Managing urban conflict in Africa: Insights from social work

Abstract

The paper examined urban social conflict in Africa from the perspective of the utility of social work in mitigating such conflict. It depended on the desk review of extant literature for its information and was anchored on a structural or macro-environmental explanation of the drivers of urban social conflict. The paper is also premised on the fact that while African cities have enjoyed an ever-increasing urbanization, such urbanization has come with several social pathologies including different forms of social conflict. Such conflict is especially prevalent in inner-city areas or urban slums where squalid physical environment and socio-economic deprivation conduce to social conflict among residents. The inescapable reality is that social conflict is largely a social phenomenon generated by the sociability or otherwise of living and thus social work as a discipline and practice anchored on enabling citizens achieve optimal social functioning can be useful in the mitigation of social conflict. It concluded that given that conflict is a social phenomenon, social work given its nature can build a reliable niche in urban conflict management. It thus calls attention to not only improving urban social work practice but equally engendering a practice that tackles the peculiar nature of urban social conflict in Africa.