing provision. It all boils down to how onecan optimise the return on investment of every centspent in the urban realm.

Urban Service Delivery Strategiesand Investment PortfoliosIt is self-evident that local authorities or nationaldepartments cannot address the intractable challengesof African cities on their own. As invoked by the earlyiterations of the Habitat Agenda, they have to work

through partnerships with the private sector and civilsociety to ensure both legitimacy for their investmentchoices and synergy between the disparate actions acrossthese sectors.53 Local authorities also have to invest in theempowerment of these sectors so that the engagementcan be substantive and meaningful.



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Building on this prescript of the Habitat Agenda, itis important to become more specic. In light of theproposed investment hierarchy discussed above, andthe need to calibrate investments to achieve optimalsequencing and cumulative impact, it is important topropose how this can be done.

At the urban scale, each local authority must producea clear service delivery model that explains how the

service will be rendered and maintained; the standardof the service; the cost of the service in relation to agiven standard; the income, expenditure and cross-subsidisation of the service to attain the standard andprogressively, universal coverage. Developing a servicedelivery model that is made transparent will requireintense discussion between the all spheres of government,particularly local government and society.54 o avoid elite

capture or narrow growth assumptions, it is importantto establish three fundamental criteria for negotiationsabout the service delivery model: affordability, qualityand universal access. (See Figure 10)

FIGURE 10: EVALUATION CRITERIA FORDECIDING LEVEL OF SERVICES

QUALITY

ACCESS

AFFORDABILITY



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In light of the extent of urban poverty, vulnerability andlow incomes, it is imperative that a given city’s servicedelivery model address how the affordability criteria

will be met in the short and long-term. However, asingular focus on affordability could generate a situation

where the local authority abdicates responsibility forconsidering the quality of the service and allow a rangeof private actors to deliver the service with no minimumstandards, contract enforcement or opportunities forrecourse.

o avoid this, it is important to clarify what the expectedquality of a service or piece of infrastructure will be.

Again, the Latin American experience is instructive.Te Colombian cities that have seen a convincingturnaround in fortunes during the past two decades haveall taken quality considerations very seriously, especially

in their most deprived areas. Africa can learn from themultiplier benets of this approach.

However, in light of the massive service and infrastructuredecits in much of sub-Saharan Africa, it is equallyimportant to spell out when all urban residents will gainaccess to a given a service and how these processes of

service extension are factored into the overall servicedelivery model. Te debates on affordability andaccess will compel an honest engagement with the vastinformal systems of delivery that step into the breach inmost African cities where the state is yet to deliver andto the selection of the most appropriate technologies foruniversal coverage. Tere is now a considerable bodyof evidence that coming to terms with the so-calledinformal systems of service delivery is vital to improveaccess to basic services progressively and to establish aviable scal model.

Any long-term agenda to consolidate sustainable urbandevelopment in Africa will have to address the governanceand institutional questions of how to knit together theformal, private and informal private systems in ways

which grow the local economy, enhance livelihoods

and wellbeing and establish an efficient urban form andmetabolism. Tis can be made more practical throughcity- and neighbourhood-level deliberations aboutappropriate service delivery standards and modalities.Doing this assumes there is a coherent national andlocal institutional architecture to deliberate upon andpractice effective urban management.


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INSTITUTIONAL ARCHITECTURE TO

OPTIMISE AFRICA’S URBAN FUTURE06It is obvious that those who live in and manage Africancities need to drive the global conversation about whatsustainable urban development means in practice.Furthermore, the real-life innovations to achievesustainable urbanism will come from the ground andcascade upwards. echnocratic top-down programmesand solutions will not work because each city and town isunique and will need to draw on the collective resourcesof all actors affected to produce t-for-purpose reforms.Tat said, local innovations become a lot easier if thereis a coherent and high prole national programmeof deliberation and action to drive systematic urbantransformation.

National governments have substantial political,institutional and scal resources that can stimulate andenable urban innovation. In this section we summarisethe minimum elements of a national urban policysystem, led by national governments in close partnership

with the relevant local government association, civilsociety organisations, the private sector and knowledge

institutions. Te following suite of institutions is anecessary, but not sufficient, condition for effectiveurban management and transformation.

Local action, experimentation and learning thatis buttressed by a broader national system that issensitive to the imperatives of the changes usheredin by urbanisation and urban growth will contribute

to solving national and city challenges. In fact, eventhough it might appear as if there is a natural hierarchyof national urban policies shaping local actions, in mostcontexts it is more likely and desirable that there is adynamic interplay between national indicative policiesand locally dened priorities that feed into the nationalagenda.

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National Urban PolicyDuring the past decade, the importance of explicitNational Urban Policies have strongly come to the fore55 and now forms part of the reporting by member states ofthe United Nations in the lead up to Habitat III. At itscore, these policies seek to understand and manage urbangrowth and decline across the national territory withan eye on cross-border dynamics and processes. In this

sense they are fundamentally data-driven and evidence-based. Tis form of global reporting requires nationalstatistical agencies to be centrally involved in order toprogressively improve a dynamic spatial perspective ofkey national trends with regard to the economy, people,landscape, infrastructure, environment and the owsof goods and services. Tese policies are rooted in thedesire of governments to adopt a territorial approach in

national and local planning, especially since urban andrural economies and environments are so intertwined.

New policy insights on the spatial dynamics of economicdevelopment — referred to as agglomeration dynamicsin the 2009 World Development Report — demonstratehow important place dynamics are in an increasinglyglobalised economy premised on knowledge and theclustering of talent and markets.56 o ensure effectiveand targeted national development, it is essential tounderstand the unique agglomeration dynamics of alleconomic sectors, especially the globally-organised valuechains that criss-cross all dimensions of the moderneconomy. Critically, we now know that these territorialdynamics are not unique to the formal economy butplay an equally vital role in informal and criminaleconomies.57

Tus, for African countries marked by complexinterdependencies between the formal and informaleconomies, it is particularly important to catalogue andanalyse the place-based dynamics of the local, nationaland regional economy. It can make all the differencebetween modest and robust economic growth.

Large urban agglomerations like the Gauteng city-region, the greater Cairo-Alexandra conurbation and

the West African belt from Abidjan to Accra (takingin Lagos of course) all point to the regional dynamicsof Africa’s primary economic hubs. Put differently,National Urban Policies can demonstrate how primaryeconomic hubs are in fact the springboards for the larger

African regional integration project promoted in Agenda2063. On the other hand, these policies could also raiseawareness about how large metropolitan centres in the

national economy connect with secondary cities andrural economies through a multiplicity of connectionsand interdependencies.

It is in this regard that the African Union and RegionalEconomic Communities will have to work closely withmember states because the cross-border city-regionaleconomies will be the backbone of the African sub-regions. More to the point, the new industrial strategyfor Africa to realise the goals of Agenda 2063 will haveto be anchored spatially in these primary economic hubsthat require cross-border coordination and synergy.National Urban Policies will be useful to translate theseagendas into the national context and back-up into thesub-regional and continental forums.



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On the basis of such a differentiated understanding ofthe national territory, National Urban Policies create anational consensus for an appropriately differentiatedmodel of urban governance and management. In other

words, in most African countries it is inappropriateto expect small towns with micro-economies andpopulations below 50,000 to look and operate like asecondary city or a metropolitan hub. National andprovincial or district governments have to play a farmore active role in these smaller geographies, whereas it

often makes sense to pursue substantive functional andscal decentralisation for metropolitan areas and to alesser extent, secondary cities. Ideally, National UrbanPolicies should spell out the rationale for staggeredor differentiated decentralisation as institutionalcapabilities of local authorities expand. For these policiesto make an impact, they should set out and monitorthe implementation of a systematic scal and legislativereform agenda.

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Legislative Reform AgendaTe Planning Sustainable Cities global report ofUN-Habitat established that post-independence

Africa has not pursued urban planning and land-usereform with enough vigour.58 In fact, much of Africaremains wedded to culturally-inappropriate and out-dated planning laws and associated town planning andzoning schemes. However, this does not only apply to

urban planning. Sectoral infrastructure planning andregulation such as transport, energy, waste managementsuffer from similar problems. Engineering norms andstandards that hark back to the colonial era and/or theEuropean context are taken for granted and serve as thebasis of both investment and under-investment.

At one level this is inappropriate due to affordabilitychallenges as explained before. On another level, theold-style assumptions and practices come from an erathat failed to understand social and environmentalexternalities such as pollution. Tus, the new urbanparadigm that promotes greater urban compaction,public infrastructure and participatory slum upgradingas invoked by AMCHUD59 will never come to pass unlessthere is substantial legislative reform to reorient keysectors of the built environment but, most important,to enable more integrated modalities of investmentand urban management. Te institutional linchpin ofan effective national urban management system mustbe local government. It is essential that legislativereform promotes an appropriate and substantivedecentralisation agenda.

Decentralisation SupportProgrammeDecentralisation has been on the lips of policy makersat least since the early 1990s. With the momentumestablished by the intensied commitment todemocratic decentralisation in the Habitat Declaration,many African governments have paid lip service todecentralisation but the implementation has been

disappointing. A number of studies conrm that mostsub-Saharan African countries have a poor track recordin implementing full-blown decentralisation with afew exceptions, the most notable being South Africa.In the past decade, as multi-party democracy has takenroot, the growth of opposition political parties inlarge cities has seemingly further undermined nationalgovernments appetite for full decentralisation. One of

the most remarked on trends in the recent past is that,in many key African cities, opposition political partieshave either come into office as the majority party orrepresent a sizeable opposition.60

o date, there has not been a sufficiently nuanceddiscussion on democratic decentralisation that isinformed by a strategic inter-governmental and inter-sectoral approach to urban development. Te principleof subsidiarity is important but it would be absurd totreat large and small urban centres in the same manner.

Where local authorities have no tax base, smallinstitutional footprints and limited planning andregulatory capacity, it makes complete sense for nationalgovernments and regional governments to play an active



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role in supporting and managing the area to ensure thatbasic universal rights are met. However, in larger citiesthat require on-the-ground intelligence and institutionalreach, it is essential that decentralisation reforms arecompleted to ensure effective urban management.

Te norms and guidelines for democratic decentralisationpublished by UN-Habitat in 2007 remain as salient asever.61 In most African contexts, achieving this level of

decentralisation is not about the unbundling of nationalcompetencies but improving currently inadequate localstate capacity.

Signicantly, in the past year there has been majorprogress at a pan-African level to establish a morefavourable political climate for decentralisation in line

with the Guidelines for Democratic Decentralisation. In June 2014, the African Union’s gathering of the Heads ofState and Government of the Union adopted an AfricanCharter on values and principles of decentralization,local governance and local development.62 Tis hasbrought the pan-African policy environment in line

with global norms. At the same conference, the Headsof State and Government also approved the creation ofthe High Council of Local Governments as an AfricanUnion institution. Its purpose is to reect the voice oflocal governments in the deliberations of the Union.Tese two decisions are providing a new impetus fordecentralisation and provide an excellent basis fordriving reform across the continent.

It should be recognised that decentralisation must belinked to specic institutional capabilities at the locallevel that will ensure state legitimacy such as law, nanceand skills. Figure 11 provides an illustrative overview ofthe key institutional building blocks that need to be inplace for effective and adaptive urban management atthe metropolitan scale. Tis is based on the conceptualapproach discussed in Section 5. In other words, it isassumed that urban governments must take the leadin formulating a long-term vision and evidence-basedstrategy for the territory in a participatory and inclusivemanner. Tis long-term agenda, focused on systemicchange to establish a dynamic trajectory towardssustainable urban development, must be broken downinto smaller chunks of planning that can shape the short-and medium-term priorities of elected local authoritiesthat need to also adopt term-of-office plans. Tisstrategic model seeks to harness the investment capitalassociated with major infrastructure sectors but rootsit in a strong regional spatial development framework,

which in turn will ensure the necessary connections aremade between infrastructure and land-use management.Every aspect of this illustrative framework can be madetransparent, participatory and adaptive. Tere is noneed for blueprint planning or closed-door deal making.



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FIGURE 11: INSTITUTIONAL ELEMENTS OF DECENTRALISED URBAN MANAGEMENT

Source: Adapted from Draft Integrated Urban Development Framework, South Africa 63

It is important that the national decentralisation supportprogramme is based on a commitment to empower localauthorities to execute effective strategic management thatcan engage with long-term trends. Growth managementstrategies force urban governments to take a long-termview, based on rigorous economic analysis of the formal

and informal economies, and tied up with criticalinfrastructure investments, but always situated within alarger spatial development perspective. Te investmentsfor the term of office integrated development planmust then be derived from these larger policy agendas.Furthermore, it then becomes possible to identify

Rolling RegulatoryReform E

N E R G Y P L A N

W A T E R S E R V I C E S D E V

. P L A N

I N T E G R A T E D T R A N S P O R T P L A N

I N T E G R A T E D W A S T E M A N A G E M E N T P L A N

C A T C H M

E N T M A N A G E M E N T P L A N

INFRASTRUCTURE LIFECYCLEASSET MANAGEMENT PLAN

Integrated InfrastructurePlan (10yrs)

Medium-term income &expenditure framework

Priority Projects to effectSpatial Transformaion

Integrated DevelopmentPlan (term of ofce)

Growth managementStrategy (20yrs)

Spatial DevelopmentFramework (10 - 40yrs)



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agship projects that a mayor and other politicalleaders can champion without undermining the long-term trajectory for the city. It creates the possibility ofovercoming the perianal problem of short-termism thatstem from delivery imperatives of electoral cycles.

A lot of national support and investment will be requiredto migrate to this kind of approach. It will have to bedesigned in close collaboration with the national local

association, municipal trade unions, traditional leaders,key urban investors and civil society organisations.However, whatever is agreed upon in a given countrymust have a sound nancial component. Tis speaks tothe importance of aligning the national scal strategy

with the agenda of empowering local government.

Research and Development Systemto Underpin Urban InnovationTere can be little doubt that it will take anextraordinary amount of political will, policy clarity,research, experimentation and resources to address thevast development challenges that beset most Africancities and towns. Furthermore, if the goal is not justto ameliorate basic needs but also to unleash creative

potential and energy, the knowledge requirements areeven greater. At the moment, research investmentsseem to be restricted to the private sector, focussedon providing service delivery and real estate solutionsthat are usually inappropriate for most African urbansettings. However, in the absence of alternative researchand evidence, these perspectives often get traction atenormous cost to the city and country.

All African countries have national Research andDevelopment (R&D) policies that seek to fosternational innovation systems. Te time has cometo overhaul these research systems to adopt a moreplace-based understanding of economic development,innovation milieus, and strategic intermediation sothat innovators can connect with policy makers, usersand investors. Diverse city-based economies shouldbecome the primary focal point of R&D institutionalinvestment in close collaboration with national andregional universities. It will be essential to elevate therole of design within the larger built-environmentdisciplines and professions because these are best placedto foster integrated problem-solving research andexperimentation. Te quicker African governments canempower their scientists, professionals and innovatorsto get to work on the future sustainable African city,

the quicker African economies will become globallycompetitive. Tere is obviously enormous scope toestablish regional and continental cooperation on thevarious issues that require R&

towards an africa urban agenda

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