The Urban Transition in Sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges and Opportunities

In this paper I ask how the ongoing processes of urban and local government development in Sub-Saharan Africa can and should benefit the countries, and what conditions must be met to achieve this favourable outcome. The region faces close to a doubling of the urban population in fifteen years. This urban transition poses an opportunity as well as a management challenge. Urban areas represent underutilised resources that concentrate much of the countries' physical, financial, and intellectual capital. Therefore it is critical to understand how they can better serve the national growth and poverty reduction agendas. The paper challenges several common ‘myths’ that cloud discourse about urban development in Africa. I also take a hard look at what the urban transition can offer national development, and what support cities and local governments require to achieve these results. I argue that, rather than devoting more attention to debating the urban contribution to development in Africa, real energy needs to be spent unblocking it.