The problem with urbanisation in Africa and Asia

Posted on http:mindtheglo.be on Sunday 1st June, 2008



Slum outside Nairobi, ©Angela7dreams at Flickr If one were to take the latest statistics from the United Nations seriously, the growth of urban population in Asia and Africa raises concern about their ability to get out of the woods. The two continents could be said to be heading towards the discomfort zone unless an urgent action is taken to salvage them.

The student network People and Planet quotes the UN as saying that while urban areas are gaining an estimated 60 million people per year -over 1 million every week- many cities in developing countries' are growing two or three times faster than the overall population. As a consequence, about 5 billion people are expected to live in cities by 2030 - about 61 per cent of the global population of 8.1 billion.

Now comes the headache.

The UN estimates that within the next 30 years, virtually all population growth will take place in the urban areas of developing countries- from 2.3 billion in 2007 to nearly 4 billion by 2030 - while that of the developed countries is projected to rise marginally from 900 million in 2000 to 1 billion in 2030.

The urban population of Africa is projected to increase to 53 per cent by 2030, while that of Asia will be 54 per cent.

Worried by this emerging trend, the Executive Director of United Nations Fund for Population Activities, Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, warns: "We cannot confront the massive challenges of poverty, hunger, diseases and environmental destruction unless we address issues of population and reproductive health."

However, there is hope that if the urban explosion is well managed, it would trigger some benefits for the nations. Chief of the UN Population Fund's Resource Mobilization Branch, Jean-Noel Wetterwald, acknowledges that urban explosion can be managed if governments prepare for it. "But if they put their heads in the sand", he says, the future prospects will be frightening.

"Urbanization is unavoidable," he says. "You cannot stop it. So, it is better to prepare for it and, rather than concentrating on measures to avoid or to exclude people from cities, make sure that they have access to services such as health and schools".

The UN warns: "Humanity will have to undergo a "revolution in thinking". The world body estimates that within the next 30 years, the population of African and Asian cities will double, adding 1.7 billion people or more than the present populations of China and the United States. With the rising urbanization has come an attendant problem of housing, Medicare, water, sanitation and food shortages. Add that to the looming food crisis, which according to experts is going to bite harder in both Asia and Africa and see what comes out.

Again, add the unending atrocities that are raging in Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia and the protracted oil theft war being waged by Niger Delta militias against the Nigerian government in Africa and see what becomes of Africa. Think of the impact of the Burma cyclone and the Chinese earthquake on the land of Asia and begin to imagine where the continents are heading: harm's way. Can they come out of it and how soon?