Africa Has 3 Megacities … With Others Catching Up

While Johannesburg and Cape Town attract a growing number of new residents daily, they do not come anywhere near the explosive growth taking place in other parts of Africa. A recent report published by the World Economic Forum – which has its Africa summit in Kigali, Rwanda, from Wednesday – listed the three cities in Africa with a population of over 10 million – so-called megacities.

• The three megacities are Cairo (Egypt), Lagos (Nigeria) and Kinshasa (DRC). (Cape Town, according to the 2011 census, has 3.74 million, closely followed by Durban. Johannesburg has 4.4 million.)
• But the fastest-growing on the continent, according to the report, is the town of Mbouda in Cameroon, which is growing at 7.8 percent annually. After that comes Ouagadougo, capital of Burkina Faso, at 7.2 percent. (The regional average is 3.9 percent and the average global urban population growth rate is currently 1.84 percent a year.)

  

• Abuja and Port Harcourt in Nigeria, cities with high fragility scores, are growing at 6.2 percent and 5.1 percent, respectively. (The report says that in 2000 there were 30,000 cellphones in Nigeria; by 2012 there were 113 million.)
• Antananarivo, capital of Madagascar, which ranks as one of one of Africa’s most fragile cities and whose urban population is growing at 5.1 percent a year There are 528 African cities with populations over 250,000, according to a new survey of fragile cities data.

  

• According to a resilience report, urban authorities in centres like Narok and Kisumu in Kenya, and Moshi in Tanzania are investing in improved risk assessment, urban upgrading, smarter land use and plans to strengthen environmental protection.
• It also says that major cities like Accra (Ghana), Arusha (Tanzania), Enugu (Nigeria) and of course Kigali are also doubling down on resilience, including in partnership with the 100 Resilient Cities Initiative (of which Durban is also a member).