The impact of urban development on risk in sub-Saharan Africa's cities with a focus on small and intermediate urban centres

David Satterthwaite

doi:10.1016/j.ijdrr.2017.09.025

Abstract

The main urban issue that sub-Saharan Africa is facing is rapid growth in its urban population without the urban governance structures in place that can meet their responsibilities and manage the change. This has created very large deficits in infrastructure and service provision which exposes much of the urban population to high levels of risk. Without competent, effective and accountable urban governments, it is not possible to tap the great potential that cities have for supporting good living conditions and good health. This paper examines both the scale of urban change and the development challenge facing sub-Saharan Africa's urban areas and the possible implications on risk. It describes how a substantial proportion of sub-Saharan Africa's national (and urban) population lives in small and intermediate size urban centres (and thus not in rural areas or large cities) and considers what we know about risk in these urban centres and the implications for development. The paper suggests that within the region's urban population, inadequacies in provision for basic infrastructure and services are usually larger, the smaller the urban centre. Most small urban centres in the region have local governments with very little capacity or funding to fulfil their responsibilities for risk reducing infrastructure and services. Of these, the inadequacies in provision for water and sanitation are the best documented. But in some instances, provision for water and sanitation is so poor in large cities that the proportion of their inhabitants lacking adequate provision is as high as those living in small urban centres.

Highlights

For each five year period between 1950 and 2015, sub-Saharan Africa had the fastest urban population growth rates among the world's regions – driven by high rates of natural increase and net rural to urban migration
The causes include very poor quality and over-crowded living conditions and the lack of provision for safe, regular, affordable water, good quality sanitation and household waste collection, health care, schools and emergency services. These in turn are linked to the inadequacies in local governments who often refuse to work with those living in informal settlements, even as these house half or more of the population of many African cities
If small and intermediate urban centres are taken to mean all settlements defined by governments as ‘urban’ with fewer than half a million inhabitants, by 2015, around 196 million people lived in these urban centres, in sub-Saharan Africa – equivalent to almost half of the urban population and a fifth of the total population [28]

Summary

Introduction

For each five year period between 1950 and 2015, sub-Saharan Africa had the fastest urban population growth rates among the world's regions – driven by high rates of natural increase and net rural to urban migration. Of all the urban centres in sub-Saharan Africa that were thought to have 300,000 plus inhabitants in 2015 [4] it is worth noting how many of these had their fastest population growth rates from the 1950s to the 1970s. In reviewing these cities’ population growth rates for five year periods between 1950 and 2015, 64% of the cities had their two most rapid five-year population growth rates before 1980.

Satterthwaite

Infrastructure and service deficits and health risks for urban populations

Small and intermediate urban centres

Data on risk in small and intermediate urban centres in subSaharan Africa

Findings

Conclusions