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necessary to rethink the social role of development on more equitable terms and engage with local actors in development to formulate more people-centred approaches that engender “new forms of local community�.178 Existing regional economic and political bodies and programmes include: the African Union (AU), the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU), the East African Community (EAC), the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). These can also help reformulate bi- and multi-lateral trade agreements that presently undermine local trade linkages. There is also a need to reformulate visions for regional development and redefine the role of African cities in these visions. In more immediate economic terms, however, the role of large-scale public-private enterprises created to provide infrastructure and services needs closer scrutiny. Such enterprises put together to provide water and sanitation infrastructure and services do not create competitive markets at multiple scales in African cities and economies.179 Yet this multi-scalar development is necessary to absorb the large workforce and reduce inequality in income and consumption profiles. Africa is urbanizing rapidly and many cities are expanding unplanned. Demand for services, which most urban slum dwellers find unaffordable, is growing. Large-scale developments, which are co-funded by governments and the private sector, should be implemented in ways that create employment and incorporate existing, often informal and private small-scale operators. The opportunity exists to create more diverse partnerships, which will promote activities at different scales. Early independence-era African governments had a philosophical orientation that gave priority to hauling their people out of poverty and thrusting them into modernity. In the desire to provide services and security, the supply of energy, water and sanitation became the responsibility of central governments. Today, governments, cities and municipalities are constrained by the control of central government, which allocates city-wide responsibility to a single large provider. The result of this is that often only middle- and high-income households can afford services. Informal and small-scale private sector providers are left to service slums. Therefore, in sub-Saharan cities, infrastructure and service provision often fails to reach the places where they are most needed. Decentralizing infrastructure and service delivery options at multiple scales is necessary in order to create a more competitive market. This does not prevent the formation of large public-private partnerships. However, it disagrees with the centralized modes of implementation, as they do not create the outcomes desired in African cities and countries. Building local scale capacity for governance, and hence a decentralization of governance, may also be necessary to facilitate effective local scale function and efficiency. This
would require skills development, the establishment of local institutions and partnerships that involve communities, civil society, small- to medium-scale enterprises, informal sector providers and innovative youth entrepreneurs. Viewing infrastructure development as a chance to create lasting institutions within society that provide employment, enhance skills and create new scope for business and small operators, throws a different light on how public-private partnerships should be constructed to meet the developmental needs of African cities. The heavy reliance of governments on single providers of essential services in cities is an obstacle to creating urban societies engaged in all the major internal economic opportunities that exist within them in order to increase local scale resilience. Viewing waste, energy, water, sanitation, food and transport as vehicles for transforming African urban economies towards more distributed growth, income generation and consumption power is a significant departure from viewing large public-private partnerships as being solely service delivery engines. Yet new ways of conceptualizing how unequal growth and accumulation of benefits can be reversed are necessary in Africa. The same is true of decentralization, which must be accompanied by strategies to create different opportunities at varying scales along the value chain of infrastructure and service delivery. Municipalities need to get closer to their local economies; they also need to find ways to generate revenue for their budgets, and create business prospects for their residents and outside investors. Rethinking public-private partnerships and centralized service delivery in these terms may help conceptualize new ways of empowering African municipalities, diversifying local urban economies and increasing their competitiveness and levels of participation in the economy at the same time. Establishing opportunities for sustainable livelihoods in African cities requires the formulation of new innovative development and economic growth pathways inclusive of the broader urban citizenry and their majority needs. This is especially the case because African urbanism has not been accompanied by the large-scale industrial transitions that accompanied urbanization in the cities of the developed world. Instead, Africa is characterized by a reliance on extractive or agricultural economies, as well as dual formal and informal economies and systems of governance. Identifying urban development opportunities that build on this understanding is of paramount importance to the future of African cities, since they will likely shape and lead the macro-economic transitions of African countries and sub-regions. Lastly, careful consideration is required of how functional diversification of smaller cities and towns that spring up or expand rapidly along transport routes and development corridors takes shape; as this functional diversity (whether mining, tourism, storage, or agriculture-based) will likely determine how regional rural-urban linkages operate in future. This diversity will also determine the levels of success that are achieved in respect of spreading the benefits of urban development in Africa beyond city boundaries to the rural hinterlands.