Introduction

"The biggest change of our time?

- Africa's increase from 1 to 4 billion people!"

- Hans Rosling 2015

The image above illustrates the fact that almost half of the world’s present population is concentrated in Asia. With a population of over 4.4 billion people, Asia supports approximately four times as many people as the continent of Africa (1.2 billion). However,  according to UN projections, this will not be the case for long, for this century we will witness a population explosion that will see the number of people living in Africa shoot up to over 4 billion by 2100.  By this time Africa and Asia will together be home to over 80% of the world’s population. The implications of this for Africa are huge and it will be a great challenge to try and realise the socio-economic potential of such growth without suffering from severe growing pains.

 

One consequence of this population growth will be the swelling of urban areas to absorb the increasing number of people (Fox 2013). By 2050, Africa will be the most rapidly urbanising region in the world with urban dwellers numbering 1.3 billion people, up from 500 million this year (UN 2016). Although this urbanisation will in theory give Africa the means to achieve substantial economic development, it may also lead to increased rates of urban poverty and the continued cancer-like growth of urban slums.

In their paper, Ravallion et al. discuss the implications of urbanisation on economic growth in many developing countries around the world. They address concerns regarding the increase of urban poverty due to rapid rates of urbanisation and identify sub-Saharan Africa as one region where this is particularly prevalent. According to UN-Habitat 2008, over 60% of urban dwellers in sub-Saharan Africa live in slums, more than any other region in the world, and this value is increasing as cities such as Dar Es Salem in Tanzania, and Lagos, Nigeria, continue to grow at record speeds.

The growth of slums represents one of the greatest challenges facing the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as more people than ever will be forced to live in inadequate housing with little or no access to freshwater and improved sanitation. This blog will present an overview of the current slum situation in sub-Saharan Africa and attempt to understand whether SDG number 6 can be achieved by 2030.