Africa: escaping the slums

by JEAN-CHRISTOPHE SERVANT

Africa, the least urbanised continent, still has the highest urban growth rate, nearly 7% per year; 40% of Africans now live in towns, compared with 3% in 1900. By 2030 there will be 760 million Africans, and if current trends continue, more than 70% will live in slums or shanty housing on the outskirts of old colonial foundations (Kinshasa or Nairobi) or ancestral cities (Ibadan or Kano in Nigeria). Half of today’s urban population – most of them under 25 – lives on less than $2 a day.

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