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AFRICA
source: www.ehproject.org/PDF/Activity_
Reports/AR109ANEUrbHlthweb.pdf
www.careinternational.org.uk/
resource_centre/urban/urbanisation
_of_poverty.doc
UN HABITAT, Cities in a globalizing world, global report on human settlements, 2001
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Africa, as a region, has an extremely high rate of urbanisation simultaneously taking place in countries which are by and large ill prepared for it…- Africa is the continent with the fastest rate of urbanisation. Urban population is increasing at above 3%, and in just a decade 40% of Africa's people will live in urban areas. Many African cities are doubling their population within two decades. Driving factors include access to better jobs, education, health care and higher living standards;
- however, the dream for a better life remains very often just a dream. According to the 2003 UN-Habitat report, currently 187 million people - 2/3 of African urban population - live in informal settlements without adequate sanitation, water, transport or health services; (1)
- in other words, in each African city between 40% and 70% of the population live in slums. In a city like Nairobi, for example, 60% of people live in slums, which occupy about 5% of the land. The highest rate is in Sub-Saharan Africa, where some 71.9% of city-dwellers live in slums; (1)
- Africa's population will cease to be a predominantly rural in 2030: total urban population is expected to increase from 279 million (year 2000 estimate) to 787 million - second only to Asia's 2.7 billion in the size of the urban population; (2)
- Lagos (Nigeria) experienced an impressive growth: from 300,000 in 1950 to over 10 million today. Lagos’ population is expected to reach 24 million people by 2020, which would make it the 3rd largest city in the world. Every hour, 21 new inhabitants set out to start a life in the city;
- in Northern Africa, Egypt was 45% urban in 1998, with an annual urban growth rate of 2.1%. Cairo, with a 2000 population of 10.6 million, is the largest city in Africa. Cairo’s population is expected to reach 13.8 million by 2015; 70% of Cairo’s inhabitants live in unauthorised squatter settlements. Unlike Asian slums, these settlements have taken on rural characteristics. Water supply and sanitation coverage for all settlements in Cairo is high compared with Asian or other African cities;
- East Africa’s urban population is about to explode. Statistics indicate that over the next decade the urban population will double in almost all countries: in 2000 the level of urbanisation in Burundi was 9% and 14.2% in Uganda; by 2015 it will respectively increase up to 14.5% and 20.7%;
- people escaping political conflicts in the rural areas and smaller cities of such countries as Angola, Liberia and Mozambique have contributed to big-city growth rates exceeding 7% a year over long periods - a rate at which the population would double in just 10 years. About 4.5 million Mozambicans were displaced to urban areas during the 1980s;
- another source of concern in sub-Saharan Africa is the proliferation of ‘urban villages’. These are once-rural settlements that have burgeoned into small cities of 200,000 to 400,000 residents, and that typically lack the most basic requirements for a decent standard of living;
- in Central Africa in the 1990s, political conflict generated massive and rapid population flows that created another widespread urban form: refugee cities. In 1994, for example, ethnic-based violence in Rwanda forced hundreds of thousands of people from the country within a few weeks. One refugee camp sprung up across the border in Tanzania that attracted 250,000 inhabitants within a few days and became Tanzania's 2nd largest city within the country;
- while the number of small cities is unknown, the UN anticipates that most urbanites in Africa in 2015 will still reside in centres with less than 500,000 residents, making urban development planning for small cities a top priority.
(1) UN-HABITAT, The Challenge of Slums: Global Report on Human Settlement, Earthscan, London 2003.
(2) By 2030, rural populations are also expected to increase only in Africa and in Oceania. Africa, with 498 million rural inhabitants in 2000, is expected to see its rural population rise to 702 million by 2030, remaining the major area with the second largest rural population (after Asia) during the period.
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