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Peter Elias, University of Lagos, Nigeria
Introduction
There is a serious dilemma in African cities where urban governance is hardly able to meet the demand for infrastructure. The failure of urban governance to provide adequate infrastructure both in quantity and quality is creating infrastructure deficit which falls below the expectations of urban sustainability. According to UN-HABITAT (2000), urban governance:
“must enable women and men to access the benefits of urban citizenship. Good urban governance, based on the principle of urban citizenship, affirms that no man, woman or child can be denied access to the necessities of urban life, including adequate shelter, security of tenure, safe water, sanitation, a clean environment, health, education and nutrition, employment and public safety and mobility. Through good urban governance, citizens are provided with the platform which will allow them to use their talents to the full to improve their social and economic conditions.”
Citizens of African cities are unable to aspire to improved productivity, poverty reduction and well-being due to inadequate physical and social infrastructures. This situation is even more worrisome considering the pattern of urbanisation in Africa. These are the issues that form the thrust of this paper which is organised in two parts. The first examines Africa’s urbanisation and dilemmas of urban governance and the second takes a look at the nature of infrastructure deficit and demand in Africa. The conclusion suggests what should be done to remedy the situation.
Part 1 – Africa’s Urbanisation and Dilemmas of Urban Governance
The world’s population and economic opportunities are increasingly shifting to the cities. Over 70 per cent of the people in North America, Latin America and Europe already live in cities. Africa’s 2014 population with an average growth rate of two per cent is estimated at 1.069 billion, about 15% of world population, extends over 30 million square kilometres (WPR, 2014). It is also estimated that by 2030, more than half of this number will be living in urban centers. Therefore, global attention has been drawn to the pace, process and pattern of urbanization in Africa. In a bid to explain the rapid urbanization in Africa, recent urban studies have attempted to distinguish between urbanization and urban growth which are driven by different factors with different characteristics and implications in the context of urban governance and infrastructure deficit (Potts, 2012; Muggah, 2012; Fox, 2011). Some fundamental and proximate factors explain the emerging pace, process and pattern of urbanization and urban growth in Africa which includes population dynamics, economic growth, government policies, increasing densities as well as the advancing large urban agglomerations such as Lagos, Cairo and Kinshasa that are spreading to form urban corridors (Lwasa, 2014).
While several factors have been identified to explain the phenomenon of urbanization, there