The State of African Cities 2014

Abstract

After an unprecedented and notable delay, the State of African Cities Report 2014 has been published. It makes a bold claim for re-imagining urban sustainability in Africa, continuing two earlier attempts at shaping the nature of urban discussion among scholars, students, and practitioners interested in cities located in Africa. A systematic content analysis shows that although, as in previous attempts, the report is a major success in highlighting developments in African cities, this year’s attempt is undermined by severe drawbacks, among which are conceptual challenges, a failure to achieve agreement between the report’s claims and research findings, and a bias in focus against smaller African countries and their cities. In turn, there are many dark clouds hanging over this otherwise successful report.

Keywords

Africa cities sustainability development urbanisation

Introduction

The State of African Cities 2014 report (‘Report’ hereafter) continues a six-year tradition of the UN–HABITAT to reflect on cities in Africa, provoke debate, set the agenda, and hence identify for study particular pressing urban issues in Africa. The previous two publications (UN–Habitat 2008; 2010) were two years apart, so this third publication is two years late. It is, however, ‘better late than never’. A complement to other ‘state of…’ reports by the UN, the Report puts cities in Africa on a par, in terms of attention at least, with other regions in the world. So, the concern expressed by eminent African urbanist, Akin Mabugunje (1990: 122), more than two decades ago about the ‘inadequacy of information, both substantive and definitional, about settlements that are regarded as urban in many African countries’ seems to be addressed in this Report and the earlier two.

On a continent with such diverse urban practices and experiences, it can be tempting to focus on one city ‘here’ and another ‘there’ – without having a general feel of what is taking place on the continent as a whole. The aggregation of case studies does not necessarily produce an insight of the big picture, of course; but a broad view, complemented and supplemented by a case study, will not necessarily succeed either. Thus both lenses are needed: one small; the other large – and this is what The State of African Cities reports seek to do. It will seem that their full relevance is yet to be seen, as demonstrated by their limited reviews and citations in the literature. In the Report under review, we learn of many new developments: from the relatively minor such as the reclassification of one of the Sudans (capital: Khartoum) as North African, and the other Sudan (capital: Juba) as East African, to the more substantial, such as massive and apparently effective social housing being undertaken in Angola (Report: 238). Two major emphases in this year’s State of African Cities are Africa’s experiences with urban development and mineral extraction and a recurrent concern with urban youth and their employment needs (consistently referred to in the Report as the ‘urban youth bulge’).

The Report succeeds in providing statistical information for thinking about urban experiences in Africa. There are twelve pages devoted to various aspects of urbanisation on the continent such as the numeric description of urban agglomerations with at least 750,000 residents (Report: 262–273). Even more fascinating, the statistical annex contains time series data, from 1950 through to 2010 and projections into 2020, 2030, 2040, and finally2050. In addition, the Report contains several tables of numeric, often rich data, all of which have been carefully compiled for all the countries on the continent and divided neatly into regions. As such, this Report can be a very useful resource to assist in urban and regional planning. The Report will also serve African and other urbanists looking for specific quantitative information about cities and urbanisation in Africa.

The use of ‘visual ethnography’ is an additional strength of the Report. Photographs not only help to break the text: they summarise and reinforce the analyses in the Report. Indeed, they convey meanings that text and tables cannot provide with the same level of success (see, for example, Report: 60–61). The combination of photos depicting the ‘green’ and ‘brown’ agendas and how they influence each other (e.g., Report: 28–30, 50); images of prosperity and hope, differences and similarities in various cities in Africa, show powerfully to the world that cities in Africa must be taken seriously. For those African leaders who assume that they can take for granted the sentiments of the public, photos about social movements and the solidarity among African peoples across the continent (see, for example, Report: 67, 73) will send a bold and clear message: the urban populations of diverse nations in Africa can unite and agitate the establishment. Together with the high resolution maps of various cities, countries and regions, this Report will be extremely helpful for teaching about and research on cities in Africa.

Not all is well with the Report, however. There are several contestable issues that require attention. The claim that it is high land values in African cities that have fuelled speculation (Report: 79) rather than the more theoretically sound Georgist contention that speculation fuels more speculation, and that it is the creation of property in land that leads to speculation in the first place (George, [1879] 2006), is one example. Another example is the claim that Chinese infrastructural investment is employment-creating (Report: 119) when, in practice, the Chinese tend to bring their own labour (Power, 2012). Also, while increasing the coverage of water is important, as we see in Republic of South Africa (Report: 247), the historic (it did so in the maiden report too, see UN–HABITAT, 2008: 12) and continuing emphasis on the expansion of water connection (Report: 119, 168, 203, 244) when the challenge is also one of distribution, reliability, and quality of water (Obeng-Odoom, 2012) begs many questions.

However, this essay, the first formal evaluation of the Report, focuses on the substantive matters that require more extensive analysis. It is argued that, although by providing an effective summary the Report is informative about urban experiences in Africa, it is lacking in three interrelated areas: (a) weak conceptualisation, (b) poor engagement with existing research on Africa and (c) limited attention to cities in those countries in Africa such as Mauritius about whose cities relatively little is known. Overall, it is unconvincing that the Report achieves its over-riding aim: ‘re-imagining sustainable urban transitions’. To emphasise this argument, the essay first highlights the key argument of the Report, followed by an assessment, and then further thoughts on the state of African cities.

The Argument

The Report begins by noting the various ‘transitions’ in Africa. It identifies six of them: demographic (notably the increasing share of urban youth in total population in Africa); economic (the recent ‘Africa on the rise’ discussion characterised by a fascination with GDP growth on the continent that has forced the Economist magazine to revise its branding of Africa from being a ‘hopeless’ continent to being a hopeful continent); technological and infrastructural (that is, growing pressure on already weak infrastructure that can inhibit economic growth); and the urban transition (especially complex urbanisation experiences in Africa, including the making of urban corridors). The Report also notes the sustainability transition (that is, rapid economic growth on the continent, the need to sustain it, and the importance of the use of technologies in doing so, summarised as ‘sustainable economic growth trajectory’ (Report: 26) and political transition, dealing with the growing democratisation in Africa and the need for greater pan-Africanism and regionalism for economic growth.

The key message of the Report is introduced slowly and cautiously. The argument begins in the section appropriately titled, ‘The need for a new urban development paradigm’ (Report: 37), in which past policies on cities, ranging from ‘urbanisation as modernisation’, ‘parasitic cities’, and ‘urban bias’ are discussed but dismissed as ineffective. Next, the Report calls for a new understanding of the ‘city’ in Africa: ‘Africa and the world community need to rethink what constitutes a “city” since the Western concept is no longer the sole legitimate template for its application in Africa’ (Report: 37). Following this clarion call, the challenges faced by cities in Africa are summarised: ‘varying and increasing levels of urban poverty, inequality, inefficiency and concomitant impacts on vital renewable and non-renewable natural resources’ (Report: 37). It is the solution proffered that ends the first cycle of re-imagining cities in Africa:

Planning and financing for sustainable urban growth are therefore priorities that can generate opportunities towards higher employment elasticity, secure ecosystem services and affordable public services. African cities may have competitive advantage because their development could leapfrog conventional urban development paths to greener urban economies (Report: 37).

The overriding emphasis in the Report is on making African cities competitive, making them grow faster, but also more cleanly. As the Report notes:

How can Africa embrace a kind of urbanization that produces competitive cities that take advantage of the demographic dividend and ensure green growth? Green urban growth trajectories, if adopted now, can help [in] enhancing the competitiveness of cities and their residents in the medium and long term (Report: 47).

Recycling and reuse are encouraged, but so too are the rights of labour working in these sectors which, in Africa, are largely informal. Inequality is mentioned occasionally in the context of inclusiveness, but primarily in terms of the physical form of cities: slums and the informal economy. The preferred approach to informality seems to be formalisation and mainstreaming.

Although very clearly presented and written, this key argument faces three major challenges: conceptual, empirical, and scale.

Conceptual mainstreaming and problems

The Report conceptualises its ‘green growth’ orientation as continuing economic growth based on the use of technology and green policies. This view contrasts sharply with the proposals put forward in the recent book by Abbot (2012), which looks at how low-tech, local materials-based housing can solve Africa’s housing and socio-economic needs, ideas highly praised by leading Africanists (Uduku, 2014) in a recent review. The Report’s concept is consistent, however, with the now famous notion of green growth or urban green growth recently defined as ‘fostering economic growth and development through urban activities that reduce environmental impact, for example low air pollution and CO₂ emissions; low consumption of natural resources including water, energy and undeveloped land; and the protection of ecological services’ (OECD, 2011: 9). That is, the Report promotes continuing capital accumulation in cities, but with a change in resources used in the process and an emphasis on low levels of pollution. The specific approaches to attain this ideal include land use planning, the promotion of green buildings, transport, construction, architecture, building management and recycling. It is an idea whose time has come and which is representative of what the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) stands for, as espoused in its recent report, Urban Infrastructure Initiative (WBCSD, 2014).

So, the Report rehashes the ideas of the appropriate technology movement in the 1970s (Steinberg, 2010), the same ideas captured in the Brundtland Report (WCED, 1987), in the Environmental Kuznets Curve literature (Stern, 2004), in the various World Bank reports such as Development and the Environment (World Bank, 1992), Sustainable Development in a Dynamic World (World Bank, 2002) and Reshaping Economic Geography (World Bank, 2009). The concept of growth used in the Report, then, is fairly well established – not new, as the Report suggests.

The dematerialising argument runs into the well-known Jevons Paradox: that is, that efficiency savings brought about by technological advancement tend to induce more production and hence more overall pollution in the long run (Salleh, 2011). Therein lies a major tension. As the sustainability agenda is seen as a path to profit, more and more green buildings, and green construction, and green manufacturing will be undertaken, so much so that the net gains in reduction risk being cancelled out. Such is evidently the case with the Urban Infrastructure Initiative of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development which is seeking to fill a US$5.7 trillion infrastructure gap, mostly in cities (WBCSD, 2014). Some cities require infrastructural development, of course, but the scale of the effort and its ever-expanding tendency can easily compromise the process of ‘saving the environment’.

The second conceptual problem relates to ‘cities and oil’, which is discussed under sustainable transition but is a cross-cutting focus in the Report. It is a useful emphasis because of the current oil boom in Africa. In 2012, Africa alone accounted for 5% of the global oil reserves and an extra 7% of oil production (Africa Progress Panel, 2013). Currently, one out of every three new oil discoveries in the world is in West Africa. The oil from this continent here is mostly high grade, so it attracts considerable investment interest. Currently, there are some 500 petroleum companies prospecting or drilling oil in West Africa, including major Australian corporations (West Africa Oil Watch, 2014). Some of the key oil countries in West Africa are Nigeria, Angola and Equatorial Guinea. Newer entrants to the league include Ivory Coast, Ghana and Sierra Leone. Cities in West Africa have been a central location of oil; or, some would say, cities in Africa have been given a leg up owing to new oil flowing off their shores or adjacent to them. Such is the case in Abidjan and Sekondi-Takoradi in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana respectively. Capital cities, even where they are not the site of oil extraction, may benefit because they are the seat of power. That will be the case of Freetown where power over exploration and even self-determination, perhaps an excessive amount of it, has been concentrated in the presidency located in Freetown (West Africa Oil Watch, 2014).

Yet, the Report struggles to find a useful discursive framework for oil cities. It attempts to use the ‘resource curse thesis’, but that is a macroeconomic framework. In turn, the Report advocates the diversification of economies away from oil dependence, although that is not primarily an urban issue. To its credit the Report tries to analyse hydrocarbons and urban development – for example, in Algeria, but this effort is highly limited. The Report claims that Algeria’s hydrocarbon experience is self-contained, not linked in anyway to urban job creating processes. It is puzzling that for such a major claim, the only supporting evidence is The State of Arab Cities Report (Report: 68) which, in turn, cites an unsupported CIA World Fact book claim. Similar comments are made about Tripoli (Report: 70) where a fall in oil prices is predicted to bring doom for the country – note the leap between different scales of analysis. Similar comments are made about Juba and Khartoum – again with great difficulty on what or how to understand oil cities. The Report also struggles with the East African discussion on oil and cities (Report: 153). Further, on pp. 211–212, the Report goes all out to claim that the effects of oil extraction on Africa’s oil cities are concentrated in only the oil sector, but offers a national level study (Eso, 2008) as proof.

The difficulty with conceptualisation is partly because of the hegemonic status of the resource curse thesis as an analytical framework but also because of the weak research uptake of the Report under review. There is small but visible literature on ‘mineralised urbanisation’ in Africa, notably the special issue of Journal of Contemporary African Studies (Volume 30, Number 4) edited by the well-known African urbanist, Deborah Bryceson. The issue does not contain heuristic tools to be used for studying oil cities, but these have been developed elsewhere: in geography (Arias et al., 2014), anthropology (Richardson and Weszkalnys, 2014), sociology (Davidson and Dunlap, 2012) and applied, local economics (Robbins, 2012). There is also some work on critical urban history which looks at oil and urban modernity, as recently demonstrated in a special issue of Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (Volume 33, Number 1), edited by Nelida Fuccaro, which could have been part of a stronger conceptualisation. None of these is cited in the Report. In turn, we are left with a limited understanding of oil cities in Africa, about which only little has been written, although such cities are growing in importance and visibility on the content (Obeng-Odoom, 2014). The problem of not engaging sufficient research is more pervasive than overlooking established methods of analysis and taking a hasty flight into unsubstantiated claims, however.

Limited engagement with research

The Report is broadly supported by two sources of inspiration: one scholarly and the other popular. The two are important but they are not effectively synthesised. For instance, there is a schism between the emphasis of what is reported in the main text and what is offered in the call-out boxes. In one case, it is said that ‘Africa’s urban transition is proceeding rapidly’ (Report: 20), drawing on census data and projections from UN-DESA, only to be contradicted on the next page (Report: box 1.2, p. 21) with the statement that the usual claim that urbanisation is rapid is, apparently, inaccurate. The puzzle is not hard to unravel, however: different authors wrote the various parts and it does not seem that the two sharply contrasting views have been reconciled.

The dominance of popular work in much of the analysis is notable. For example, about 67% of the 251 endnotes used in Part 3 are drawn from reports: the remainder are either from news articles, newsletters, conference papers or journal articles. The dominance of reports as sources of inspiration is much smaller in Part 5, for example, but still fairly high (about 48%). Reports can be research-based of course, and some are refereed, so in some cases they might rank with journal articles. Nevertheless, the strong reliance on reports at the expense of journal articles, books, and book chapters, and other scholarly sources such as the reviews of books, results in claims such as a lack of data (Report: 80), the same complaint that was made in 2008 (UN–HABITAT, 2008), although some of the ‘missing’ data could be found in existing research.

Insufficient research uptake also led the Report to make suggestions that are already in use. For instance, there is a call for the embrace of informal institutions in participatory governance. This form of governance is only understood as bringing the formal and informal together. Yet, as we learn in the special issue of Environment and Urbanisation (Volume 35, Number 1), there are many other actors in governance, including local and global NGO actors. To its credit, the Report recognises historical engagement of actors dating back to 1998 (e.g. p. 132). But, there are more recent engagements. In Accra, for instance, in addition to NGO enumerators (Farouk and Owusu, 2012), the radio and journalists (Selormey, 2013) have also become another actor in governance urban development. Studies of this nature are not taken up in the Report.

Furthermore, news articles are cited (Report: 151) on the very important topic of recent urban architectural and planning forms about which there have been two recent important articles: one repudiating such fantasies (Watson, 2013); and the other extoling their virtues (Bhan, 2014). Both papers appeared in Environment and Urbanization, but neither is cited. Also, a news item on Juba is used as a source of inspiration, when Grant and Thompson (2013) have offered a recent, systematic study on that city.

Another consequence of poor research uptake is indecision about the age-old question about the nexus between urban development and economic growth. In 2008, the State of African Cities took the view that the relationship is inverse. Next, in 2010, it claimed it is direct. Then, in the current Report, we are told that it is inverse again (Report: 19). Setting aside the prevarication on the urbanisation–economic development nexus without actually seeking to say anything about previous reports, and what has changed, there is a hasty flight to Latin America to look for evidence, when there is a long chain of earlier such papers such as those by Njoh (2003) and Turok and McGranahan (2013). The stance taken on this relationship is hardly trivial: it is essential in determining whether economic growth be prioritised (when we are not) or whether we should prioritise other issues such as distribution (where we have grown for so long).

Pragmatism, as is the stock-in-trade of the UN, rather than ideology, may be the reason for calling for more growth. Yet the consistent references to ‘institutional failure’ (Report: 12, 28, 201) and ‘weakness’ in urban institutions (Report: 8, 23, 81, 182); without any reference to ‘market failure’ or systemic market weaknesses are indicative of a bias towards neoliberalism and methodological individualism. However, neoliberalism is understood only as ‘more markets, less states’ (Report: 37) where, in practice, neoliberalism can take the form of marketised strong states. Indeed, in his Road to Serfdom, Hayek (1945), regarded as the pontiff of ‘purist advocacy of individualism and the “free market”’ (Jones, 2010: 139), talks about neoliberalism as planning for markets or ‘planning for competition’ (e.g., Hayek, 1945: 45–46). In this sense, neoliberalism is imbued with the ideas of classical liberalism (Valderrama, 2012). Because the authors of the Report ‘think like economists’, it can be argued that the Report deepens discourses on neoliberalism (Zuidhof, 2014). Such an orientation is regrettable because neoliberalism has created grave problems for most African countries and cities in terms of bringing about growth for economies but not for people, growth with unemployment, growth with inequality, or growth with worsening poverty – except in a few ‘best performing economies’.

African best performing economies; Africa’s least mentioned economies

The Report says relatively little on Africa’s best performing countries (e.g., Mauritius and Botswana), relative to those countries about which much is known. For example, in West Africa, Nigeria and Ghana dominate the discussion, while Cote d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone and Western Sahara, to name but a few examples, receive only passing comments. It is possible that part of the reason for this may be that the countries that get the most mention are also the ones on which relatively more research has been undertaken. However, this is not a very good reason, as we have seen in the previous discussion about the Report’s limited engagement with research. There can be no valid reasons why Africa’s ‘best performing country’ in terms of reduction in unemployment levels, reduction in inequality levels, excellence in democratic governance – Mauritius – receives only passing and few (around 30) mentions. Even if these countries look elsewhere and beyond Africa for engagement, as the Report says, strictly speaking they are African and they are frequently cited as ‘African best performers’ (Kappel, 2014). Their urban experiences are, therefore, crucially important and vital to energise the Report. St. Helena is (West) African, but it receives only eight mentions (mostly passing and in tables) whereas The Republic of South Africa, about which so much has been written, is discussed ad nauseam. The overall effect, then, is that being small perpetuates receiving small attention. This is unfortunate because, apart from also being African, and so are equally deserving of attention by the Report, we miss out on what we can learn from the small countries and their cities.

Conclusion

The UN–HABITAT has published a major report on cities in Africa for which the organisation deserves commendation. The Report is a ‘must read’ for scholars and practitioners interested in Africa, its cities, or both. In theory, The State of African Cities 2014 should showcase the best research that offers the most accurate characterisation of the developments in Africa and in its cities. It should give students of African studies an insight into the latest thinking on cities in Africa, conceptually and empirically. A ‘one-stop-shop’ for getting a sense of what is happening on a continent brimming with hope, the Report succeeds in providing a powerful repository of statistical and visual information on cities in Africa and hence will be useful for teaching and research purposes.

Unfortunately, the Report is disappointing in ‘re-imagining’ the city in Africa. Its notion of urban sustainable development is steeped deeply in hegemonic ideas about green growth that offer mono narratives of prosperity without limit and limitless growth without seriously engaging with distribution or ecological matters now rife on the continent. Some attempt is made to offer some thoughts on oil cities, but this does not succeed. Clinging to an inapplicable and inappropriate framework is one reason for this, while failing to engage existing scholarship on the topic is another.

More fundamentally, the Report scores poorly on both research uptake and breadth of analysis. In turn, the Report contradicts its forbears, showing indecision on key theoretical and policy issues such as the historic relationship between urbanisation and economic development. By giving us relatively little insight into life in smaller countries and cities in Africa, the Report misses an important opportunity to learn from the practices and experiences of places about which our knowledge is relatively scanty. It is almost as if the Report would have us believe that problems in small countries and cities must be resolved by ignoring them.

On balance, this Report will give you some information, sometimes very rich and insightful. The tables, photographs and maps (including figures) are excellent and the writing very well done. You will benefit from reading this Report; but bear in mind that it is a state of African cities of sorts, not ‘The State of African Cities’.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I acknowledge the helpful comments on previous drafts by the anonymous readers of JAAS. The usual disclaimer applies.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Author biography

Franklin Obeng-Odoom is the Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Fellow at School of Built Environment, University of Technology, Sydney. He is Editor of African Review of Economics and Finance and author of the books, Oiling the Urban Economy: Land, Labour, Capital, and the State in Sekondi-Takoradi, Ghana (Routledge 2014) and Governance for Pro-Poor Urban Development: Lessons from Ghana (Routledge, 2013).

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