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Africa, the world’s second-largest continent, is urbanising at a dizzying pace. By 2035, its ‘top 100’ cities will be engines of growth, housing 21 per cent of its population and generating over 60 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP), a new report by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has stated.
The ‘top 100’ cities include those with a population greater than 1 million in 2035, as well as smaller capitals.
However, these engines of growth will face significant challenges. This includes climate change, as per the analysis.
The EIU highlighted that “the emergence of new urban heavyweights and megacities, the rapid expansion of city clusters and the rising importance of megalopolises will be a major feature of Africa’s demographic and economic future.”
Africa will have six ‘megacities’ by 2035. Greater Cairo (Egypt), Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo or DRC), Lagos (Nigeria) and Greater Johannesburg (South Africa) will be joined by Luanda (Angola) and Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), all with a population of more than 10 million residents.
A further 17 cities will have a population that exceeds 5 million residents and another 100 or so cities will have populations in excess of 1 million inhabitants.
But a key feature of growth in urban Africa will be ‘city clusters’. These “will bring together tens of millions of inhabitants into fast-growing and reasonably well-connected urban areas”.
The continent already has six ‘expansive’ city clusters, with more 10 million urban residents within 250 km by road. It also has 30 ‘compact’ city clusters with more than 2.5 million urban residents within 100 km by road, according to analysis carried out by the OECD in partnership with the UN and the African Development Bank, the EIU said.
The expansive city clusters on the continent could become megapolises in the making, it added.
For instance, the cluster in the western part of the continent stretching along the West African coast—from the Ivory Coast’s capital of Abidjan in the west to Nigeria’s largest city of Lagos in the east—could become one of the world’s largest urban corridors by 2035.
Fifty million people will live within well-connected towns and cities and a further 35 million-40 million would reside within 250 km by road, as part of this cluster.
The stretch between two of Egypt’s largest cities along the Nile river, Cairo and Alexandria, could be another megapolis in the making in the northern part of the continent.
Similarly, a cluster of cities and towns including Kampala and Nairobi in the eastern part of the continent around the Great Lakes in Kenya and Uganda would be another megapolis, as would be a cluster surrounding South Africa’s Gauteng province, the location of Greater Johannesburg.
Also included in this list would be two clusters on the Maghrebi coast of North Africa—one centred around the city of Casablanca in Morocco and the other on the Algerian section of the coast.
There would also be ‘isolated but large and fast-growing pockets of urban sprawl’. These include Kinshasa (known as Leopoldville in the Belgian colonial era), the capital of DRC on the Congo river, which will have more than 25 million inhabitants.
Kinshasa could form an even bigger cluster “should connectivity and trading relations improve with Brazzaville—the capital of Congo-Brazzaville on the opposite bank of the Congo River”, the EIU said.
Other such ‘isolated pockets of urban sprawl’ include Tanzania’s largest city of Dar es Salaam, the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa and the Angolan capital of Luanda. The EIU report calls them “standout cities that will be key African urban hotspots in the 2030s”.
The ‘top 100’ cities of Africa will also include cities with a projected population greater than 1 million in 2035.
Smaller capitals—Libreville (Gabon), Cotonou (Benin), Bissau (Guinea-Bissau), Djibouti (Djibouti), Windhoek (Namibia), Gaborone (Botswana) and Port Louis (Mauritius)—will be home to almost 400 million people (21 per cent of Africa’s population) yet will generate more than 60 per cent of the continent’s GDP by the mid-2030s
“Already, Africa’s major urban centres are the bedrock of the continent’s economic growth, and its large, major and megacities will become even more important focal points of economic growth in the 2030s,” the EIU report stated.
A host of factors will aid the growth of African cities and urban areas.
For the larger cities these include more skilled and better educated residents; higher productivity levels and wage rates; higher value business activities and penetration of financial services; greater levels of investment, innovation and technology adoption; better utility and transport infrastructure; larger and more complex household consumption patterns; and much higher concentrations of wealthier households.
The largest cities in Africa—Cairo, Johannesburg, Lagos, Cape Town and Alexandria—will grow at a reasonable pace. They will retain their position at the top of the city economy rankings in 2035.
But it is the middleweight cities that will grow at a much faster pace, supported by infrastructure development, urbanisation and the emergence of megacities.
Cities like Kinshasa, Luanda, Nairobi, Yaoundé (Cameroon), Douala (Cameroon), Kano (Nigeria), Abuja (Nigeria), Dakar (Senegal) and Kumasi (Ghana)—will post faster growth.
However, it is Dar es Salaam, Addis Ababa, Abidjan and Kampala that will post near or above double-digit Compound Annual Growth Rates in 2023-35 and rise rapidly up the city economy rankings, the EIU said.
As African cities grow economically, so will the challenges which could destabilise socioeconomic conditions if left unaddressed, according to the report.
These include overcrowding, informal settlements, high unemployment, poor public services, stretched utility services and exposure to climate change impacts.
The last will be a major long-term concern for Africa’s largest cities. “Many are in low-lying coastal areas that expose them to rising sea levels and storm surges; many suffer from intense rainfall and flooding, and some experience prolonged periods of drought and severe water shortages,” the report read.
“These climate risks will weigh heavily on the future dynamism and prosperity of African cities, especially as national preparedness and climate resilience are weak, and they must be confronted by local policymakers, businesses and households,” it concluded.