Document(s) 3 of 11

THE URBANIZATION PROCESS IN AFRICA

Every society wishes to grow in knowledge, population, and value. However, a peak is always reached in the management of this growth, at which point additional development becomes counterproductive. It must also be said that values and production can diminish even before this peak is reached. This might be a result of poor management, poor programs, inadequate facilities, and so on. This is perhaps best illustrated by the positive and negative impacts of the urbanization process in Africa.

Urbanization introduces society to a new, modern way of life, an improved level of awareness, new skills, a learning process, and so on. However, when the rate of urbanization gets out of control, it poses a big challenge to governance — optimizing forces become

weakened, institutional capabilities become inadequate and ineffective, and, with these, the problems of urbanization are compounded.

Urbanization is not necessarily a new phenomenon on the continent of Africa, as shown by centres like Addis Ababa, Cairo, Kano, and Timbuktu. What is noteworthy about contemporary urbanization in Africa is its fast pace. Although Africa is presently among the least-urbanized regions of the world, it is recording the highest rates of urbanization. For example, Africa and Asia recorded urban growth of 4.9% and 4.2%, respectively, between 1990 and 1992. However, urban growth in Europe and North America in this period was only 0.7% and 1.0%, respectively (United Nations 1995). Furthermore, it has been observed that only two cities in Africa (Cairo and Lagos) attained populations of 1 million in 1950; by 1970, the number of cities in this category had increased to eight. By 1990, it had increased to 24. It is projected that by the turn of the century, two of these cities will have passed the 10 million mark.

An examination of the growth rates of individual African cities shows a rate of 33% for Swaziland, which in 1950 had an urban population of only 1%. This is expected to rise to 63% by 2025. Similarly, Mauritania’s urban population may grow from 3% in 1950 to 70% in 2025, and the population in most major cities will have quadrupled between 1950 and the mid-1980s. In some cities — including Abidjan, Dar es Salaam, Khartoum, Lagos and Nairobi — populations have increased more than sixfold within four decades.

THE WASTE-MANAGEMENT PROBLEM

The rapid rate of uncontrolled and unplanned urbanization in the developing nations of Africa has brought environmental degradation. Indeed, one of the most pressing concerns of urbanization in the developing world, especially in Africa, has been the problem of solid-, liquid-, and toxic-waste management. Recent events in major urban centres in Africa have shown that the problem of waste management has become a monster that has aborted most efforts made by city authorities, state and federal governments, and professionals alike. A visit to any African city today will reveal aspects of the waste-management problem such as heaps of

uncontrolled garbage, roadsides littered with refuse, streams blocked with junk, disposal sites constituting a health hazard to residential areas, and inappropriately disposed toxic wastes.

The high rate of urbanization in African countries implies a rapid accumulation of refuse. Social and economic changes that most African countries have witnessed since the 1960s have also contributed to increases in waste generated per capita. For example, the Nigerian Environmental Study/Action Team estimated that 20 kg of solid waste is generated per capita per annum in Nigeria (NEST 1991). This amounts to 2.2 million t/year, given Nigeria’s estimated population of more than 100 million. In individual cities in Nigeria, there are indications of rapid increases in the rate of waste generation. In Lagos, an estimated 625 000 t of wastes was generated in 1982. This, according to the Federal Ministry of Housing and Environment, is projected to rise to 998 000 t by 2000. Likewise, an estimated 258 000 t of waste was generated in 1982 in Kaduna, and this is expected to increase to 431 000 t by 2000. These are clear indications of the need for adequate management services, which are typically not found in African cities.

The sheer volume of waste does not actually constitute the problem — it is the inability of governments and waste-disposal firms to keep up with it. The situation in Nairobi aptly illustrates this. Although between 1977 and 1983 the population of this city was increasing at an estimated annual rate of at least 6%, the amount of refuse collected fell from 202 229 t in 1977 to 159 974 t in 1983 — a decline of 21% over 6 years. Thus, over the late 1970s and early 1980s, the municipal authority in charge of waste was collecting, on average, almost 10% less refuse per capita every year (Stren and White 1989). A similar situation was observed in Malindi (a secondary town in Kenya), where increasing population is a major constraint. In 1991, in Malindi, an estimated 36 000 t of solid waste was produced, but only 7 300 t was transported to dumping sites by the municipal collection service.

Refuse removal provided by the Dar es Salaam city council is plagued by the same difficulties (Stren and White 1989). In this city, only 24% of daily refuse is collected. Also, in Kinshasa, household waste is only collected in a few residential areas. In the rest of the city, household waste is put on the road, on illegal dumps, or in storm-water drains or is buried in open sites (Hardoy and Satterwaite 1992).

THE IMPLICATIONS OF URBANIZATION PROBLEMS FOR GOVERNANCE

The problems generated by rapid urbanization in Africa threaten the governance of urban centres. The diverse and complex problems facing towns and cities in Africa, especially the problem posed by urban waste and by grossly inadequate urban infrastructure and social services, call into question the capacity for governance of African countries.

What do we mean by governance? An increasing volume of published and unpublished material is available on “problems of governance.” Governance embraces the role of the state in society; the management or mismanagement of socioeconomic activities in the public, private, and community sectors; and the involvement or lack of involvement of civil society in the management of society as a whole. The World Bank perceives governance as “the manner in which power is exercised in the management of a country’s economic and social resources for development” (World Bank 1992). Depending on the way in which that power is exercised, governance can be either good or bad. Good governance can be defined as the presence of a government with good and legitimate leadership, a lawful claim to power and authority (based on a mandate derived from the people’s will), vision, and a progressive sociopolitical agenda acceptable to, and accepted by, the people and implemented with honesty, transparency, and accountability. Good governance requires a government to draw its legitimacy from, and be accountable to, the governed.

The leadership’s vision, transparency, accountability, legitimacy, credibility, predictability, and reliability, combined with society’s confidence and stability, are the hallmarks of good governance. Good governance also emphasizes effective and accountable institutions, democratic principles, a reliable electoral process, representative and responsible structures of government, and the need to ensure an open and legitimate relationship between civil society and the state. Good governance will lead to the institutionalization of appropriate policies, programs, and strategies for urban management that help to eliminate or ameliorate the problems posed by rapid urbanization. Governance in the African context therefore needs to be examined to determine the extent to which it responds to the challenges of urbanization and

urban growth. Much of the discussion on governance has been at a general (and often abstract) level. There is a need to operationalize some of the new concepts with reference to a set of concrete relationships.

Although the body of literature and practical knowledge about the technical, administrative, and institutional dimensions of waste management in Africa is large and growing, policy frameworks and implementation strategies must be accompanied by new forms of governance to increase efficiency and effectiveness and maximize popular participation in service provision. An increasing interest in public–private–community partnerships is evident in the sector, but this is often related to a concern with technical or financial issues, rather than with the political, sociological, and environmental relationships involved. Technicofinancial approaches have failed to develop the kinds of organizational and institutional approaches needed to empower citizens to comprehend the service and participate effectively, as they have no clear conceptual and strategic framework to allow an understanding of what this involves.

The conclusion we draw is that the governance debate has been insufficiently informed by the practical problems of service provision, and the debates about improved governance in the waste-management sector (and, indeed, the service sector as a whole) have lacked a clear conceptual and strategic framework to empower the citizens organizationally and institutionally.

THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

A study of governance and urban waste must examine not only the formal structures of government but also the informal structures created by the society, such as community-based institutions, associations, and organizations; their relationships; and the relationship between the formal and informal structures for collection, transportation, and disposal of waste. Such a study should have four main components:

• Intergovernmental relations;
• Fiscal mobilizations and allocations;
• Planning activities; and

• The participation of the people.

Efficient and effective service delivery depends on several key elements, the most important of which are managerial and organizational efficiency, accountability, legitimacy, and responsiveness to the public, transparency in decision-making, and pluralism of policy options and choices.

Many reasons have been advanced for the prevailing circumstances in African cities, but researchers have yet to ascertain where the problems really lie and what can be done to address them. A cursory look at cities and countries in Africa reveals that this is a heterogeneous continent and that many systems to address the waste problems are in place. Only some of these systems have achieved a measure of success. A cursory analysis of cities in the francophone countries shows that they are cleaner than those in the anglophone countries. Within the anglophone countries, some cities have managed their waste more efficiently than others. Understanding of the factors influencing the performance of the various waste-management systems in Africa can provide useful lessons for all these countries.

THE STUDY

The researchers at the African Research Network for Urban Management (ARNUM) considered it desirable to look at the problems and the challenges posed by solid-waste management in Africa, with a view to examining what has gone wrong and which systems have worked and to making recommendations for developing appropriate management systems aimed at solving the problem of urban-waste management in Africa. Our view, however, is that we cannot realistically examine this problem without examining governance.

In our definition of governance, we referred to transparency, accountability, creditability, and stability of government; the definition also emphasizes public–private–community partnership in urban management. The question is, to what extent are these key elements considered in the management of urban wastes in Africa? A satisfactory answer to this question calls for a more systematic understanding of the relationship between governance and waste management in African cities. In recognition of this, in 1994

the International Development Research Centre approved a grant for comparative research on waste-management systems in Africa. The project was to be executed by a selection of researchers from ARNUM, as part of ARNUM’s contribution to the Global Urban Research Initiative (GURI) project. Four cities were selected for study — Abidjan, Dar es Salaam, Ibadan, and Johannesburg, and a governance paper was prepared for each region.

The objective of the study was to describe, compare, and appraise the typical forms of governance that major African cities apply in the management of their waste (including liquid, solid, organic, nonorganic, toxic, and nontoxic waste), with a view to recommending policy options, generally advancing the understanding of this service delivery in urban Africa, and providing a basis to develop an agenda of actionable programs. The specific objectives were

• To describe and analyze the nature and function of the institutional arrangements for waste management in four urban-governance settings, with a view to establishing country profiles;
• To assess and compare the efficiency and effectiveness of diverse combinations of partnership between the public, private, and community sectors in managing urban waste in the selected cities in political, sociological, economic, and environmental terms;
• To recommend policy options, where desirable, to improve waste management in specific urban settings; and
• To advance our knowledge of governance strategies for urban-waste management in Africa.

Four cities were selected for study, representing anglophone and francophone countries, a variety of governance settings, and various sizes of towns (Table 1). These four cities also reflect diverse colonial histories and diverse subregions of the continent. In each country, the researchers identified the institutional arrangements (existing administrative, regulative, execution–delivery, and funding–financing arrangements). They characterized and evaluated the role of the private and public sectors and the community-based organizations in various phases of waste management (collection, transportation, disposal, reuse, etc.).

Table 1. Waste governance in four African cities.

The researchers adopted measures and indicators of performance to evaluate the efficiency of the system. The first assignment of the research team was to identify and agree on performance indicators. They interviewed managers and selected community leaders and a sample of public- and private-sector functionaries to document their informed opinion on the efficiency of existing modes of governance. The goals of this exercise were to determine which waste-governance systems have been efficient and the factors responsible for the efficiency or otherwise of the systems in use and to recommend the governance systems worthy of emulation, adaptation, or adoption by other cities.

To recommend policy options to improve waste management in specific urban settings, the research team relied on the study findings. The research team established which systems or modes of governance were working and why and which were not working and why, on the basis of which the team recommended policy options and waste-management models.

The research team accomplished the following more specific tasks:

• Task 1 — In each country, it reviewed existing reports pertaining to baseline information generally about the country and more specifically about the sampled city, in terms of location, recent history, the economy, demographic conditions, utilities, and services.
• Task 2 — It designed and pretested a guideline format for collecting data from the institutions responsible for waste management. These include organogram data and data on personnel, equipment, environmental laws, and funding.

• Task 3 — In each city, it collected data from available past studies on refuse-generation rates and refuse composition, density, and volume. In each city, the team also documented the existing modes of storage, collection, and transfer of refuse, including frequency of pick-up, efficiency of collection and transfer, routing, and citizen participation in the overall system. The study included an examination and assessment of existing disposal facilities with respect to the location and capacity of landfill sites and other environmental issues.
• Task 4 — It assessed tasks 1–3 in terms of degree of success or failure and the factors that may have been responsible.
• Task 5 — It provided basic management recommendations on ingredients necessary to improve the particular city’s model; and noted what the model has to offer to other cities (if any).
• Task 6 — Meetings of research associates from the four countries (intercountry workshops) were arranged to consider progress and to draft results. Two meetings were held during the study: the first meeting was held in Dar es Salaam at the beginning to work out and agree on methodology, forms, format, and outline; and the second meeting was held in Ibadan at the end to discuss field experiences, draft final reports, and consider a synthesis report. The GURI regional and final meetings in Mexico City in 1995 and in Istanbul in 1996 provided the team with other opportunities to compare notes on the progress of the research in each city.

In 1996, ARNUM organized the Urban Forum international workshop in Nairobi, which brought together researchers, practitioners, and donor and development agencies for a 3-day dialogue on urban research in Africa. The reports of the research on governance and waste in four African countries were among the papers presented at the workshop. Following the various workshops and review meetings, the authors revised their country reports, which are published in this volume.

Document(s) 3 of 11