Major Environmental Concerns  

[ Land | Forest | Biodiversity | Water | Marine & Coastal Environments | Urban & Industrial Environments ]

Underlying Causes

[ Social | Economic | Institutional | Environmental ]

Urbanization is increasing rapidly in Africa . With only 35 per cent of its population living in cities, Africa is the least urbanized continent in the world. Yet the urban population soared from 83 million in 1970 to 206 million in 1990 (Morna, 1996), and the number of cities with more than a million inhabitants increased from only one 30 years ago to 18 by 1990 (World Bank, 1995). Lagos in Nigeria and Cairo in Egypt are the world's fifteenth and eighteenth largest cities, with average annual population growth rates in 1990-95 of 5.68 and 2.24, respectively (WRI/UNEP/UNDP/WB, 1996). In the least developed countries, urban growth rates are among the highest in the world, at nearly 5 per cent a year. Between 1990 and 1995, some of these countries, including Burkina Faso and Mozambique , registered urban growth rates of more than 7 per cent a year (WRI/UNEP/UNDP/WB, 1996).

The main causes of urbanization are rapid population growth, natural disasters, ethnic tensions, and armed conflict. With 7 million refugees and 17 million internally displaced people, Africa has the highest number of people in the world forced to leave their homes (Morna, 1996). Additional reasons for rural-urban migration, which are generally true for developing countries, include the prospect of jobs and higher incomes in urban areas, poverty and lack of land in rural areas, and declining returns from agricultural commodities. (See also the discussion of social causes of environmental deterioration later in this section.)

Most African cities have not been able to develop the basic environmental services (such as solid waste disposal systems, sewage treatment, and adequate industrial and vehicle pollution control) to keep pace with the rapid growth of new urban dwellers. This has led to a steady deterioration of the urban environment, with a particularly strong impact on poorer people. For instance, urban health hazards resulting from a lack of clean water and proper sanitation particularly affect the poor. Reliable data are lacking on the scale and intensity of urban poverty in Africa . Although the incidence of rural poverty is still significantly higher, it seems that the difference is narrowing (WRI/UNEP/UNDP/WB, 1996).

Much of the urban population growth is in coastal cities. In North Africa , for example, the coastal zones along the Mediterranean are the most inhabited areas (Serhal et al., 1994). The rapid growth of coastal cities is one of the most pressing environmental concerns in the subregion (CEDARE, personal communication, 1996). Coastal zones bring all the pressing environmental issues together in one place-those related to agriculture, fisheries, water management at the interface between marine and river systems, infrastructure, and urban and industrial development. Most Governments, even in industrialized countries, do not have robust institutional mechanisms to deal with such complex systems in an integrated manner (World Bank, 1995).

United Nations Environment Programme