▲ Recycling in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. ŠRoman Bonnefoy. Licensed under the GNU Free
executive summary
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profiles. Nonetheless, high proportions of the people living in the sub-region continue to live on less than USD 1.25 per day and a sizeable floating middle class indicates the overall vulnerability of Western African countries. Poverty, informality and inequality are intensified in cities, which consequently host densely populated slums and informal settlements. Informal service provision, trade and employment persist as a central feature of Western African cities. The high proportion of unemployed urban youth is a major cause for concern but also an opportunity for the sub-region. Supporting youth employment, education, entrepreneurship and innovation, skills development, vocational training and apprenticeship programmes can play a major role in stabilizing this demographic as an important labour pool and consumer base in the sub-region. Improving access to, and inclusion in, minerals and energy sector organizations is also necessary in this respect. At broader scales, there is a need for inclusive economic growth strategies that can minimize inequality levels and stimulate cash-flow and economic activities and employment where they are most needed. Lack of institutional capacity manifests in the inadequacy of state systems and bureaucracies to cope with public demand for services in general terms whether infrastructural or services-oriented. Informal and private sector provision fills the vacuum left behind by the lack of service provision. While governance authority and functions have largely been decentralized to local authorities, fiscal decentralization has
been slow to follow suit. With large proportions of the urban population residing in informal settlements and slums, the ability of local authorities to collect and maintain revenues is low. This renders local authorities unable to provide basic services; address needs of urban citizenry; or plan effectively to accommodate present and future urban growth patterns. Lack of regional and local urban infrastructure hampers sub-regional economic growth and development. Key regional infrastructure deficits in logistics and transport, port infrastructure, information and communications technologies (ICT) and energy, persist to the detriment of efficient storage, transportation of goods and people, etc. The scale of investment required to meet infrastructure deficits and future needs provides a challenge that demands regional and international cooperation. The same will also be necessary to successfully tackle urban resource pressures and threats like climate change and associated natural disasters. At sub-regional scales, infrastructure development programmes and projects, such as the West African Power Pool, are attempting to address key challenges in improving flows and efficiencies within and between cities and countries in the sub-region. Regional agencies such as the African Development Bank are playing a key role in funding infrastructure development. China is also playing a key role in road, rail and port infrastructure development projects. At local scales, infrastructure and technology development plans need to cater for context-specific opportunities and requirements such as the need for low-cost, decentralized solutions that can be deployed and maintained with low levels of skills and training. Such approaches are critical to ensure that services reach the majority urban poor. Bulk infrastructure deployments also need to address the needs of informal settlement and slum dwellers. Inter-generational changes signify a departure from traditional modes of identity construction. This is especially the case for the urban youth as increased levels of migration to developed countries, as well as access to global cultural and identity markers, combine with local cultural changes to produce new, more plural conceptions of personal and group identity. Current and projected climate change impacts in Western Africa take on two broad spatial dimensions. Northern parts of the sub-region, which border the Sahel, are experiencing southward migration of the semi-arid Sahel. To the south and south-west of the region, along the coastal belt, the vulnerability of dense urban corridors and agglomerations to climate change-related pressures such as flooding, storm surges, sea-level rise, saline intrusion and coastal erosion is projected to increase. Temperature and precipitation changes (i.e. seasonal changes as well as changes in frequency and intensity of precipitation events) are likely to make food insecurity a real threat to the sub-region. Conflict and instability also characterize the sub-region, with climate and environmental pressures often increasing religious and ethnic conflicts in the Sahel, placing additional pressures on cities to absorb conflict refugees and internally