New York City / Monday Apr 22,2013
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Bob Buckley on Urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa

Thanks to Bob Buckley of the New School for leading this week’s brown bag discussion on urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Though Buckley stressed that the data from Sub-Saharan Africa leaves quite a bit to be desired, he does see some patterns of urbanization there that are distinct to the region. For example:

One: Push factors such as conflict and drought appear to play a more substantial role in the region’s urbanization than elsewhere.

Two: Urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa is taking place at lower levels of income per capita than it has in other parts of the world.

Three: Slum populations appear to be growing faster in Sub-Saharan Africa than elsewhere in the developing world. Higher shares of slum dwellers present present a number of challenges for development—school attendance and female labor participation tend to be lower in slums, health indicators such as the infant mortality rate tend to be higher.

At one point, Buckley asked why cell phone penetration was growing rapidly in Sub-Saharan Africa while access to toilets (still relatively rare) was not growing? One conjecture is that certain goods and services, such as the cell phone or certain medical therapies, are both affordable and less dependent on the presence of strong governance. Others, such as networked infrastructure, require both a degree of prosperity and the relatively strong governance necessary to solve collective action problems. If so, urbanizing in the context of very low levels of income and relatively weak governance will prove particularly challenging.