16 The Future of Water in African Cities
both the manufacturing and service sectors. The poor quality of infrastructure is a major constraint to doing business and to receiving foreign investment. Water scarcity harms production and hence income in cities, due to household and manufacturing coping strategies in the face of scarcity, extra abstraction costs, and lost production caused by intermittent energy supply due to hydropower disruptions. The urban poor are disproportionately affected by water rationing in a water crisis because they have no storage. Addressing Africa’s urban water challenges will significantly improve the ability of cities (and countries) to maximize their economic growth and mitigate the rise of urban slums.
Africa’s Rapid Urbanization Brings Opportunities and Threats Africa is urbanizing quickly. Over the next 20 years, Africa’s urban population will double. At 3.9 percent per year, urban population growth rates in Africa have been and will continue to be the highest in the world. Although Africa is currently the second least urbanized region (after South Asia), urbanization and urban growth are inversely correlated. Currently about 320 million Africans (37 percent of the population) live in urban areas, more than twice as many as in 1990. By 2030, Africa’s urban population is forecast to rise to almost 50 percent of the population, or some 654 million people (see Figures 1.1 and 1.2). To put it another way, half the people who will be living in African cities 20 years from now have yet to arrive: now is the time for city planners to prepare for their arrival. Econometric studies have consistently shown a strong correlation between urbanization and gross domestic product (GDP), and between urban growth and economic growth. No country has achieved middleincome status without urbanizing (World Bank, 2009). In Africa, urban household income is twice as high as rural household income. The economic growth that occurred in Africa in the 1990s and 2000s derived primarily from the industrial and service sectors, which are mainly urbanbased (Kessides, 2006). Informal activity—estimated to account for 93 percent of all new jobs created and 61 percent of urban employment— significantly adds to the relative share of growth from the urban sphere. Urban growth is highly correlated to growth in slums. Africa is urbanizing more quickly and has faster growing slums than any other region. Africa has a relatively small share of the global slum population (20 percent in 2005), but this proportion has increased from 14 percent in 1990 and slum populations doubled during those 15 years. The proportion of Africa’s urban population living in slums has stayed the same (72 percent)