SPECIAL FEATURE
“The good news is that most of Africa’s urbanization is yet to come, so there is still time to get things right.”
The authors
Moina Spooner, Assistant Editor, The Conversation
of productivity and engines of economic growth. Astrid R.N. Haas argues, however, that one factor preventing this potential from being unlocked in African cities is how the cities are governed: it matters who makes the decisions and how they do it. In this article, Haas highlights what it takes to run a city effectively. First, cities must have institutions with clearly defined mandates. This can be done by creating a single agency responsible for a service or policy decision. In Lagos, Nigeria, for example, an agency was created which coordinates the work of all transport- related entities. Second, municipal governments need the capacity to implement decisions. For example, in 2013 Baghdad’s deputy mayor created a steering committee to improve the city’s sewerage system. The committee brought together various senior city staff and helped improve the timeliness and overall streamlining of decision making. This contributed towards significant improvements to the city’s sewerage network.
Third, making and implementing decisions requires sufficient legitimacy. This can be done, for instance, through elections, improving public communication or participatory budgeting – a mechanism which creates an established channel for identifying priority projects for people. The need for effective governance is highlighted in this article by urbanization expert Patricia Jones. She argues that, done right, urbanization has the potential to raise productivity and living standards across Africa. Jones writes that successful cities serve two functions: they provide liveable environments for workers and their families; and they provide productive environments for businesses. To do this, there needs to be a focus on coordination and planning. One of the challenges to Africa’s cities that needs to be highlighted is unsustainable urbanization. It creates a situation where infrastructure development and service delivery aren’t keeping pace with the city’s growth, creating an unsafe and unhealthy environment. One approach to dealing with this is through family planning. Demographer Sunday Adedini explored how family planning policies and urban development programmes in Nigeria were linked between 2000 and 2020. His study found that family planning and urban development actors mostly worked in silos. This was a result of systemic barriers like the lack of a policy framework and support for sectors to work together. This suggests that there’s a need to
Patricia Jones
Project Manager/ Researcher, Urbanization in Developing Countries, University of Oxford
Astrid R.N. Haas
Research Associate, African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town
Research suggests there is a need to integrate family planning more effectively into urban and territorial planning.
integrate family planning and health more effectively into
Sunday Adedini
urban and territorial planning. This will contribute to preventing unsustainable urbanization and urban poverty.
Associate Professor, Federal University, Oye Ekiti, Nigeria
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