Urbanisation in the region varies by country. With over 60 per cent of their population living in urban areas, Algeria, Botswana, Cape Verde, Congo, Djibouti, Gabon, Libya, Reunion, Sao Tomè and Principe, South Africa and Tunisia are some of the countries in Africa with large urban populations (UN-HABITAT 2010).
The rapid urbanisation in Africa has resulted in environmental degradation. The majority of Africa’s urban centres face difficulties in accessing ecosystem services such as food, energy and water. The urban areas are also failing to fully benefit from regulating ecosystem services such as climate control, soil erosion prevention and water purification. This publication discusses the relationship between urbanisation and ecosystems, and focuses primarily on water.
AFRICA’S MILLION+ CITIES
Over the years, many cities in Africa have grown with some becoming home to more than one million people each. These million+ cities, as they are known, numbered 24 in 1990, and none of them had as many as 10 million people then. To date there are 48 million+ urban areas of which two, Cairo and Lagos, have become mega-cities with more than 10 million residents each (UN-HABITAT 2010).
URBANISATION OUTSTRIPS PROVISION OF WATER AND SANITATION
The high urbanisation rate in Africa has not been matched with service delivery. Many African cities are experiencing difficulties in supplying a growing number of inhabitants with adequate water and sanitation services. Demand for clean water supply and adequate sanitation is growing due to the increasing population, and in response to the international commitment to meet the Millennium Development Goals.1 Between 1990 and 2008 Africa’s urban population without an improved drinking water source increased from 29 million to 57 million (WHO/UNICEF 2010).
Access to improved water2 ranges from as low as 17 per cent in Equator town in the Democratic Republic of Congo to
Figure 2: In 1990 there were only 24 cities in Africa with more than one million inhabitants. Today this number has increased to 48 cities, of which Cairo and Lagos are the largest with more than ten million inhabitants each.
28 per cent in Ibadan. In some cities in Chad and Burundi, access is around 30 per cent. In the majority of African cities access to improved water is above 80 per cent (UN-HABITAT 2010). Access to adequate sanitation is generally above 50 per cent, but in some countries it is extremely low. For example, in Burundi access to adequate sanitation averages 10 per cent (UN-HABITAT 2010).
The provision of infrastructure for basic services such as water supply and sewer reticulation is hampered by the large population living in slums. According to UN-HABITAT (2010), 60 per cent of urban dwellers in Africa lives in slums, but this ratio is declining, and is not the same in all countries. In 2005, the proportion of urban population living in slums ranged from 13 per cent in Morocco to 94 per cent in the Central African Republic and Sudan, and 97 per cent in Sierra Leone (UN-HABITAT 2010).
As informal settlements, slums are not planned and not adequately serviced. Ownership of land is unclear in slums. These areas are rarely mapped and most dwellings do not have official addresses. In order to improve information and better communicate the services and facilities that exist, some cities have begun initiatives to map slum areas, and these include Kibera slum in Nairobi (IRIN 2011).
Peri-urban areas also present challenges regarding access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation. Characterised by strong urban influences such as easy access to markets, services and labour (Norström 2007), peri-urban areas are found around most urban areas in Africa. They lack proper infrastructure for safe water and adequate sanitation and tend to encroach on wetlands and river catchments. This impairs some cities’ ability to deal with shocks such as floods and heavy rainfall, and this does not enable river catchments to serve as
1. The goal that is linked to water is Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability, particularly goal 7c: Reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. 2. Improved drinking water sources are defined in terms of the types of technology and levels of services that are more likely to provide safe water than unimproved technologies. Improved water sources include household connections, public standpipes, boreholes, protected dug wells, protected springs, and rainwater collections. Unimproved water sources are unprotected wells, unprotected springs, vendor-provided water, bottled water (unless water for other uses is available from an improved source) and tanker truck-provided water.
13
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72