Energy and Environmental Management in Eastern African Cities

Abstract

Cities in eastern Africa have been growing at an unheralded pace, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Despite this rapid urbanization, very little research has been focused on energy and the environment in urban eastern Africa. This paper contains a review of what little work has been carried out to date. Several conclusions are pointed out. First, cities throughout the region remain small and have formed largely without industrial development. ‘Urbanization without industrialization’ means that the existing urban environmental problems are attributable to inadequate provision of service and not to the industrialization-linked problems found in more developed countries. Even if economic growth improves, action will be necessary to alleviate existing environmental problems. Second, the expected rapid pace of urban growth will impose tremendous costs at all levels. Increased user costs, either through reliance on private-sector alternatives or through public-sector tariffs, must be increasingly relied upon to defray the fiscal impacts of rapid urbanization and to assure the sustainability of urban infrastructural systems. Third, as the anticipated urban growth and industrialization take place, the focus of energy and environmental planners working on cities in eastern Africa will shift from basic service provision to increasingly complex problems. These shifts will require labor and financial resources far exceeding those currently found in these countries. Fourth, although energy and environmental needs may differ according to the size of the city, there has been little or no attention paid to problems outside of the primate cities. As a result, it is unclear how the problems and solutions will differ across the urban hierarchy. Clearly, urban planners need to consider the importance of energy and the environment. At the same time, energy and environmental researchers must pay greater attention to urban areas.