Newsletter - Africa in Fact

City markets and residential areas in Bujumbura, Burundi. Photo: Yasuyoshi Chiba / AFP

Urbanisation across the continent is expected to double to 1.4 billion people by 2050, and at the same time, the number of medium-sized cities is projected to rise sharply from 710 to 1,167 – containing populations of up to one million inhabitants, writes Michael Schmidt in the latest edition of Africa in Fact.

These secondary cities play a vital role in regional trade, logistics, education, governance and service delivery, yet they have historically been overlooked – and continue to be overlooked – in favour of large metropolitan centres.

Thus, the growth of these cities has been uneven and often chaotic. Some smaller towns have been bypassed by transport routes or lost their economic purpose, while others are being absorbed into expanding urban regions.

“A startling example is that of the medium-sized cities of Mbale in eastern Uganda and Kisumu in western Kenya, which are projected to be seamlessly merged by 2050 and, in turn, blend into Nairobi, the lynchpin of Africa’s largest megacity that will spill across the border into Tanzania to connect with Mwanza, producing a continuous tri-country footprint that Africa’s Urbanisation Dynamics 2025 report (by a consortium including the African Development Bank Group, the UN’s Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the Cities Alliance) claims could reach a jaw-dropping 70 million people,” writes Schmidt.

A similar scenario, explored by Barnabas Thondhlana’s article titled ‘Zimbabwe’s urban frontier’, shows that the urban hubs of Harare and Bulawayo are growing rapidly, but without corresponding industrial expansion, infrastructure investment and governance reform.

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Informality increasingly dominates urban life, with street vending, peri-urban settlements and wetland cultivation functioning as survival strategies in an economy unable to absorb labour formally.

Analysts featured in Thondhlana’s article believe that reforms such as clarified land tenure, improved municipal finance, professionalised administration and forward-looking spatial planning are essential if Zimbabwe’s cities are to shift from “shock absorbers” of economic distress into productive and inclusive urban economies.

These examples reinforce a central theme in the wider African urbanisation debate: cities cannot become engines of development without stronger local governance, secure land tenure and decentralised planning authority.

To explore this important issue further, please read the latest edition of Africa in Fact.

Simultaneously with this issue, Good Governance Africa published 10 reports forming the first phase of GGA’s African Cities Profiling project, covering primary and secondary cities across the SADC region, including Johannesburg, Harare, Bulawayo, Cape Town, Dar es Salaam, Lusaka, Luanda, Lilongwe, Maputo, and Ndola. These reports dig into the statistics of service delivery in these cities.

Susan Russell – Editor, Africa in Fact

Secondary cities are also important By Michael Schmidt Most urban planning for Africa’s mushrooming cities has focused on megacities and high-value port-and-transport corridors, but medium-sized cities, which accommodate…

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Strangers in Nairobi By Daniel Phiri It has been nearly 10 years since Johnson came to Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city, from his rural birthplace in Makueni County to find work. Every day, residents of the countryside flock to cities...

Devolution without resources in Zimbabwe’s urban governance By Nnaemeka Ohamadike “No city in Zimbabwe operates with true devolution. Local councils remain largely hand-held by the Ministry of Local Government.”...

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By Michael Schmidt

Malawi’s urban reforms fuel land grabs

By Collins Mtika

Strangers in Nairobi

By Daniel Phiri

Devolution without resources in Zimbabwe’s urban governance

By Nnaemeka Ohamadike

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