Understanding the forces shaping African urbanisation
Many calls have been made for international investment in Africa to be directed towards urban development projects. Researchers in the Making Africa Urban project are looking into the different transnational processes that are shaping the future of African cities, and the wide range of actors who are involved, as Professor Jennifer Robinson explains.
Many African cities have grown rapidly over recent years as the population has increased and more people have relocated to urban centres, leading to heightened demand for housing and services. At the same time a number of trans-national actors are investing in large-scale developments that have attracted criticism. “Many urbanists argue that ambitious projects like new satellite cities, roads and bridges are not what African cities need, rather they need improved sewerage, reliable supplies of clean water, and shelter,” says Jennifer Robinson, Professor of Human Geography at University College London (UCL). As Principal Investigator of the Making Africa Urban project, Prof Robinson is looking at the different relationships that are shaping investment in African cities. “Who decides why a large-scale development can come forward? How are powerful international actors interacting with national governments and local communities?” she asks. “We’re trying to understand those relationships, and to question the common critique of large-scale developments, as it can be argued that African cities also need roads and infrastructure to function and support economic growth.”
Making Africa Urban
This research is centred on three African cities, Accra, Lilongwe and Dar es Salaam, all of which have attracted investment, from foreign (sovereign) governments, international development organisations and private companies. China has been actively investing in African cities for a long time, but other international governments are also involved. “In our project, Prof Phil Harrison and Prof Wilbard Kombe are exploring how multiple sovereign actors are active within Dar es Salaam, with large scale infrastructure projects funded and built by China, Korea and Japan, as well as the World Bank,” notes Professor Robinson. African actors are also playing a major role, with national government ambitions helping to shape development. “For example, in the 1960s Kwame Nkrumah planned the development of a new harbour at Tema near Accra, and it’s continuing to expand today. Kofi Amedzro, one of our PhD students, is looking at this case study,” continues Prof Robinson. “Major roads
have been upgraded in Dar es Salaam and a bus rapid transit system has been implemented, helping people from poorer areas get into the city. Another PhD student in the project, Mariam Genes, is looking at the effect of those road upgrades on investment by different actors.
accessible for people to settle and build their own housing, but it also leads to difficulties around development and governance, an issue researchers are exploring. “Prof George Owusu is looking at West Hills Mall in Accra, which is linked to a housing development. It attracted investment from the Ghanaian Social Security and National Insurance Trust (a pension fund) and also international investors, from South Africa and Israel,” says Prof Robinson. “The idea is that this development returns value and income streams to the pension fund investor, and that then generates opportunities in the surrounding area. The problem is that the complex landholdings in the vicinity of the mall are very contested, with different claims to control. A kinds of haphazard residential and commercial developments have resulted, undermining the profitability of the shopping mall.”
Another example in Accra is a World Bank investment in flood defences, intended to enhance the city’s resilience against climate change. The aim is to canalise the river, to control the way that certain poor communities are affected in the lowlands, yet this is unlikely
“Who decides why a large-scale urban development can come forward? How are the goals of powerful international actors shaped by their interactions with governments and local communities? ”
This includes some larger-scale international investors, and a lot of very small-scale Tanzanian businesses have implemented upgrades and investments. But the major investor is the Tanzanian National Housing Corporation whose decisions are fundamentally reshaping the city around these new roads.”
The political backdrop of urban development in some African contexts can be complicated, with many places operating a dual land authority system, notably Accra. A lot of land is owned by families, and traditional leaders play a major role in allocating it. This means that the claims to land can be murky. “A family member might sell off land to a developer, then another member of the family might come along and contest it,” explains Prof Robinson. This has had some positive effects, as it means land can be
to be effective if it isn’t accompanied by wider interventions. “The main reason why there are floods in the city is arguably because of haphazard development as the city has expanded into high-lying areas. The absence of urban planning there causes a heavy runoff from tropical rains which then leads to floods in poorer areas close to the river downstream,” outlines Prof Robinson. Rosina Essien is researching this development, and she highlights the role of national government actors in initiating the project, but also in undermining its success: “The lands ministry has allowed a lot of encroachment on areas designated for retention ponds to be set aside to help with flood control, but between 33-50 percent of that land has been encroached upon by powerful interests, and the government seems to be unable to do anything about it.”
Role of national governments
This is just one example of the powerful role that national governments play in urban development, one of the project’s main findings. While many policy makers argue that local government should be given greater control over urban development, Prof Robinson says that in reality national actors are not likely to give up their influence. “The focus on cities in global development policy has ironically led to a concentration of power in national government, and we see that across each of the three cities,” she says. This points towards another topic of interest, the power relationships that government actors are enmeshed in. “It may be that some see projects as opportunities for maintaining patronage or sustaining electoral success,” continues Prof Robinson. National government actors affect developments in all the international circuits they have studied –diplomatic relations with foreign governments and development organisations strongly shape decisions about those investments, but they are also important in relation to private investments. “How does a businessman proposing a development get access to land in a system where the allocation process is extremely murky? How do they convince decision makers to support them?” says Prof Robinson. “The political process associated with making an investment happen is very complicated and can rely on personal contacts, or even support from your country’s embassy. Private investors have to navigate this governmental system.”
The wider context here is the hope that largescale urban developments might bring benefits to the general public, an issue at the heart of Prof Robinson’s research. The project team will meet up later this year to work through the collected materials, look at the different cases and write up a number of research papers.
“For example, we’re writing a paper about how the national treasury and roads fund agency in Malawi worked together with the relatively new (2017) national Planning Commission to mobilise domestic finance, pension funds and national banks, to invest in urban road infrastructure,” outlines Prof Robinson. Matthew Lane and Evance Mwathunga, with support from PhD student Wilfred Jana, have learnt that urban roads have been relatively neglected by donors, who have shown more interest in building regional infrastructure for mineral extraction and trade. But now domestic funds are being used in urban development, giving more autonomy to Malawian actors.
“The pension funds are being used in urban road development, to be repaid by toll income from regional roads. This approach ring-fences a certain fiscal stream, to be able to invest in domestic priorities,” continues Prof Robinson.
“This is a good indicator of the diversity of the sources of finance which are ‘Making Africa Urban’ and the range of motivations that shape developments there.”
MAU
Making Africa Urban: The transcalar politics of large-scale urban development Project Objectives
This project investigates how the future of African cities is being shaped by transnational processes based on sovereign, developmental and private investment in large-scale urban developments in Accra (Ghana), Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and Lilongwe (Malawi).
Project Funding
This research project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 834999).
Project Partners
The project is based in the UCL Department of Geography and supported by the UCL Urban Laboratory. The partner organisations are the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, University of Ghana and University of Malawi.
Contact Details
Project Coordinator, Professor Jennifer Robinson, Department of Geography, University College London
E: Jennifer.Robinson@ucl.ac.uk
W: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/urban-lab/research/ research-projects/making-africa-urban-transcalarpolitics-large-scale-urban-development
Reframing Urban Development Politics: Transcalarity in Sovereign, Developmental and Private circuits, by: Jennifer Robinson, Phil Harrison, Sylvia Croese, Rosina Sheburah Essien, Wilbard Kombe, Matthew Lane, Evance Mwathunga, George Owusu, and Yan Yang. Forthcoming, Urban Studies (2024).
Professor Jennifer Robinson
Dr Jennifer Robinson is Professor of Human Geography at University College, London (UCL). She has authored numerous papers and her books, include Comparative Urbanism: Tactics for Global Urban Studies (2022) and Ordinary Cities (2006). Her research interests are rooted in a postcolonial critique of urban studies and the politics of urban development.
Dar es Salaam: New developments at Manzese, Morogoro Road. (Picture Credit: Mariam Genes: PhD Student, MAU)
Kenyatta Drive expansion: A Presidential project (Picture credit: Wilfred Jana, PhD Student, MAU)
Dar es Salaam: The Tanzanite Bridge was funded through a soft loan secured through the Korea Exim Bank (KEXIM) and was constructed by the South Korean firm, GS Engineering and Construction Corporation (GS E&C).
Photo Credit: Phil Harrison