Africa must privilege urbanization in development planning

Abstract

Africa can no longer afford to watch its 55 per cent galloping urban sprawl go without factoring urbanization into its core development planning processes. And it is high time the continent fixed the imbalance between the modest volume of urban investments and the huge contribution of cities to GDP. Cameroon’s Minister of Housing and Urban Development said at the start of an ECA-convened High Level Policy Dialogue dedicated to mainstreaming urbanization into overall development planning on the continent. The important role that urbanization plays in the transformation of the Continent has also been underlined in Agenda 2063 and the Sustainable Development Objectives.