The African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC) has confirmed the cities going forward into its implementation phase: Accra, Ghana; Harare, Zimbabwe; Kampala, Uganda; Lagos, Nigeria; and Nairobi, Kenya.

This follows the foundation phase research and engagement work in 12 cities, which has taken place over the last few years. The holistic exploration of city systems, political settlements and urban development domains enabled city teams to identify priority complex problems. Their proposed strategies to address these problems played a pivotal role in determining the cities moving ahead. 

With pilot projects and the first four selected cities announced in November 2023, Kampala is the final city chosen to proceed to ACRC’s next stage. 

Along with action research project proposals during the foundation phase, the final city decision took the overall balance of implementation cities into account – ensuring diversity in geography, size, income levels, fragility and political context. 

Over the next few years, local ACRC city teams will implement a number of urban development interventions in the selected cities, designed to address challenges identified in the foundation phase research and advance urban reform. Initial projects being rolled out in the cities are outlined below. 

The Kampala project will focus on Ggaba food market, a key source of fresh produce for the city and one of seven major markets owned by the Kampala City Council Authority (KCCA). Vendors at Ggaba market face multiple challenges related to inadequate sanitation, poor hygiene and substandard food safety practices. 

This action research intervention is aimed at enhancing the market’s food safety and sanitation systems. Through establishing a coalition of key stakeholders across public, private and civil society sectors, the project will build on previous experience to improve sanitation by developing a community-led approach and employing technologies for faecal sludge management. The system will generate gas to meet some on-site energy needs and support business enterprises, while compost byproducts will enable urban farmers to generate sales income. The project also aims to establish and formalise food safety certification processes. 

In Accra, the first action research project aims to develop an innovative business model for a community-led organic waste management system. Old Fadama – a historic informal settlement, with a growing population of over 120,000 – is the location of one of the city’s largest fruit and vegetable markets. Waste is a highly politicised issue in Accra, dominated by large private contractors. As a result, informal settlements like Old Fadama are excluded from the formal refuse collection system, meaning that waste – mostly organic – goes uncollected. Informal settlements and markets therefore depend on informal collectors. 

Promisingly, there is appetite for change. Initiatives by the city assembly to support and formalise informal waste collectors, together with policies that foster climate resilience and the green economy, are shining a spotlight on the critical importance of recycling and better waste management. This community-led waste management project therefore seeks to establish an organic waste value chain – including household waste separation, sorting and collection – along with a composting business, which will provide employment and better working conditions for waste collectors. 

Researchers in Lagos are currently developing several action research proposals, centred around improving access to housing for low-income families, implementing climate resilience action plans to provide flood protection in low-income neighbourhoods, and tackling violent crime hotspots with better street lighting.  

As shared previously, pilot action research projects are already underway in Nairobi and Harare, which were the first two cities confirmed to be proceeding to ACRC’s implementation phase. 

In Nairobi, the pilot intervention is focused on improving children’s access to healthy diets, by strengthening and expanding an existing school feeding programme to encompass schools located in informal settlements. 

The Harare project centres around upgrading and regularising informal enterprises located in the Glen View Eight complex, by supporting informal traders to mobilise, establishing a technical working group to address key challenges and conducting action research to inform negotiation and implementation processes. 

Although the five cities selected for the implementation phase will be ACRC’s primary focus in the next phase, the consortium is continuing to work with the seven cities not going forward to maximise the positive impact of the work undertaken so far. This will include supporting city teams with smaller action research projects, continuing to provide support around research uptake and engagement, and providing funding for other interventions.

Header photo credit: vlad_karavaev / iStock. A street vendor selling pineapples at a market in Kampala, Uganda.

Note: This article presents the views of the author featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.

The African Cities blog is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means you are welcome to repost this content as long as you provide full credit and a link to this original post.

Header photo credit: Diana Mitlin. Mathare informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya.

Note: This article presents the views of the author featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.

The African Cities blog is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means you are welcome to repost this content as long as you provide full credit and a link to this original post.

The final session of the engagement focused on linking the ACRC programme with the City of Harare’s research, policy and practice-oriented priorities. Groups organised around the city departments were used to draw out city insights and thoughts for connecting ACRC work with the council’s development agenda.

Three broad groups were arranged, including two or more related departments – namely planning, social services and the town clerk’s department. The following priorities were extracted from the group session:

• Understanding off-grid water provision in the capital, specifically borehole-centred research (including coverage, quality and actors).
• Impacts of water pollution on water supply in the city (including sources, extent and mitigation).
• Decongesting Harare via research on transportation system.
• Vulnerability and needs assessment for Harare to better inform development responses (including food security).
• Developing a national and a Harare master plan.
• Understanding the root causes/drivers of informal settlements in the city.
• Understanding the feasibility and sustainability of slum upgrading.
• Consolidating lessons from past informal settlement upgrades.
• Examining how social services are being provided and accessed in the city vs town-planning standards.
• Contribution of the informal sector to the city’s economy.
• Unlocking infrastructure financing in the city.
• Understanding linkages between the city and its dormitory towns.
• Integrating cross-cutting issues in urban services delivery.
• Contribution of external stakeholders to Harare’s food system.
• Improving road infrastructure in the city – trafficability, mobility and connectivity.

The uptake engagement concluded by formulating next steps. These were linked to lined-up activities, such as data collection through city key informants and establishing a city focal team for easier coordination.

Note: This article presents the views of the author featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.

The African Cities blog is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means you are welcome to repost this content as long as you provide full credit and a link to this original post.

By David Satterthwaite, senior fellow in IIED’s Human Settlements research group

Most large African cities today were already well-established when colonial rule began to expand dramatically in the late 19th century. Most preceded the slave trade era too. This blog outlines the history of cities in Africa from 500 AD up to the late 19th century.

From existing sources, we glean evidence of a rich and varied urban history, even as we acknowledge that this history is incomplete. Kingdoms, empires and caliphates had capitals (and often regional capitals) going back more than 1,000 years (and longer if we were to go back to the Roman Empire). Some cities were also local or international religious or trade centres. Many cities combined these roles. And some, such as Tunis/Carthage, were even used for tourism by Romans who had holiday villas in and around the city, after Rome finally defeated Carthage.

Africa’s rich urban history

There are some striking similarities between Europe and much of Africa over the centuries, as empires, kingdoms and city states rose and fell – with obvious consequences for their capital cities and the cities that served them. There were cities that grew to serve prosperous agriculture, and cities greatly influenced by religious conflicts and wars (for Africa, especially the Muslim conquest of Northern Africa in the 8th century).

But cities were also centres of administration, scholarship, schools, trade, magnificent religious buildings (mostly mosques in Africa, mostly great cathedrals in Europe) and large flows of pilgrims. There are also vast differences – and great diversity among African cities.

Large cities in the past

We have population estimates for many African cities, showing so many substantial cities with long histories (see Table 1 for examples). Some were among the world’s largest cities of their time. But there are many large cities that have lost importance or have been abandoned. Al-Iskandariyah (Alexandria) was the capital of Egypt from its founding by Alexander the Great to AD 642 and became a centre of commerce and great intellectual activity. But, by 1777, it had become an insignificant fishing town of 6,000 inhabitants before later returning to be a large and important city. Perhaps there are many more cities still waiting to be discovered and acknowledged.

Table 1: Examples of large cities over time

The city of Fès in Morocco, for example, was founded in AD 786 and at its peak in 1200, it had 250,000 inhabitants. It was the national capital for long periods and a centre of religion and scholarship. The University of Al Quaraouiyine was founded in Fès in AD 859.

Cairo, founded in AD 641, has been Africa’s largest city for almost all of the last 15 centuries. Around 1340, almost 500,000 people lived there. It was the principal seat of Islamic learning and central to the profitable East-West spice trade.

Cairo has within its boundaries more ancient cities, including al-Fustat (city of tents) that became the first capital of Islamic Egypt in 641, al-Askar (the city of sections, or cantonments) and al-Qatta’i (“the Quarters”). Al-Fustat remained Egypt’s administrative centre until 1168, when it was burnt to prevent its capture by a Crusader army, and Egypt’s capital moved permanently to Cairo.

Western Africa

One key influence on cities in Western Africa was the empires that came to control large areas. Cities were their centres of government, trade and military power.

The Ghana Empire (c. 300 to 1100) grew rich from increased trans-Saharan trade in gold and salt, allowing larger urban centres to develop. Bamako became a major market town, and a centre for Islamic scholars, with the establishment of two universities and numerous mosques in medieval times.

The Mali Empire spanned the 13th to 17th centuries and ruled over 400 cities, towns and villages of various religions. Niani was the capital for 300 years; it reached its zenith as Mali’s political, commercial and caravan centre (gold, salt, kola nuts, slaves) in the early 14th century.

The Songhai Empire dominated the western Sahel in the 15th and 16th centuries. The city of Gao became its capital. Other important cities in the empire were Timbuktu and Djenné.

Among the best known of the sub-Saharan African urban cultures is the Yoruba culture. This included many large cities in what is today southwest Nigeria. Major cities include Ile-Ife, Oyo, Abeokuta, Ijebu-Ode, Akure and Ibadan. Ibadan was founded in 1829 and had a population of around 100,000 by the mid-19th century.

The documented history of the Yoruba people begins with the Oyo Empire, which became dominant in the early 17th century. It was preceded by Ile-Ife; between 700 and 900 AD the city began to develop as a major artistic centre. The nearby Benin Empire was also a powerful force between 1300 and 1850. A number of other cities, though non-Yoruba, were influenced by the Yoruba, including Warri, Benin City, Olene and Auchi.

Eastern Africa

Traditions of urbanism are most in evidence in Sudan (and Khartoum and Sennar), Ethiopia (and Aksum and Gondor) and cities along what came to be called the Swahili coast (including Mombasa). There were also ancient cities such as Kerma (in Sudan, which flourished as the first great urban centre of tropical Africa and was estimated to have 10,000 inhabitants in 1700 BC), Meroe, Suakin, Shendi, Sennar (‎on the Blue Nile in Sudan, described by a European visitor, as “one of the most important trading centres in Africa… regularly visited by caravans from Nubia, Darfur, Cairo, Fezzan, Bornu and Ethiopia”). Further east, former Swahili towns on the Benadir Coast, such as Mogadishu, Barawa and Marka, Lamu and Zanzibar, had by the 18th century become trade centres. 

Final note

This blog provides an introduction to the scale and nature of cities in Africa – but only up to the ‘Scramble for Africa’ in the late 19th century, as different European nations expanded their empires. It does not cover the large and profound changes brought by colonial rule from the 1880s onwards (acknowledging too that colonial rule stretches back much earlier than this for some cities).

It has not dealt in any detail with the trade in slaves that had existed for thousands of years, but whose scale and impact increased so much through the development of the Atlantic slave trade. It is difficult to be dispassionate about the slave trade’s impact on cities. Certain ports became important when the slave trade to the Americas expanded dramatically and came to use ports in Western Africa (what was called the Slave Coast), rather than the long-established trans-Saharan trade routes (which were better suited to trade with Northern Africa, Europe and Asia). Some cities in west Africa fortified to protect themselves from capture. Ports that exported slaves from Africa include Ouida, Lagos, Aného (Little Popo), Grand-Popo, Agoué, Jakin, Porto-Novo and Badagry.

Most ports that served the slave trade are still urban centres but with small populations (under 100,000). Lagos and Badagry (in Nigeria), Porto Novo and Cotonou (Benin’s two largest cities), and Luanda (Angola) and Dakar (Senegal) were among the exceptions. Badagry, just down the coast from Lagos, was for a while larger and more important than Lagos. On Africa’s east coast, Bagamoyo (Tanzania) was founded at the end of the 18th century and became one of the most important trading ports along the East African coast, including trade in slaves.

Sources: This blog draws on the UN Population Division’s 2018 World Urbanization Prospects; Chandler, Tertius (1987), Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth: An Historical Census, Edwin Mellen Press, Lampeter, UK, 656 pages; Bairoch, Paul (1988), Cities and Economic Development: From the Dawn of History to the Present, Mansell, London, 574 pages; and Freund, Bill (2007), The African City: A History, Cambridge University Press, 214 pages; Burton, A. (2001) ‘Urbanisation in Eastern Africa: An historical overview, c.1750–2000’, AZANIA: Journal of the British Institute in Eastern Africa, 36-37(1): 1-28. But its main source is Wikipedia, which has profiles of almost all the cities mentioned; most are long and detailed, including details of their foundation and development.

Note: This article presents the views of the author featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.

The African Cities blog is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means you are welcome to repost this content as long as you provide full credit and a link to this original post.

By David Satterthwaite, senior fellow in IIED’s Human Settlements research group

We know relatively little about most of Africa’s pre-colonial urban history and the role of its cities. This is something especially pronounced in sub-Saharan Africa.

Yet we can get a sense of urban history from diverse sources, including tales from travellers and explorers, material evidence of large cities, and import and export records. There are also dozens of cities with buildings and districts built centuries ago that still exist – especially mosques and medinas.

There is more written on social, economic and political issues on the continent or in countries within it, but less on what this meant on the ground for cities and their populations – and in turn, what city development meant for these issues.

Evolving city systems

Africa has a rich and varied urban history going back centuries, or more than 2,000 years for some countries and cities. Indeed, many of today’s large African cities were already well-established before colonial rule. Table 1 below lists the largest cities in Africa in 1800, including the population at that time, the year the city was founded and the rank among all cities in Africa in 2020.

It is worth highlighting that all cities for which we have the year they were founded pre-date European colonial rule. Only eight of these 34 largest cities are among 2020’s 100 largest cities, and five of these are in Northern Africa.

Additionally, while none of the African Cities Research Consortium’s 13 focus cities feature in the list of the largest cities in 1800, all are within the largest 100 for 2020. Five (Lagos, Dar es Salaam, Khartoum, Addis Ababa and Nairobi) are in the top 11 largest African cities.

The fundamental reshaping of the urban system and the location of the largest cities in all nations reflects the economic and political changes brought about by colonial rule – whereby colonial powers tended to avoid the largest cities – and post-colonial developments. City systems came to reflect more closely the government hierarchy, as the importance of state and provincial capitals grew in many nations, along with access to agricultural and mineral resources for export.

Hence, the political and economic changes imparted by colonial rule and post-colonial development created a new urban geography. Almost all the great historic cities described in the next blog still exist as cities, but with much less economic or political importance.

Africa’s largest cities in 1800 and 2020

One striking feature outlined below is how old most of Africa’s cities are. Table 1 lists the largest cities in Africa in 1800, their population at the time and the date they were founded – referring to the foundation date of a settlement that was not a city, or when an already existing city was classified as a city. Table 1 also gives the rank of these cities in 2020, allowing us to see how the 34 largest cities in 1800 fare in 2020.

Table 1: The largest cities in Africa in 1800

Table 2 shows the 34 largest African cities in 2020 – to compare with the 34-city 1800 list (in Table 1). As noted earlier, the 2020 list has few of the same cities as the 1800 list, and has far more cities founded in the late 19th and early 20th century by European powers or commercial interests. Table 2 also shows how the largest cities in Africa in 2020 rank in the 1800 list.

Table 2: The largest cities in Africa in 2020

Out of the 34 African cities that were recorded or estimated to have 20,000+ inhabitants in 1800, eight were in Mediterranean countries, although not all on the Mediterranean – much of the international trade was by overland routes, not by sea. Most of these urban centres had very long histories as prominent cities.

Of the 34 largest cities in 2020:

• Five were in Northern Africa (compared with 11 in 1800)
• 11 were in Western Africa (compared with 20 in 1800, and including five in Nigeria, compared with 13 in 1800)
• Six were in Eastern Africa (compared with two in 1800)
• Five were in Southern Africa (all in South Africa, compared with none in 1800)
• Seven were in Middle Africa (compared with one in 1800)

Distribution of the largest cities across nations

Figure 1: The countries with the highest percentages of Africa’s largest cities 

Figure 1 shows the countries with the highest percentages of Africa’s largest cities over the last 220 years. Given the scale and nature of economic, political and urban changes in Africa since 1800, there is perhaps a surprising extent of continuity.

Notably, Nigeria had the most cities for all years, although faced changes as some new cities became more prominent and some older cities – previously capitals of kingdoms and empires, and cities in the north, including those involved in the trans-Sahara trade, – lost importance.

Morocco and Egypt were also among those with the most cities for each year, but this has declined over 220 years.

Surprisingly, Congo PDR had none of Africa’s 100 largest cities up to 1950, and then seven of them by 2020. All seven cities were colonial foundations, with many established around mining for diamonds, gold and uranium. Consequently, it is often remarked upon as a country with vast wealth but very high levels of poverty.

Continuity and change

Of the 34 largest cities in Africa in 1800, eight were still in the 100 largest cities in Africa list in 2020, but with a lower rank, except for Cairo and Kano. Nine of the 34 cities were not in the 2020 cities list, but have more than 300,000 inhabitants today. So while cities can go up or down in the rankings, it is rare for them to lose significance altogether.

For instance, Sokoto may have fallen from the second largest city in Africa in 1800 to outside the top 100 in 2020, but it is still a substantial city with more than half a million inhabitants. Similarly, Meknes – Morocco’s capital before it moved to Rabat – fell from third to outside the top 100, but remains significant.

This is also the case for Oyo, Ife and Katsina in Nigeria. Cities that were to become Nigeria’s four largest cities in 2020 – Lagos, Ibadan, Port Harcourt and Abuja – had not even been founded in 1800. Meanwhile, many cities in Northern Africa, including Sokoto and Katsina along with those involved with the trans-Sahara trade, slipped down the rankings as using ships for trade became cheaper and quicker.

Only Cairo had no movement down the rankings, while five cities had drops of 0-50: Kumasi, El Djazaïr (Algiers), Rabat, Tunis and Abomay. Eight fell out of the top 100 cities in 2020, six of which were in Nigeria.

Urban population growth over time

In 1800, Cairo was the largest city in Africa, with 260,000 inhabitants. In 2020, Cairo remained the continent’s largest city but with more than 20 million inhabitants. The 34th largest city in 1800, Kairouan, had 20,000 inhabitants, while the 34th largest city in 2020, Brazzaville, had 2.4 million inhabitants.

Figure 2 shows not only how the average size of Africa’s largest cities changed dramatically from 1800 to 2020, but also how this average size – 2.77 million in 2020 – is relatively small in comparison to the global average of 9.5 million.

Figure 2: Average population of Africa’s largest cities (1800 to 2020)

In 2020, the collective population of Africa’s 100 largest cities was 244 million – comprising just over two-fifths of the continent’s total urban population of 588 million – with cities from 39 different African countries featured in the top 100 list.

Although cities with more than a million inhabitants existed before 1800, they were very rare and none were in Africa. But, by 2020, there were 68 of them, with Cairo becoming the first African “million city” in the 1920s. So, from being very uncommon worldwide, most African countries now have one or more “million cities”.

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Sources: Almost all city and urban population statistics from 1950 onwards come from the UN Population Division’s 2018 World Urbanization Prospects. Almost all city population statistics prior to 1950 come from Chandler, Tertius (1987), Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth: An Historical Census, Edwin Mellen Press, Lampeter, UK, 656 pages. This blog also draws on Bairoch, Paul (1988), Cities and Economic Development: From the Dawn of History to the Present, Mansell, London, 574 pages and Freund, Bill (2007), The African City:  A History, Cambridge University Press, 214 pages.

Notes: One limitation in international comparisons of city populations is that definitions of cities vary in how their boundaries are defined. A city’s population can be defined by the historic city boundaries, or boundaries based on the built-up area, or based on a political/administrative boundary, including the boundary of a much larger metropolitan area and perhaps a metropolitan planning region that is even larger. Of course, there are very large differences in city populations and rates of change, depending on which boundaries are used.

The UN Population Division makes a heroic effort to make city population figures more comparable by seeking to get figures for urban agglomerations. Their boundaries are defined as the extent of the contiguous urban area or built-up area. This definition could be applied to 55% of the 1,860 cities in the UN’s most recent World Urbanization Prospects, with the rest being on the city proper (35%) or the metropolitan area (10%).

Ultimately, the UN Population Division is dependent on data provided by UN member states and whatever definitions they use, meaning it is also hampered by the lack of censuses in many nations. Of course, for discussions of historic city populations, there were no censuses to draw on.

For Table 2 and Figures 1 and 2, the figures for 1950 onwards are UN statistics and there were more than 100 African cities. This was not the case for 1800, 1850 and 1900, so all cities with populations estimated to be at least 20,000 inhabitants were included.

Figure 2 overstates the average population of cities in 1950, 2000 and 2020, as it is the average size of cities that had reached 300,000 inhabitants by 2018. Many cities are smaller than this and if included would bring down average populations.

Note: This article presents the views of the author featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.

The African Cities blog is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means you are welcome to repost this content as long as you provide full credit and a link to this original post.

To mark World Water Day 2021, Diana Mitlin, Professor of Global Urbanism at The University of Manchester’s Global Development Institute, discusses the issues the Global South face when it comes to accessing clean water.

Diana Mitlin is currently leading the African Cities Research Consortium. Her research, and that of her colleagues, explores how people living in the Global South continue to face issues around accessing clean water and how the COVID-19 pandemic has unearthed additional problems.

Global commitments to improving access to water have long been in place but it is evident that there are continuing problems in terms of access. One of the groups that is facing particular problems are the residents of informal urban neighbourhoods in towns and cities in the Global South. An estimated one in seven of the global population live in these areas.

Problems of affordability

Generally households in urban areas have to pay for water. There are shallow wells that provide some supplies without charge but in dense areas this water is likely to be non-potable.

The piped water through the public network can be too expensive for the lowest income households. World Resource Institute (WRI) data suggests that low-income residents in informal settlements may be spending more than 5% of their income on accessing the minimum quantities recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). This finding is consistent with earlier research with affiliates from Slum/Shack Dwellers International in Malawi, Namibia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

The crisis of piped water affordability is in part because the benefits of subsidy regimes are captured by higher income households, as researched by GDI colleague Professor Dale Whittington. It is also because insufficient attention is being given to the realities of life in informal settlements.

Multi-occupancy households – generally caused by informal renting – mean that water bills move into higher tariffs (unit charges increase). Tenants renting informally from the land or structure owner generally pay a premium above the piped water charges to access supplies from the landowner. Even when the government provides a subsidy, they don’t benefit.

Without access to public piped water (either because the network hasn’t reached them or because there is no water in the pipes), households buy informally. They may buy from neighbourhoods with access (perhaps because they have sunk boreholes) or from informal neighbourhood enterprises.

The informal sector also collects water from the piped network (where it is available) and brings it to the local neighbourhoods. Buying like this is more expensive as even without profiteering, there are additional costs including transport charges. Tanker water was up to 52 times more expensive than piped water in the cities studied by WRI. Lucky households may be supplied by non-governmental organisations or other civil society efforts at a subsidised price.

Limited access to piped water

While access to piped water has improved, there are still those without. The WHO and UNICEF have reported that only 56% of urban Africa’s population have access to safely managed water; for the least developed countries the equivalent figure is 59%. In such a context what are the opportunities to access adequate supplies of affordable water?

These households have to buy from private suppliers, their neighbours in adjacent settlements with access to the piped network, or otherwise make do.

Even when there is access (either at the level of the plot or dweller or a nearby kiosk, pay-per-use meter or standpipe), it can’t be assumed that there is water in the pipe. In many contexts the piped water supply is intermittent. A recent study from the WRI that focused on 15 cities across the Global South highlighted that a consistent water supply (running throughout the 168 hours in each week) was only present in three of the cities. In two cities there was water for less than ten hours a week, and in a further four, water was running in the pipes between 10 and 83 hours a week.

Increasingly lack of access for households is exacerbated by water scarcity with limited municipal supplies, as researched by Dr Nate Millington from the University’s School of Environment, Education and Development.

The pandemic effect

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the problems as the requirement for access to water for handwashing and other hygiene measures as an important risk reduction measure has increased. The economic consequences of the pandemic have exacerbated the problems that they face because incomes have fallen as well as the global demand for goods and services.

The pandemic has also challenged governments to reconsider their approach to informal settlements and the lack of basic services that threatens health and wellbeing. At the same time, many local organisations have redoubled their efforts to address local needs.

The Global Development Institute is working with civil society organisations in both the UK and Africa to understand how residents’ associations and their members in Kampala, Mogadishu and Nairobi have managed during the pandemic, and how co-production – collaboration between citizens and state – may offer new effective strategies to improve access to water and other basic services.

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This post originally appeared on the University of Manchester’s website.

Note: This article presents the views of the author featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.

The African Cities blog is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means you are welcome to repost this content as long as you provide full credit and a link to this original post.

Catch up on our webinar introducing the African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC) and outlining how the Consortium and its international partners are planning to tackle complex, political and systemic problems in some of Africa’s fastest-growing urban areas.

ACRC has been awarded a contract of £32 million from the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) over the next 6 years. Building on the political settlements analysis established by the Effective States and Inclusive Development research centre, ACRC will adopt a city as systems approach to addressing complex urban problems. Through engaged action research we aim to catalyse progress for disadvantaged communities in a number of focus cities and beyond.

Speakers

• Professor Diana Mitlin, The University of Manchester
• Professor Sam Hickey, The University of Manchester
• Dr Martin Atela, Partnership for African Social and Governance Research, Nairobi
• Chaired by Dr Admos Chimhowu

Find out more

• The African Cities Research Consortium
• The Effective States and Inclusive Development Research Centre
• Follow the African Cities Research Consortium on Twitter
• Sign up to the African Cities Research Consortium newsletter

This post originally appeared on the Global Development Institute Blog.

Note: This article presents the views of the author featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.

The African Cities blog is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means you are welcome to repost this content as long as you provide full credit and a link to this original post.

In Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, local SDI groups have played a critical role in making participatory planning a reality.

Dialogue on Shelter, the Zimbabwe Homeless People’s Federation, together with staff and students from the National University for Science and technology, and the Bulawayo city council have come together to map, plan and deliver improvements in 12 informal settlements.

They created this short video, outlining the process and experiences of participatory planning in action: 

Dialogue on Shelter and the Zimbabwe Homeless People’s Federation are part of a GDI research project exploring scaling up participation in urban planning, led by Professor Diana Mitlin.

The project has recently published a new working paper ‘Knowledge matters: the potential contribution of the co-production of research to urban transformation’.

It argues that academics are insufficiently self-critical about the power dynamics involved in knowledge production with social movements, but that long-term relations enable understandings to be built and tensions to be alleviated.

• Read the working paper
• Read more about the scaling up participation in urban planning project

This post originally appeared on the Global Development Institute Blog.

Note: This article presents the views of the author featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.

The African Cities blog is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means you are welcome to repost this content as long as you provide full credit and a link to this original post.

By Professor Diana Mitlin, CEO of the African Cities Research Consortium

As news on Covid-19 vaccines spreads good cheer in the wealthier countries of the global North, thoughts turn to when we will be able to return to normal life. Meanwhile governments are anxiously assessing the complications of establishing mass vaccination programmes and whether vaccine hesitancy could reduce take up and threaten the recovery. For those living in informal settlements across the global South, the potential for the vaccine to herald recovery seems very different.

To bring to life experiences from those living in informal settlements, we’ve collated these insights from our work in Ethiopia, India, Kenya, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Scepticism

The idea of a vaccine sceptical population may be misplaced. In Kenya there is a long tradition of vaccination. Kenyan children typically receive 12 different shots and boosters in their first five years. Door to door vaccination drives across the country help to ensure that all infants are reached even in the lowest-income most informal settlements. Every year, children receive further vaccine boosters. Vaccination is accepted as a good thing and there is very little questioning of its value. If a Covid-19 vaccine is available in Kenya, the challenge would be meeting the demand. The situation is similar in South Africa. People are used to receiving vaccines and vaccinating their children. Rose Molokoane, a community leader in South Africa, stressed that: “Many people want to have it. Want to prevent this sickness. Everyone is frightened and does not want to die.”

The perspective from Zimbabwe is that while there has been concern that African populations were being used as “guinea pigs” by Northern companies and governments, this position has changed. People want access to vaccines and the end of the health and economic emergency. Social media may be pushing conspiracy theories (and linking vaccination to satanism), but most are not convinced by such misinformation.

In Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) there are more concerns. Here women are questioning why there is a vaccine before there is a cure. One woman suggested government officials take the vaccine first so that they are confident that it is safe. Others argue “we want to have the vaccine because Covid-19 impacted our live badly. We are poor at the same time the pandemic make us more poorer. We can’t go and do hard works to get money. We want our life back, we want to work and feed our family.”

Issues of Access

The bigger issue within the informal settlements of Ethiopia, India and Zimbabwe is that residents do not think that they are going to get access. The primary concern is that any vaccine against Covid-19 is going to be unaffordable for low-income households. Mahila Milan leaders in India asked if “vaccines can be subsidised or given free?” Populist political parties have been making promises. In India, the ruling party included in its manifesto for the recent elections in Bihar that it would give free vaccines to all Biharis if it is voted to power. But, there is little expectation in India that the government will provide free vaccination for low-income households.

In Addis, informal settlement residents believe access will be limited because of the costs and corruption. Women explained that they cannot afford access to “modern” health care because of the high costs, and this is why they use traditional medicine. When asked to elaborate, one said,

“Let alone a cure that will save life, even hand sanitizer; the one who can afford to buy are getting it, not us. …So, if you really want our opinion, we feel after the rich and government officials get access and if we survive till then, we expect to have access to vaccine. Till then, only God will protect us.

Our frustration comes from officials are using our names (the poor, poorer of the poor, etc) and bring things and use it for themselves and their families. We are fed up with this on going cycle of officials coming and promising then do the same and instead of get punished they will be promoted to a bigger office, then another will come and do the same. We are sick and tired. We believe we will not get access because the rich and officials will have it for themselves. And if it comes under the name of poor then the local officials will use it for their family and friends. So no chance for us.”

In Zimbabwe, there have been few conversations about vaccines. People concentrate on sharing information about how to manage Covid-19 and its symptoms. However, here too informal settlement residents believe that the high cost of vaccination will prevent access. They think that global efforts will prioritise other countries with higher levels of infection.

Affordability

In India, affordability concerns are exacerbated by falling Incomes caused by the lockdowns and curfews and the increased the price of medicine as pharmacies have tried to recoup monies they have lost because of these restrictions on economic activities. One Mahila Milan leader in Mumbai explained that during the Covid-19 related lockdown, people were forced to buy essential medicines from their nearest shops and had to pay inflated prices. There is a fear that when vaccines are distributed there may also be restrictions. In normal times, people compare prices and buy from the cheapest shop.

In Kenya and South Africa, people will expect to get the vaccine for free because other vaccines are provided for free or, in Kenya, at a very low cost. In South Africa, “If they have to go to the doctor to pay for the vaccine they will not go.”  In Kenya, the only expensive vaccination is for yellow fever which is only required for international travel.

In India, a further challenge is that people have avoided seeking healthcare during this pandemic because of the fear that they and their families would be pushed into isolation. This response extends beyond Covid-19. For example, India has an ambitious TB eradication programme. However, the responsible officers have shared that reporting of TB was all time low during the lockdown. Consequently, they have re-launched a door-to-door campaign to identify those with symptoms for referral and further treatment. Here there are concerns about mis-information through powerful media companies.

In Kenya, the government is stressing that, while a vaccine has been approved globally, it is unlikely to be available soon. Hence the GoK is urging people to maintain current measures such as the use of masks.

What next?

Over the coming months, the Covid Collective partnership will expand its research agenda to address emerging challenges from the health pandemic. The aim is to learn from what is happening on the ground and draw from an array of lessons and evidence to combine practices, insights and ideas together. The Collective will be sharing more experiences relating to the pandemic which will include further lessons on vaccination roll-out, a preoccupation for so many globally.

This article was brought together by Diana Mitlin, Professor of Global Urbanism, Global Development Institute working with SDI affiliates in India, Kenya, South African and Zimbabwe and experimentation drawing on SDI approaches in Ethiopia. Particular thanks to: SDI Indian Alliance, Feven Haddis, Jack Makau (SDI Kenya), George Masimba Nyama (Dialogue on Shelter) and Rose Molokoane (Federation of the Urban and Rural Poor).

This post originally appeared on the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) website, as part of the Covid Collective with support from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).

Note: This article presents the views of the author featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.

The African Cities blog is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means you are welcome to repost this content as long as you provide full credit and a link to this original post.

Researchers from the Global Development Institute have been awarded a new research contract of £32 million to establish the African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC), funded by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) as part of UK Aid.

Led by Professor Diana Mitlin, ACRC and its international partners will tackle complex problems in some of Africa’s fastest growing urban areas. Over 6 years, research will generate new evidence to catalyse integrated, sustainable, inclusive approaches to urban development.

African Cities will approach urban areas as complex systems, undertaking engaged political analysis, in order to address large scale development challenges. A ‘city as a system’ approach aims to move beyond the sectoral silos of research and interventions by treating each city as a complex system. It builds upon the political settlements analysis establish by our Effective States and Inclusive Development research centre, and will integrate political and technical analysis undertaken alongside key players on the ground.

The African Cities Research Consortium brings together engaged partners including the UK-based IIED, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and ODI, African-based groups such as ICLEI Africa, PASGR and SDI, as well as international organisations, such as the IRC and UNU-WIDER. Closer to home, it will utilise expertise from across The University of Manchester,  particularly within the Manchester Urban Institute and the Global Inequalities research beacon.

CEO Diana Mitlin said, “The long term prospects for much of Africa will hinge on creating more sustainable, equitable and inclusive cities. The African Cities Research Consortium will enable us to tease out the complexities and highlight potential solutions to improve urban centres across the continent.”

ACRC has the ambitious aim of generating new evidence to catalyse integrated, sustainable, inclusive approaches to urban development challenges. An initial focus on 13* African cities will allow us to undertake focused, inter-connected research that delivers real insights for local authorities, civil society and donors. 

Tade Akin Aina, Executive director of the Partnership for African Social and Governance Research (PASGR), based in Kenya will be the Uptake Director for the Consortium. He said, “Covid-19 is highlighting structural inequalities within cities across Africa. By taking a holistic approach and bringing together communities with local authorities and donors, I’m confident the African Cities Research Consortium will play a vital role in improving urban areas.”

Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor of The University of Manchester commented, “The University of Manchester is proud of its contribution towards tackling global challenges and the new African Cities Research Consortium epitomises this approach. With rigorous research, combined with the engaged networks and insights of partners from very different spheres, we’re confident that great progress will be made.”

* The initial 13 African cities are: Accra (Ghana), Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Bukavu (DRC), Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Freetown (Sierra Leone), Harare (Zimbabwe), Kampala (Uganda), Khartoum (Sudan), Lagos (Nigeria), Lilongwe (Malawi), Maiduguri (Nigeria), Mogadishu (Somalia), and Nairobi (Kenya).

Photo by Virgyl Sowah on Unsplash

This post originally appeared on the Global Development Institute Blog.

Note: This article presents the views of the author featured and does not necessarily represent the views of the African Cities Research Consortium as a whole.

The African Cities blog is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means you are welcome to repost this content as long as you provide full credit and a link to this original post.