Urbanization a chance for real progress, UNECA report says.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – The world is undergoing the largest wave of urban growth in its history, and no where will this growth be felt more in the coming decades than in Africa.
Indeed, according to UN sources, the continent’s urban population is expected to more than double by 2030, with much of that growth happening in smaller towns and cities. The thought of rampant urban growth often brings distressing connotations – slums, terrible poverty and inadequate infrastructure.
Yet a new report from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) says that urbanization isn’t something to be feared – but embraced.
“Rapidly growing cities in Africa provide challenges and opportunities for socio-cultural change and development,” states the report, ICPD and MDGs: Working As One. It goes on to state that continued interaction between urbanites with rural dwellers could “contribute to a diffusion of social change agents across the continent.”
Indeed, the ICPD@15 report gives the following advantages to increased urbanization including:
- Better opportunities for women. Cities are more open to women’s social and political participation.
- Increased access to education for girls. Living in a city also promotes the cultural acceptance of their right to an education.
- Health services are better overall in cities. It is easier to address large scale health issues in cities where the population is within easy access.
This growth hasn’t solely been fuelled by internal migration – i.e. people moving from the countryside to the city. The population growth in urban areas in Africa is in large part do to natural increase—people being born in cities.
It won’t be the already large mega cities that will bear the burden of growth, but the smaller towns and cities – those with populations less than 500,000. And it is here that governments need to look into building the capacity to meet these future challenges.
And one of the biggest challenge facing African cities is poverty. Unlike past urbanizations in other parts of the globe, where the growth in cities was driven by industrialization and socio-economic transition, African urban growth is a poverty-driven process.
In addition, issues like crime, increasing use of drugs, high pressure on social services and sprawling slums, are all cited by African countries as major concerns surrounding rapid urbanization.
However, cities are also the best place to address many of these issues.
“Cities concentrate poverty, but they also represent poor people’s best hope of escaping it,” states UNFPA in its State of World Population report (2007).
But the benefits or urbanization will only come with proper management and planning on the part of African governments, the ICPD@15 report explains. It makes several recommendations including designing and implementing policies that support rural communities, creating an enabling environment for women and young people, and strengthening the capacities of communities and municipalities for urban management.
The report reviews how African Governments have dealt with population, gender and social development issues over the last 15 years. At that time, in 1994, African governments adopted a 20-year programme of action with a broad mandate of improved policies on population, sustainable development and gender. This report and the programme of action are the subject of an upcoming ministerial conference taking place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 19-23 of October. The conference is being organized by UNECA, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and The African Union Commission (AUC).
Issued by the ECA Information and Communication Service P.O. Box 3001 Addis Ababa Ethiopia Tel: 251 11 5445098 Fax: +251-11-551 03 65 E-mail: ecainfo@uneca.org Web: www.uneca.org
